Caterpillar's stock surged to record highs, fueled by its growing exposure to data centers, energy infrastructure, and AI-related demand, while a new open-source technology called "observational memory" promises to cut AI agent costs significantly. Meanwhile, U.S. stocks lag behind foreign markets in year-to-date growth.
Caterpillar's market capitalization reached approximately $347 billion as of February 10, 2026, a significant increase from $270 billion at the end of 2025, according to Fortune. The company's stock price roughly doubled over the past 12 months, reaching an all-time high of $742, vastly outperforming tech giants like Apple and Microsoft. Investors are betting on continued growth driven by the company's involvement in sectors benefiting from the AI boom.
Simultaneously, the AI landscape is evolving. VentureBeat reported on "observational memory," an open-source technology developed by Mastra. This technology, which prioritizes persistence and stability over dynamic retrieval, is designed to address the limitations of RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) systems in long-running, tool-heavy agentic AI workflows. According to VentureBeat, "observational memory" could potentially reduce AI agent costs tenfold and outperform RAG on long-context benchmarks.
The MIT Technology Review highlighted the growing interest in understanding how AI is being used across various industries, launching a new weekly newsletter, "Making AI Work," to explore practical applications of generative AI. The newsletter will feature case studies and delve into how different companies and sectors are employing AI tools and systems.
While Caterpillar thrives, the U.S. stock market shows a more modest performance compared to its global counterparts. The S&P 500 futures were up marginally after closing down 0.33% the previous day, and the index is up 1.41% year-to-date, according to Fortune. However, global stocks, as tracked by the MSCI ACWI ex U.S. ETF, have risen nearly 9% year-to-date. The South Korean KOSPI, for example, is up 24% year-to-date. Analyst Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research presented a chart illustrating the performance disparity between U.S. and foreign markets.
In other news, Nature News discussed the challenges of identifying catalysts for new reactions in synthetic chemistry, particularly when dealing with sparse data and complex transformations. The article reported on a descriptor generation strategy that accounts for changes in the enantiodetermining step, allowing for the modeling of reactions.
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