Gas Is Back Above $4 — And Could Keep Rising

Escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, particularly the naval blockade threats near the Strait of Hormuz, have driven crude oil prices to $89 per barrel and pushed national gasoline averages back to $4. Matt Smith, Director of Commodity Research at Kepler, notes that while rerouting efforts previously cushioned supply shocks, the dissolution of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding and ongoing military strikes create significant upward pressure on energy costs. Simultaneously, the AI sector faces a shift as Chinese startup Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, an open-source model challenging the dominance of frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. Charlie O'Neill, co-head of model training at Base10, explains that open-source models are eroding the high profit margins of closed-source providers, forcing a market bifurcation where frontier labs focus on long-term scientific discovery while enterprises increasingly adopt cost-effective, open-source alternatives for standard business applications.