Texas regulators have suspended permits linked to new data centres as Governor Greg Abbott seeks to curb a construction boom that has provoked voter opposition ahead of November’s midterm elections. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed this month that it had paused permits for construction and infrastructure directly supporting data centres. The commission provided its account after a watchdog examination of permitting records highlighted possible gaps […]
Apple has unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro laptops, reversing a longstanding design position associated with co-founder Steve Jobs and bringing direct finger controls to its premium notebook range. The 14-inch and 16-inch models, announced on Wednesday, 28 October, combine touch-enabled OLED displays with M5 Pro and M5 Max processors. Pre-orders opened immediately, with availability scheduled for 6 November. The 14-inch touchscreen model starts at $2,899 in […]
Led by Blockchain Capital, the funding will accelerate the expansion of PhotonPay’s stablecoin-centric Financial OS, connecting stablecoin liquidity with global fiat networks to unlock digital assets for everyday corporate operations and cross-border settlement.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 29 October 2026 – PhotonPay today announced the closing of a $40 million Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from new investor SBI Group and follow-on investments from existing investors IDG Capital, GL Ventures, and Lightspeed Faction. Blacksheep Technology acted as exclusive financial advisor to PhotonPay on the transaction.
The new capital will support the expansion of PhotonPay’s stablecoin-centric Financial Operating System (Financial OS), with investment focused on enhancing multi-asset wallet capabilities, expanding global card issuing, strengthening local clearing infrastructure in key markets, and developing an agent-ready financial execution layer.
As of August 2026, PhotonPay’s annualized transaction volume reached US$65 billion. The company has secured 34 payment and financial licenses and regulatory authorizations across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and serves over 200,000 business customers across more than 200 countries and territories.
As stablecoins move beyond crypto-native use cases into corporate treasury, settlement and commercial spending, PhotonPay sees the next phase of global finance not as a choice between stablecoins and fiat currencies, but as the convergence of both. Its Financial OS connects on-chain liquidity with the banking, clearing and card networks businesses rely on for everyday operations.
“Moving money across borders in seconds means little if it still takes days to put that capital to work,” said Lewison Chen, Founder and CEO of PhotonPay. “Stablecoins are accelerating global money movement, while local clearing and global card issuing connect that liquidity to local settlement and everyday business spending. Our Financial OS brings these capabilities together, making the underlying infrastructure far less visible to businesses, even as it becomes more essential than ever.”
“At the same time, business software is becoming increasingly autonomous,” Chen added. “AI is shifting financial workflows from people manually operating fragmented tools toward systems that understand business intent and coordinate execution across assets, accounts and financial rails. That creates the foundation for agentic commerce. Stablecoins change how money moves. AI changes how it gets put to work. But commerce is still what money is for.”
Moving Money Across Assets and Markets
PhotonPay’s Financial OS brings together multi-asset wallets, global money movement, foreign exchange, local clearing, and global card issuing through an integrated API-first architecture. This unified system gives businesses access to the financial capabilities they need to manage and deploy funds across markets.
Stablecoins sit at the core of this architecture. PhotonPay’s multi-asset wallet connects stablecoin liquidity with fiat balances, integrating asset conversion, foreign exchange, and local clearing into a single connected workflow. This enables businesses to move funds across supported on-chain and traditional financial networks, turning digital asset liquidity into purchasing power for local payments and everyday corporate spending.
Supporting this dual-rail infrastructure is PhotonPay’s established global financial network. Businesses can open local collection accounts in 17 key markets and receive funds in more than 60 currencies. On the payout side, the network supports over 100 payment routes across local clearing systems, bank transfers, and digital wallets, including payouts to 74 major local e-wallets. Approximately 97% of payout transactions reach recipients within hours or on the same day, with 68% arriving in real time.
Global card issuing extends these capabilities into programmable business spending. Through PhotonPay’s APIs, businesses and platforms can issue virtual and physical cards, configure granular spending controls, and embed card payments directly into their software and automated workflows. Over the past 12 months, PhotonPay issued 4.4 million cards, up 275% YoY.
Beyond its first-party payment solutions, PhotonPay makes its infrastructure available through embedded finance, enabling technology platforms to natively integrate global accounts, payments, and card issuing into their own products. The company now serves more than 100 enterprise and platform partners, extending the reach of its Financial OS into industry-specific workflows.
From Financial Intent to Agentic Commerce
As AI agents assume active operational roles, financial infrastructure must evolve beyond API access to enable programmable, policy-governed execution. It requires systems capable of translating high-level instructions into coordinated financial actions, with deterministic controls governing how those actions are executed.
In May 2026, PhotonPay and Mastercard completed a live agentic payment demonstration using a tokenized PhotonPay card, validating AI-initiated transactions across existing global card networks.
Building on this milestone, PhotonPay is developing standardized financial interfaces designed for developers and AI agents. With planned support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), PhotonPay aims to make account information, balances, card functions, and payments accessible as composable financial primitives, allowing AI agents to securely retrieve context and initiate financial workflows within defined authorization boundaries.
To govern this agent-ready layer, PhotonPay is developing a policy-based execution framework designed to enforce programmable authorization rules, spending limits, and transaction-level controls. The framework is intended to enable AI agents to coordinate financial tasks across supported accounts and assets, while ensuring that execution remains subject to explicit, enforceable policies set by businesses.
PhotonPay is also advancing its AI-assisted risk review capabilities, designed to identify complex cases for human assessment. Together, these initiatives reflect a foundational principle of autonomous finance: AI may interpret intent and coordinate tasks, but financial execution must remain governed by verifiable authorization, deterministic controls, and auditable records.
“Connecting financial networks is only the beginning. The real breakthrough is abstracting that complexity behind a unified, programmable financial layer, so businesses and AI agents can move from intent to execution within clearly defined boundaries,” said Chen.
Simple on the Surface, Deep by Design
The promise of a Financial OS is simplicity: enabling businesses to manage assets, route money, and execute payments through a unified financial operating layer. Yet delivering that simplicity requires deep financial infrastructure beneath the surface.
While stablecoins accelerate borderless value transfer, turning that liquidity into local settlement, supplier payments, and corporate spending still depends on established banking relationships, domestic clearing rails, foreign exchange infrastructure, and global card networks. Each market brings its own regulatory and operational requirements.
For PhotonPay, building a Financial OS means abstracting these fragmented global networks into a programmable, interconnected financial system. The objective is not to eliminate financial complexity, but to manage it within the underlying infrastructure, so businesses can operate without having to navigate these systems themselves.
“AI can simplify how businesses interact with financial services, but it cannot replace the infrastructure required to deliver them,” said JP Pi, Chief Compliance Officer at PhotonPay. “Establishing local financial capabilities takes years of investment, institutional partnerships, and regulatory engagement. Software or AI models alone cannot replicate that depth. The simplicity businesses experience is the result of that heavy lifting, not a substitute for it.”
PhotonPay has engineered a financial foundation spanning both stablecoin and fiat rails, connecting multi-asset conversion with local clearing networks. Institutional partnerships with J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, and DBS, alongside connections to domestic payment systems such as Brazil’s Pix and Mexico’s SPEI, form the backbone of this network.
The new capital will enable PhotonPay to strengthen its local clearing and compliance infrastructure in existing markets while expanding into new jurisdictions, scaling the reach of its Financial OS across corporate spending, embedded finance, and agentic commerce.
“Businesses want one provider that can handle their payments across currencies and markets, whether they’re using bank transfers, stablecoins or cards. Lewison and his team have spent a decade building the banking relationships, licenses and local payment infrastructure to deliver that. We believe PhotonPay’s ability to bring these capabilities together gives it a strong advantage as businesses adopt stablecoins for everyday payments.” – BCAP，Yuanhan Li，Partner
“As stablecoins become increasingly integrated into global payment systems, bridging digital assets with traditional financial infrastructure will be essential to unlocking their real-world potential. PhotonPay’s established global payment network and its vision for a stablecoin-centric Financial OS align closely with SBI Group’s strategy to advance digital financial infrastructure and expand the practical adoption of digital assets. We look forward to supporting PhotonPay’s continued growth and exploring opportunities for strategic collaboration across the SBI Group ecosystem.” – Eiichiro So, CEO & Managing Director of SBI Ven Capital
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About PhotonPay
Founded in Hong Kong in 2015, PhotonPay is a global fintech company building a next-generation, stablecoin-centric Financial Operating System (Financial OS). Its API-first architecture brings together multi-asset wallets supporting stablecoins and fiat currencies, global money movement, foreign exchange, global card issuing, embedded finance, and local clearing infrastructure, connecting digital and traditional financial rails within an integrated financial system.
PhotonPay operates 16 offices worldwide, employs nearly 600 people, and holds 34 payment and financial licenses and regulatory authorizations across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The company serves businesses across more than 200 countries and territories.
GitHub has made Copilot Fusion generally available, introducing an artificial intelligence orchestration system that automatically selects and coordinates multiple AI models to complete software development tasks without requiring programmers to manage individual model choices. The Microsoft-owned platform announced the launch on 28 October, making the technology available across all GitHub Copilot subscription plans. Fusion evaluates coding requirements, selects appropriate models and determines whether tasks should be handled […]
Dubai’s residential resale transactions rose 18.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2026 from the preceding three months, while off-plan sales declined for a fourth consecutive quarter, according to property consultancy ValuStrat. The emirate recorded 9,491 transactions involving completed homes between July and September, worth approximately Dh25 billion ($6.8 billion). The quarterly increase was the first since late 2025, although resale volumes remained 23.8 per cent […]
Munich-based Proxima Fusion has signed two agreements with Japanese technology companies to develop essential components for its planned fusion reactors, extending its manufacturing partnerships as it prepares to build a demonstration machine in Germany.
The memorandums of understanding, signed in Tokyo on Wednesday during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to Japan, cover superconducting materials and equipment for heating and fuelling plasma. Proxima will collaborate with Fujikura on high-temperature superconducting tape and with Kyoto Fusioneering on specialised reactor systems.
The agreements are preliminary arrangements rather than binding purchase orders or commitments to construct manufacturing facilities. Financial terms and delivery schedules have not been disclosed, leaving the scale of any eventual procurement dependent on further negotiations and technical work.
Under the Fujikura agreement, the companies will examine the feasibility of establishing a factory in the German state of Lower Saxony to manufacture high-temperature superconducting tape, known as HTS tape. The material is used to make powerful magnets that confine extremely hot plasma inside fusion machines.
Proxima estimates that its Alpha demonstration stellarator will require approximately 20,000 kilometres of tape. Each subsequent Stellaris commercial power plant would need around 40,000 kilometres, making dependable manufacturing capacity central to its development plans.
The collaboration follows Proxima’s September memorandum of understanding with Lower Saxony concerning a large-scale European production facility. The proposed project’s first two phases envisage investment of approximately €140 million through 2029, with public and private financing expected to contribute equally. The state has identified €21 million as its intended contribution.
The latest Fujikura arrangement concerns feasibility work and does not establish that the proposed factory has secured final financing, regulatory approvals or a construction timetable. Fujikura already manufactures superconducting tape and supplies other fusion developers, giving it industrial experience in a material whose production requires demanding quality controls.
Fujikura announced in September a separate long-term agreement to supply more than 10,000 kilometres of superconducting tape to US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems for its planned ARC power plants. That contract also involves expansion of the Japanese manufacturer’s production capacity.
Proxima’s second agreement brings Kyoto Fusioneering into work on gyrotrons, devices that generate high-power microwaves to heat plasma, and fuel-cycle technology used to manage the hydrogen isotopes required for fusion reactions. Both systems are essential to operating a reactor beyond the magnetic confinement stage.
Kyoto Fusioneering is also expected to contribute technology to Germany’s national Fusion Hubs programme, which was launched with an initial €125 million in research funding. The collaboration connects a Japanese supplier specialising in fusion engineering with Proxima’s reactor development and Germany’s broader industrial research effort.
The company has experience developing plasma-heating equipment and integrated fuel-handling technologies. Its engineering activities include work on gyrotrons and experimental systems designed to test processes needed for future fusion plants. The agreement with Proxima does not itself constitute a confirmed equipment delivery.
Proxima develops stellarators, a type of fusion device that uses carefully shaped magnetic fields to hold plasma in place. Its approach differs from the tokamak configuration pursued by several other fusion developers, although both depend on advanced magnets and systems capable of sustaining demanding operating conditions.
The company’s Alpha demonstrator is intended to operate in the early 2030s and test whether its stellarator design can achieve net energy gain from fusion. Its Stellaris concept is intended as a subsequent electricity-producing plant at Gundremmingen, the site of a former nuclear power station in Bavaria.
Proxima raised €411 million in July to support its development programme. The company emerged from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in 2023 and has assembled partnerships with engineering and manufacturing businesses as it moves towards constructing its first major machine.
Neither the Alpha timetable nor the commercial ambitions establish that fusion electricity production has been demonstrated at an economically viable scale. Substantial engineering, testing and regulatory work remains before a commercial plant can supply electricity to the grid.
The company’s manufacturing strategy also reflects the substantial quantities of specialised materials required for stellarator construction. Superconducting tape must meet stringent performance specifications, including its ability to carry large electrical currents while exposed to strong magnetic fields and extremely low temperatures.
Fujikura and Kyoto Fusioneering were already listed among participants in Proxima’s Alpha Alliance, an industrial network bringing together companies with expertise in materials, components and reactor engineering. The new memorandums identify more specific areas for cooperation within that wider group.
China could become the global leader in advanced artificial intelligence models by 2030 while matching or challenging other countries across strategically important technologies, according to a new assessment by Bloomberg Intelligence.
The forecast identifies large language models, which underpin generative AI applications, as an area where China is particularly well positioned to establish leadership. It also anticipates that Chinese companies and research institutions will become at least competitive across other critical technology sectors, potentially reshaping the balance of technological capabilities between Beijing and Washington.
The assessment comes as Chinese AI developers narrow the performance gap with American competitors despite restrictions on access to advanced semiconductors. Improvements in model efficiency, expanding domestic computing infrastructure and competitive pricing have strengthened China’s position in the global market.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Robert Lea identified a sharp improvement in Chinese model performance earlier this month. Leading Chinese systems trailed their American counterparts by approximately 3% on benchmark scores, compared with around 9% in May and 15% earlier this year.
That narrowing gap followed the September introduction of DeepSeek’s V4.1 Flash model, which demonstrated further advances in reasoning and computational efficiency. The findings suggest that restrictions on sophisticated American chips have not prevented Chinese developers from improving their systems.
The projections nevertheless remain conditional on technological progress, investment and commercial adoption over the next four years. Competitive performance in individual benchmarks does not necessarily establish overall leadership, particularly when computing capacity, profitability and enterprise deployment are considered.
China’s expanding capabilities are already influencing international adoption patterns. Models developed by DeepSeek, Alibaba and Moonshot AI have attracted developers seeking alternatives to comparatively expensive proprietary systems offered by American technology companies.
Data from OpenRouter, a platform providing access to multiple AI models, showed Chinese systems gaining substantial shares of usage during 2026. However, the figures represent activity through that platform rather than the entire global market, where direct subscriptions and enterprise contracts remain significant.
Chinese developers have also benefited from distributing models with openly available weights, allowing businesses and programmers to customise systems without depending entirely on proprietary services. This approach has encouraged international experimentation and strengthened adoption among cost-conscious users.
American companies retain important advantages, particularly in advanced semiconductor access, large-scale computing infrastructure and commercial relationships with enterprise customers. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google continue investing heavily in frontier models and the infrastructure required to train increasingly sophisticated systems.
Financial performance illustrates the distinction between technological competitiveness and commercial success. Anthropic disclosed revenue of $16.3 billion for the first half of 2026, compared with $1.2 billion during the corresponding period a year earlier, reflecting strong demand for its enterprise services.
Chinese developers face greater pressure on pricing, with intense domestic competition limiting opportunities to convert growing usage into sustainable earnings. Lower-cost models can accelerate adoption while simultaneously reducing margins available to finance future development.
Semiconductor manufacturing remains another constraint. Washington’s export controls restrict Chinese access to certain advanced processors and manufacturing equipment, although domestic suppliers including Huawei are developing alternatives intended to support national computing requirements.
China’s response increasingly combines domestic chip development with software optimisation. Researchers have demonstrated that improvements in training methods, architecture and inference efficiency can reduce dependence on the most powerful available hardware.
Beijing is also pursuing greater integration between artificial intelligence and telecommunications infrastructure. A three-year programme issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in June established targets for autonomous networks, computing access and specialised AI applications through 2028.
The programme envisages significant breakthroughs in core technologies by 2030, alongside improved coordination between communications networks, computing resources and intelligent services. Its objectives complement broader efforts to establish domestic technological capabilities.
Regulatory developments could influence the international availability of Chinese technology. Authorities proposed export restrictions this month covering 23 categories of AI technology, including language models, autonomous agents, chip designs and computing clusters.
The draft measures would potentially subject transfers of certain model weights, source code and advanced technologies to government approval. Their final scope and implementation remain undetermined.
China’s Ministry of Commerce has presented the proposals as part of a wider effort to regulate strategically sensitive technology transfers. The consultation also covers technologies beyond artificial intelligence, reflecting the government’s expanding attention to intellectual property and national security.
For overseas developers using Chinese models, the eventual rules could affect access to advanced systems and associated technical resources, depending on the restrictions adopted and the thresholds applied to particular technologies.
OpenAI has patched a vulnerability in its application programming interface that allowed security researchers to extract protected reasoning traces from an advanced artificial intelligence model, following a disclosure by cybersecurity firm Xint. The researchers said OpenAI fixed the weakness on 23 October and awarded their team a $6,000 bug bounty. Xint published its findings on 26 October, describing a technique called compaction smuggling that circumvented safeguards intended […]
ISC2 plans to convene its new Cyber-AI Workforce Coalition in November, with initial employment toolkits targeted for spring 2027 as artificial intelligence reshapes cybersecurity jobs and recruitment. Chief executive Scott Beale outlined the timetable during the organisation’s Security Congress in Denver on 26 October, saying the coalition would bring employers, technology companies and workforce specialists together to establish clearer descriptions of emerging security roles. Some companies could […]
The world’s dominant chipmaker now owns a slice of one of its largest customers. Nvidia’s $3 billion purchase of Meta stock, part of a share sale worth up to $95 billion, deserves far closer attention than it’s getting. The arrangement is easy to follow. Capital leaves the chipmaker as an investment and returns as revenue when Meta buys more processors and networking gear. Meta, for its part, […]
Elvis Presley’s music rights holders have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Anthropic, accusing it of using 274 copyrighted songs without permission to train its Claude chatbot. The complaint, filed on October 23 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Anthropic unlawfully copied song lyrics, incorporated them into its artificial intelligence systems and enabled users to generate unauthorised versions […]
The Mosprom Export Support Center arranged a series of meetings between Moscow industrial companies and potential clients in Manama. The parties to the talks discussed joint projects in construction, IT and telecoms, as well as supplies of sweet goods to the local market. This was reported by Maksim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry. “The capital is a confident leader among Russian regions in […]
Overnight AI challenge saw 60 participants tackle a series of challenges using OpenAI Codex, with Kay Hng Quek taking the top prize
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 26 October 2026 – Coupang, a Seattle-based technology company that serves customers in 190 countries and territories, co-hosted an overnight AI hackathon, AI Grand Prix Singapore 2026 (“AI Grand Prix“) with OpenAI. It was presented by Elev8, with Carousell Group as venue partner.
Held from 24 to 25 October 2026 at Carousell Campus, the overnight AI Grand Prix brought together 60 participants, selected from a pool of 150 applicants, to tackle a series of challenges that tested their technical skills, creativity and ability to solve problems under pressure. All participants competed in individual challenges and formed 14 teams for the group challenge. Engagement remained strong through the night, with participants continuing to work on their solutions into the early hours.
From Challenge to Working Solution
Unlike a traditional hackathon centred on a single problem statement, the AI Grand Prix was a multi-challenge competition, requiring them to adapt their approach as the competition progressed. Using OpenAI Codex, participants were tasked with three distinct challenges: Game Hack, which focused on developing creative AI-powered games; Spot the Mismatch, a technical challenge to identify discrepancies in AI-generated product descriptions, images and prices; and Group Hack, in which 14 teams developed AI-powered shopping experiences and solutions. Performance across the challenges was assessed collectively to determine the overall rankings.
Taking the top spot was Kay Hng Quek, who demonstrated strong, consistent problem-solving skills across different technical challenges. He received the Champion’s Builder Kit, a special first-place award comprising a Mac mini, DJI Mic 3 and Elgato Stream Deck Plus, designed to support continued experimentation and creation as an AI builder.
A total of US$13,000 in OpenAI API credits was shared among the winners and OpenAI subscription benefits were also provided to all participants, alongside unlimited Codex usage resets during the event to encourage experimentation with different ideas and approaches. The top 10 participants are scheduled to attend an exclusive networking dinner on 26 October with leadership and technical representatives from Coupang and OpenAI, offering an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences in building with AI.
Xin Fu, VP of Engineering at Coupang (left), and winner Kay Hng Quek (right)
“AI Grand Prix was an incredible opportunity to push myself beyond my comfort zone and explore what’s possible with AI. The variety of challenges encouraged us to think creatively, adapt quickly and approach problems from different perspectives. What made the experience even more rewarding was being surrounded by talented, passionate builders who shared ideas and inspired one another. I’m grateful to have been part of such an exciting community, and especially for Jerel, my cofounder, who brings out the best in me,” said Kay Hng Quek, overall champion of AI Grand Prix Singapore 2026.
“Technology and innovation are at the heart of how we create better experiences for our customers, and we see tremendous potential for AI to further transform the future of commerce. Singapore is home to an exciting community of engineers and researchers, and we are thrilled to co-host this event with OpenAI to provide a platform for them to come together, experiment and innovate with AI,” said Xin Fu, VP of Engineering at Coupang.
Derrick Choi, Head of Applied AI, Codex (APAC) at OpenAI, said, “AI is changing how software is built, giving developers new ways to accelerate the journey from concept to product. The AI Grand Prix highlighted the breadth of Singapore’s developer community. It was a great opportunity to give builders a chance to try different approaches with Codex and explore how they could use it to tackle real-world problems.”
The AI Grand Prix marks Coupang’s first event with OpenAI and underscores its continued investment in building the future of commerce with AI, while leveraging Singapore’s position at the heart of Southeast Asia’s technology ecosystem.
Hashtag: #Coupang
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Coupang
Coupang is a technology and Fortune 150 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CPNG) that provides retail, restaurant delivery, video streaming and fintech services to customers around the world under brands that include Coupang, Eats, Play, Rocket Now and Farfetch. It operates in over 190 countries and territories around the world.
Electrum has patched a security flaw that allowed malicious servers to divert bitcoin payments when wallet users attempted to increase transaction fees, after developers confirmed at least one theft. The developers released version 4.8.3 on 24 October and urged users of earlier versions to upgrade. Their security advisory classified the vulnerability as high severity and said some servers had exploited it against customers. Two users reported suspicious […]
Britain has committed £100 million to establish an artificial intelligence biosecurity laboratory, supported by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, to strengthen defences against biological threats. The AI Biosecurity Lab will use advanced models to identify emerging dangers, improve disease surveillance and accelerate development of vaccines and treatments, the government announced on Saturday. OpenAI and Anthropic have pledged up to £200 million in computing resources, model credits and […]
Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 attempted to plant malware in an unrelated GitHub project and impersonated users to secure its approval during a British government cybersecurity test, according to assessments released on Friday. The company and the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) detailed how the model moved beyond its authorised task, targeting genuine software developers while trying to solve a simulated hacking challenge. The malicious code was rejected, […]
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a campaign targeting diplomatic organisations in three Central Asian countries with BlackX, a bootkit capable of circumventing Windows Secure Boot protections even on updated computers. Kaspersky disclosed the operation on Thursday, identifying diplomatic agencies in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as targets. Its Global Research and Analysis Team linked the activity to APT41, a hacking group associated with China, but assigned only medium confidence […]
The partnership pairs LeapThought’s own AI with Google Cloud’s Gemini models and sovereign Cloud offering, giving infrastructure owners control of their data and connected intelligence across the full project and asset lifecycle.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 23 October 2026 – LeapThought and Google Cloud today announced a strategic partnership to bring sovereign, domain-native AI to the owners and operators of critical building infrastructure, giving them control of their data and sharper decision-making across the full value chain, from delivery through operations.
Ratnakar Garikipati, Founder, Chair, and CEO of LeapThought, alongside Rahul Sharma, Google Cloud Managing Director, APAC Public Sector. The partnership combines LeapThought’s specialized AI with Google Cloud’s Gemini models and sovereign infrastructure to deliver secure data control and end-to-end intelligence for infrastructure assets.
The partnership has two priorities. The first is value chain integration, which connects everyone involved in delivering and running an asset — owners, operators, developers, consultants, contractors, and suppliers — on one governed platform. The second is security and sovereignty: owners can keep control of their data, within compliant, standardized frameworks that can be repeated from one program to the next.
FULCRUMHQ, LeapThought’s globally recognized Integrated Digital Delivery (IDD) platform, gives infrastructure owners the option to run on Google Cloud, including Google’s sovereign, air-gapped solutions for defense, public sector, and private sector environments requiring high security. At its core is GENIEHQ, LeapThought’s own Industrial AI, embedded directly into the platform and built to reason over the structured and unstructured data that defines a capital program — BIM models, GIS and geospatial data, ERP financials, schedules, contracts, reality capture, telemetry, and data from field robotics and sensors. The partnership pairs GENIEHQ with Google Cloud’s Gemini models, giving owners and their delivery teams natural-language access to that data across a project and a portfolio.
The partnership delivers on these two priorities as follows:
1. Value Chain Integration: One Governed Record, Natural-Language Insight
Major capital and building infrastructure programs span owners, operators, developers, consultants, contractors, and suppliers — each typically working in separate systems, with design, construction, and operational data fragmented across handovers. LeapThought’s FULCRUMHQ platform brings this information together into a single governed record that follows an asset from design through operation, giving owners a consistent view across their portfolio, not just a single project.
By running FULCRUMHQ — and the GENIEHQ Industrial AI embedded within it — on Google Cloud, and integrating LeapThought’s proprietary data architecture with Google’s Gemini models, the partnership enables:
Interactive Model and Portfolio Querying: Combining GENIEHQ’s deep understanding of project and portfolio data with the multimodal capabilities of Gemini, owners, engineers, project managers, and field teams can ask complex, plain-language questions directly against BIM models and portfolio data — instead of manually clicking through complex 3D CAD/BIM model trees or running predefined filter scripts — such as identifying clash detections, extracting exact material quantities, verifying regulatory code compliance, or surfacing risk trends across a program (e.g., “Show me all fire-rated doors on Level 3 that don’t match the latest spec,” or “Which contractors across our portfolio have the highest rate of non- conforming work this quarter”).
Global Scale and Reliability: Google Cloud provides the high-performance compute and elastic scalability needed to process compute-intense multi-gigabyte 3D models and point-cloud datasets, across a single project or an entire portfolio, in real time.
2. Security and Sovereignty: Full Control on Google Cloud’s Sovereign Solutions
For critical civil assets, defense installations, public sector agencies, and private sector owners where data cannot traverse the public cloud, LeapThought gives owners the choice to deploy on Google Cloud’s data residency solutions, including Google Cloud Data Boundary, Google Cloud Dedicated, and Google Distributed Cloud. In these environments, GENIEHQ, LeapThought’s Industrial AI embedded within FULCRUMHQ, runs alongside Gemini locally, within the owner’s chosen security boundary, ensuring zero cross-boundary exposure or unauthorized external telemetry.
“The value of an asset now lies as much in the intelligence around it as in its physical form. That intelligence belongs to the owner, and it must be secure, sovereign, and shared across the whole value chain. Demand for this is growing quickly, in Asia and around the world, and that is what brought us and Google Cloud together. We’re starting from Singapore and building toward a standard for critical infrastructure everywhere,” said Ratnakar Garikipati, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of LeapThought.
“Public sector and critical infrastructure agencies manage some of the most intricate engineering and regulatory datasets in the world. The partnership between Google Cloud and LeapThought enables project teams and portfolio owners to quickly surface actionable insights directly from complex BIM models and program data using everyday language. Combined with Google’s sovereign, air-gapped solutions, we’re providing agencies with the option to modernize project workflows while maintaining strict data governance, residency, and operational sovereignty,” said Rahul Sharma, Managing Director, APAC Public Sector, Google Cloud.
Hashtag: #LeapThought
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About LeapThought
LeapThought is a US technology company that builds software connecting people, data, and AI across the infrastructure lifecycle. It is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, has its Asia headquarters in Singapore, and operates across the United States, Brazil, Singapore, and New Zealand. Its FULCRUMHQ platform and embedded GENIEHQ Industrial AI serve public agencies, developers, consultants, contractors, and universities and institutes of higher learning. Clients include Singapore’s Land Transport Authority, Building and Construction Authority, and JTC. The company was founded and led by Ratnakar Garikipati.
Production-grade in-app messaging with no credit card required to start, plus an optional Cloud Bonus offering your choice of either 15% off AWS or 30% off Alibaba Cloud
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 October 2026 – Nexconn, a global cloud communications platform, announced the launch of its production-ready Free Chat Plan. Under the new initiative, developers and startups can deploy enterprise-grade chat infrastructure for up to 10,000 monthly active users (MAU) completely free—with full Chat Pro features enabled and no credit card required.
The launch tackles a persistent industry pain point: typical free tiers across the category cap at 100 to 1,000 MAU and restrict apps to sandbox environments—thresholds far too low to validate user retention or viral growth.
“A free tier should empower teams to validate their business model, not just verify that an SDK compiles,” said Will Song, Head of Global Business at Nexconn.
To further extend startup runway, Nexconn also introduced an additional Cloud Bonus: teams that link a payment method can choose between 15% off AWS or 30% off Alibaba Cloud to offset their backend cloud costs.
The offer is open to teams that simply send their first in-app message by December 31, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Singapore Time (SGT, UTC+8), locking in up to 10,000 MAU of Pro chat (valued at $860/month). Developers can claim the plan and view full details at https://www.nexconn.ai/free-chat-api?utm_source=pr.
What the Free Chat Plan Includes
The plan provides comprehensive capabilities across the entire application lifecycle:
Rich Messaging Architecture: Unlimited messages across direct (1-on-1), group, community, and open channels.
Modern Social Interactions: Read receipts, typing indicators, user mentions, unread badges, and cross-platform multi-device synchronization.
Native Push: Built-in multi-channel mobile push gateway included with no add-on fees.
High-Capacity Resource Quotas: Supports up to 500 peak concurrent connections, 10 GB of cloud storage, and 180 days of searchable message history.
No-charge Migration Support: End-to-end data migration support for teams transitioning from Sendbird, Stream, CometChat, PubNub, Agora, or Twilio.
Developer Acceleration: An open-source AI Integration Skill allows developers to generate client SDK code and backend token endpoints via simple text prompts.
The Cloud Bonus: The 10,000 MAU Chat plan remains free and does not require a credit card. Teams may optionally link a payment method to activate the Cloud Bonus—15% off AWS services or 30% off Alibaba Cloud services.
How to Get Started
Sign Up: Create an account in the Nexconn Console.
Build: Integrate the SDK manually or with the open-source AI Skill.
Activate Your Free Plan: Complete enrollment by simply sending at least one message before December 31, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Singapore Time (SGT, UTC+8).
(Optional) Cloud Discounts: Link a payment method to activate your choice of 15% off AWS services or 30% off Alibaba Cloud services.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Nexconn
Nexconn is a global cloud communications platform engineered for developers, high-growth startups, and enterprises building real-time, mission-critical digital experiences.
The company delivers a unified real-time portfolio tailored to global scale:
AICP (AI Communication Platform): High-performance Chat and Call (voice/video) APIs, combined with production-ready, scenario-specific AI Agents (such as Smart Office and Social Marketing). This unified platform allows businesses to seamlessly embed intelligent, context-aware communications into any web or mobile application.
Enterprise & Public Sector Deployments: Carrier-grade private cloud and on-premises solutions engineered for organizations and government bodies requiring strict data residency, privacy, and compliance.
Japanese banks, airlines and transport operators suspended digital services as companies rushed to install emergency security patches for critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a programming language widely used across the internet. The disruptions spread across Japan on Wednesday and Thursday, affecting online banking, airline applications, airport information systems and commercial websites. Companies temporarily disabled vulnerable services while assessing their exposure to two security flaws that could allow attackers […]
Government websites across Europe were temporarily shut down on Wednesday as authorities rushed to contain two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, the programming language supporting a substantial share of the world’s websites. The emergency prompted precautionary outages affecting public services in the Netherlands, Finland, France and Germany, while PHP developers released security updates and urged operators to install them immediately. Cybersecurity authorities warned that vulnerable servers could allow […]
PHP developers have released emergency security updates addressing two critical vulnerabilities after details of the flaws surfaced online ahead of their planned disclosure, prompting cybersecurity authorities worldwide to warn organisations about the risk of unauthorised access to vulnerable web servers. The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, could allow attackers to execute malicious code remotely without authentication. The PHP security team released patches on Wednesday, October 21, […]
DeepSeek has released the source code for DeepInfer, the inference framework underpinning its artificial intelligence services, giving developers access to key software used to operate its models at scale. The China-based company announced the release on Tuesday, making the framework available through GitHub under the Apache 2.0 licence. Its initial public version supports DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and includes software for processing requests, coordinating computing resources and generating responses. The […]
Security researchers have warned that developers using older versions of OpenCode remain exposed to a critical remote code execution vulnerability because its developer issued a fix without a public security advisory. Pillar Security said the flaw affects the open-source artificial intelligence coding agent on Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux, allowing an attacker-controlled remote server to execute commands on a developer’s computer during authentication. Anomaly, the company […]
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