ICEF2024: INITIATIVE TOWARDS GREEN TRANSFORMATION REALISATION

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 (Bernama) -- The 11th Annual Meeting of the "Innovation for Cool Earth Forum" (ICEF2024) that took place in Tokyo, Japan, on Oct 9-10, gathered approximately 1,700 participants from 93 countries and regions.

Held as a hybrid event with online sessions, it is an initiative of "Tokyo GX Week" toward realisation of green transformation (GX) for transition to a clean energy-based economy, society and industrial structure, leading to decarbonisation and economic growth.

Organised by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), ICEF2024 featured 13 sessions.

According to a statement, ICEF2024 is an international forum where world leaders from industry, academia and government discuss technological innovation, which holds the key to address global warming.

In the keynote sessions, the speakers presented a dialogue, lectures and a video message, focusing on innovation, which is necessary to advance toward the achievement of carbon neutrality as the world continues to confront various difficulties.

In each session, the focus was on green innovation, which will be the key to solving the problem of global warming, under the main theme of “How to Live within the Planetary Boundaries of Green Innovation”.

The topics discussed included planetary boundaries and the energy transition, climate change stabilisation technologies such as carbon dioxide removal, hydrogen readiness and nuclear energy.

In addition, a draft of the "Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Climate Change Mitigation 2.0" version roadmap was also released, while the final roadmap will be released at COP29, taking place in the Republic of Azerbaijan on November this year.

-- BERNAMA

THREDD RELEASES EXPERT GUIDE FOR U.S. ISSUANCE VIA BIN SPONSORSHIP

Developed for new market entrants, the 22-page report provides important facts and expert insights to inform a journey to the American payments sector.

LONDON, Oct 23 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Thredd, a leading next-generation global payments processor, today released “Launching in America. A guide to issuing via BIN sponsorship.” a complimentary report for programme managers and fintechs considering expansion into the American payments market.

Filled with important facts and expert insights into the challenges and requirements faced by foreign entities, the guide is a must-have for global payments executives and any organisation considering bringing their payments-related value proposition to the U.S.

“Entering the U.S. payments market can be challenging. Having successfully helped our clients make the journey, we've created this guide to share some of the key facts and learnings,” said Jim McCarthy, CEO of Thredd. "Passporting programmes into the U.S. is complex, but with a well-considered plan, forward-thinking organisations can rapidly expand their business.”

Contents of the guide include:

· Why the American market?
· Current regulatory and business climate
· Key parties and their roles
· Requirements and due diligence
· Evaluating and being evaluated by BIN sponsors
· Definitions, checklists and regulatory primers
· Go to market
· Takeaways
 

To download a free copy of the guide, visit https://bit.ly/Launching-in-America.

About Thredd:

Thredd is the trusted next-gen payments processing partner for innovators looking to modernise their payments offerings worldwide. We process billions of debit, prepaid and credit transactions annually, serving over 100 fintechs, digital banks, and embedded finance providers, from consumer to corporate, across 44 countries.

Thredd’s unique offering is its client-centric approach, combining hands-on support with modern, reliable, and scalable technology. Thredd’s assured solution accelerates the development and delivery of consumer and corporate payments components embedded within digital banks, as well as for expense management, B2B payments, crypto, lending, credit, Buy Now Pay Later (“BNPL”), FX, remittance, and open banking innovators. By partnering with our clients from concept to creation with our easily configurable solutions, we allow these leaders the agility to achieve their core business aspirations.

Thredd has enabled market leaders since 2007 and has a highly reliable platform with 99.99% availability. Thredd’s highly customisable solutions on our API-first platform, surrounded by our in-depth industry expertise, value-added services, global presence, and technical resilience, are designed to scale with ease. Thredd is certified by Visa and Mastercard to process transactions globally and has branded offices in London, Newcastle, Singapore, and Sydney, with remote colleagues based all over the world.

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241023635444/en/ 

Contact

press@thredd.com

Source : Thredd 

--BERNAMA

Imminent Surge In US Power Demand Challenges Utilities Companies - Wood Mackenzie

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 (Bernama) -- Wood Mackenzie in its latest Horizons report revealed that the United States (US) power demand is set to soar for the first time in decades, with growth between four per cent and 15 per cent through 2029, depending on the region.

According to the report, “Gridlock: the demand dilemma facing the US power industry”, the growth in electricity demand is driven by the rise of data centres, a resurgence in manufacturing, and greater electrification in transport and heating.

Moreover, individual utilities may be facing even steeper increases as the demand being added to the grid is not evenly spread and one large load can have a significant impact on the growth of individual utilities.

All of this will prove a major challenge for utilities to adapt and provide interconnection and new supply, as well as companies with large electricity needs to sustain growth, according to a statement.

Data centres and the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry have become main drivers of activity, with Wood Mackenzie identifying 51 gigawatts (GW) of new data-centre capacity announcements since January 2023.

In the report, Wood Mackenzie has considered a scenario in which electricity demand from data centres grows by a mid-range estimate of 15 per cent per year over the next five years, which is about 25 GW of new data centre capacity.

Data centres will be competing with a resurgence in US manufacturing, particularly in the areas of battery, solar wafers and cells and semiconductors, which are projected to add up to 15,000 megawatts (MW) of high-load-factor demand over the next few years.

Lastly, the wider electrification of the economy will drive demand, with electric vehicle use continuing to grow and electrolysers connecting to the grid potentially adding another 7,000 MW of demand through 2030.

Many constraints are impacting the system’s ability to meet this demand growth, such as coal plant retirements, the lack of transformers and breakers needed to interconnect new plants and large loads, and the slow pace at which interconnection studies are completed and transmission capacity is added to the grid.

Furthermore, from now to 2030, Wood Mackenzie forecasts annual utility-scale renewable additions to grow from around 29 GW to 40 GW per year.

The report concludes that transmission planning, permitting and construction are the biggest bottlenecks to meeting future demand growth. It will take an integrated approach from utilities, regulators and policymakers to meet this challenge and buildout needed to protect US national security, boost strategic economic growth and decarbonise the power sector to address climate change.

-- BERNAMA

H2O.AI UNVEILS COMPACT, COST EFFICIENT MULTIMODAL FOUNDATION MODELS FOR DOCUMENT AI

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 (Bernama) -- H2O.ai, the leader in open-source generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), announced H2OVL Mississippi 2B and 0.8B, two powerful new multimodal foundation models designed specifically for optical character recognition (OCR) and Document AI use cases.

Compact yet highly efficient, the H2OVL Mississippi foundation models represent a significant advancement in AI, delivering unmatched performance for vision and OCR tasks in enterprise environments.

“We have designed H2OVL Mississippi models to be a high-performance yet cost-effective solution, bringing AI-powered OCR, visual understanding, and Document AI to businesses.

“By blending state-of-the-art multimodal AI with extreme efficiency, H2OVL Mississippi delivers precise, scalable Document AI solutions across a range of industries,” said H2O.ai chief executive officer and founder, Sri Ambati in a statement.

Available now on Hugging Face, H2OVL Mississippi 2B and 0.8B offer enterprises an economical solution with efficiency and accuracy for real-time document analysis and image recognition, making it easier to integrate powerful, lightweight AI into workflows that require top-tier OCR and document understanding.

Key features of H2OVL Mississippi 2B and 0.8B are lightweight model, multimodal mastery, tailored training, and real-time efficiency.

H2OVL Mississippi 2B builds on the legacy of H2O Danube2 with a robust 2.1 billion parameter model optimised for lightweight deployment and specialised multimodal architecture that blends language and computer vision to meet the growing demand for more economical multimodal OCR.

Meanwhile, built on the Danube3 0.5B, H2OVL Mississippi 0.8B model, pre-trained on 11 million conversation pairs and fine-tuned with an additional eight million, surpassed all comparable SLMs in the market on OCR benchmarks, delivering unmatched performance on text recognition.

-- BERNAMA

LENOVO NAMED OFFICIAL FIFA TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

 

Lenovo named Official FIFA Technology Partner to enhance fan experiences and global broadcasts. (Graphic: Business Wire)

· Agreement covers FIFA World Cup 2026™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ and was revealed on stage at Lenovo’s annual Tech World innovation event
· Lenovo to provide FIFA technology – from AI (Artificial Intelligence) innovation to devices and data center infrastructure – to enhance fan experiences and global broadcasts
· Lenovo and FIFA to leverage technology and innovation to grow the game globally 

SEATTLE, Oct 16 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- At Lenovo’s annual Tech World innovation event, Lenovo and FIFA have revealed the multinational company as Official FIFA Technology Partner – FIFA’s top tier sponsorship category – in a deal that includes the FIFA World Cup 2026™ in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ in Brazil.
 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241015870640/en/

The two tournaments will provide the perfect platform for Lenovo to further grow its global brand among fans of the world’s most popular sport and, more importantly, deliver integrated and innovative technologies that will make football more accessible and more engaging for all, growing the game around the world.

Lenovo’s products, services and solutions, including its emerging suite of innovations that both leverage and power AI (Artificial Intelligence), iconic ThinkPad laptops, tablets, Motorola mobile phones, and servers, will be integrated into the 2026 and 2027 tournaments. The technology will power improved fan experiences in stadiums and global broadcasts, power enhanced analytics, and democratize data across all global football-playing nations.

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=49527

MAVENIR SNAGS MOST INNOVATIVE CLOUD PRODUCT AT NETWORK X AWARDS

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 (Bernama) -- Mavenir, a pioneer in cloud-native network infrastructure, has been recognised as a global leader in telecom innovation, winning the esteemed 2024 Network X Award for Most Innovative Cloud Product.

According to Mavenir in a statement, this accolade reaffirms the company's excellence in delivering cutting-edge Cloud-Native Automation solutions to mobile network operators (MNOs).

This recognition also solidifies Mavenir's leadership in automating cloud-native 5G network deployments, empowering MNOs to accelerate time-to-market and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).

Mavenir Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Bejoy Pankajakshan said: “Our solution simplifies and accelerates network and services deployment, providing a cost-effective path to 5G.

“By reducing time, cost, and resource requirements, our customers can quickly implement new innovations and features, staying ahead in a rapidly evolving market.”

Mavenir’s Cloud-Native Automation empowers MNOs to accelerate their 5G transition. The solution provides end-to-end automation and orchestration of network functions software deployment and lifecycle management, enabling faster network deployment, enhanced flexibility, and seamless scaling.

The company’s industry-leading cloud-native automation slashes service deployment time by up to 92 per cent, reducing manual labour by up to 80 per cent for network deployment and operations.

Building on its momentum, Mavenir adds this award to its impressive track record, having previously received the 2023 Network X Award for Outstanding Automation Solution in Open RAN.

The award honours the network cloud-based product that has delivered the biggest change in network performance for MNOs and the judges evaluated Mavenir's cloud-native 5G automation solution based on five key criteria.

The judges assessed Mavenir's solution for its level of innovation, impact of cloud technology on network performance, time and cost-efficiency of deployment, operational efficiency, and relevance and effectiveness demonstrated through real-world case studies.

-- BERNAMA

FOREVERGONE IS PROVEN TO REMOVE AND COMPLETELY DESTROY PFAS IN INDUSTRIAL AND MUNICIPAL APPLICATIONS.

^{Gradiant's ForeverGone all-in-one solution and testing data for industrial wastewater (Photo: Business Wire)}



Gradiant announces unique in-house testing capabilities demonstrating PFAS removal to levels below US EPA and European regulatory limits.


BOSTON, Oct 9 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Gradiant, a global solutions provider for advanced water and wastewater treatment, announced today a major milestone in the fight against PFAS contamination, a forever chemical. Working with contaminated industrial, municipal, and landfill waters, ForeverGone^TM has been quantifiably proven, through multiple third-party accredited laboratories, to reduce PFAS to levels below regulatory limits and destroy the resulting PFAS concentrate completely.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241008540101/en/

 

This milestone in development confirms ForeverGone, introduced earlier this year, as the only all-in-one solution capable of removing and destroying PFAS on-site, eliminating the need for waste handling, landfilling, or incineration, differentiating it from conventional technologies, including granular activated carbon (GAC) and ion exchange.

The containerized ForeverGone solution is deployed quickly and commissioned on-site to effectively reduce PFAS to levels below the U.S. EPA's new maximum contaminant level of 4.0 ppt, and the strict limits set by European and Australian regulations.

“Key decision makers appreciate ForeverGone's differentiated proposition to remove and destroy PFAS from all types of contaminated waters,” said Sankar Natarajan, Global Head of Sales at Gradiant. "We're experiencing an unprecedented sales velocity from first engagement to full-scale project deployment across multiple industrial sectors, including semiconductors, food & beverage, mining, and major municipal utilities, all striving to meet regulatory requirements and safeguard their communities."

"To support the development of ForeverGone, we have made a significant investment in the Gradiant Labs' capability to detect PFAS down to just one part per trillion, which uniquely enables us to rapidly offer customer partners the proof they seek of the effectiveness of our technology on their contaminated water," said Steven Lam, Head of Technology at Gradiant.

Gradiant is actively deploying the ForeverGone solution at customer partner sites worldwide, offering them the significant advantage of all-in-one PFAS removal and destruction. Forever.

Are you interested in ForeverGone for your site? Gradiant has introduced a free testing program to demonstrate ForeverGone's ability to treat a wide range of contaminated waters. Interested parties should contact Gradiant at http://www.gradiant.com/contact.

About Gradiant

Gradiant is a Different Kind of Water Company. With a full suite of differentiated and proprietary end-to-end solutions for advanced water and wastewater treatment powered by the top minds in water, the company serves its clients' mission-critical operations in the world's essential industries, including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, food & beverage, lithium and critical minerals, and renewable energy. Gradiant's innovative solutions reduce water used and wastewater discharged, reclaim valuable resources, and renew wastewater into freshwater. The Boston-headquartered company was founded at MIT and has over 1,000 employees worldwide. Learn more at gradiant.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: 
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241008540101/en/

Contact

Corporate
Felix Wang
Gradiant, Global Head of Brand and PR
fwang@gradiant.com

Source : Gradiant