Global Tech Disruptions Hit Google and AWS; RBNZ Holds Rates as Anthropic Plans $80B Cloud Spend

Group 1: Major Tech Infrastructure Issues - A significant wave of technical difficulties affected major platforms including Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services, and Alphabet, with YouTube reporting over 240,000 user outages in the U.S. [2][3][11] Group 2: Monetary Policy and Economic Outlook - The Reserve Bank of New Zealand maintained its Official Cash Rate at 2.25%, indicating a commitment to an accommodative monetary policy to support economic recovery [4][5][11] Group 3: AI Infrastructure Investment - AI startup Anthropic plans to invest at least $80 billion in cloud services from Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft through 2029 to support its AI models [6][7][11] Group 4: Corporate Strategic Moves - Lawson is expanding into the Indian market to leverage growth opportunities amid a saturated Japanese retail landscape [8][11] - Santos is implementing a 10% workforce reduction as part of a cost-saving initiative to enhance operational efficiency in the energy sector [9][11]