Skip to Content Skip to Menu Skip to Footer

Daily Update — April 10, 2025

Inflation Challenges; Green Iron in Australia; and Exploring NVIDIA

Today is Thursday, April 10, 2025, and here’s your curated selection of essential intelligence on global markets from S&P Global. Subscribe to be notified of each new Daily Update.

Subscribe

Economy

Listen: Consumers Facing Inflation And Affordability Challenges Despite Low Unemployment

 

Recent data regarding consumer credit — especially auto asset-backed security collateral data — is showing signs of deteriorating performance. Moreover, there are indications that consumer distress is spreading to higher credit score and income cohorts, despite a relatively low unemployment rate. 

 

An unforeseen increase in the unemployment rate over S&P Global Ratings’ base case could lead to further distress for consumers, who are already facing many financial challenges. In the “Take Notes” podcast, S&P Global Ratings summarizes its in-depth report on structured finance and provides details on key findings.

video thumbnail

Energy Transition & Sustainability

Australia faces tight timeline for green iron investments

 

Australia is at a critical juncture regarding its green iron projects, with experts emphasizing the need for substantial investment decisions by around 2030. The country, already the world's largest producer and exporter of iron ore, is striving to establish a low-emissions green iron industry aimed at producing green steel for decarbonizing supply chains. At a recent industry forum in Perth, speakers highlighted the significant challenges posed by the scale and time required to develop the necessary infrastructure. 

 

Projects such as Posco Holdings's Port Hedland iron project are vital in moving green iron production closer to the source of energy and iron ore. This project aims to leverage hydrogen technology to enhance the production of green iron, utilizing a process that reduces emissions significantly. However, substantial work is needed to make hydrogen a low-cost solution. With projections indicating that Western Australia could produce at least 4.5 million metric tons of green iron by 2030, the path forward is obstructed by fragmented electricity networks, complex regulatory processes and high costs, all of which require urgent attention to accelerate investment in this sector.

Artificial Intelligence

Listen: NVIDIA GTC Bursts at the Seams

The NVIDIA GTC conference has come a long way from its game development roots. Its 2025 edition was so well attended that it strained the capacity of the San Jose Convention Center, its long-term home. John Abbott, principal research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence, returned to the “Next in Tech” podcast to discuss with host Eric Hanselman the technologies that debuted at the California conference. The event reinforced the extent to which NVIDIA has become a systems and software company, rather than simply a supplier of high-performance silicon.

 

The conference not only highlighted new graphics processing units (GPU) and rack-scale compute systems, but also countered concerns around declines in GPU demand raised by the release of the DeepSeek AI models. The shift to reasoning models for AI is expected to further drive demand. The effects this will have on energy consumption and the associated pressure on energy transition plans weren’t mentioned during the event, but they are a large part of the wider discussion around AI.

 

Learn more about how the growth of AI is changing the tech industry at S&P Global Market Intelligence’s upcoming webinar, AI Has Swallowed the Tech Industry: Indigestion to Follow?

In case you missed it

Upcoming events