#investment

#investment

SoftBank Group will acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group in a deal valued at $4bn, the companies said on Monday, as the Japanese investment firm looks to deepen its AI-related portfolio. The acquisition would expand SoftBank's exposure to digital infrastructure as the Japanese conglomerate is positioning its portfolio to focus on artificial intelligence. SoftBank's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son is seeking to capitalize on surging demand for the computing capacity that underpins artificial intelligence applications.

Austria's economy is set to grow again in 2026, but new forecasts suggest many households will see their incomes fall despite the recovery. After months of recession warnings and gloomy outlooks, Austria's economy is finally showing signs of recovery. New forecasts from the country's leading economic institutes, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), suggest growth is picking up again in 2026.

For the last four years, the United States was ruled by politicians who fought only for insiders, illegal aliens, career criminals, corporate lobbyists, prisoners, terrorists, and above all foreign nations, which took advantage of us at levels never seen before. They flooded your cities and towns with illegal aliens. They decimated your hard earned savings. They indoctrinated your children with hate for America. Really, I mean, they just released a level of violent felons that we had never seen, to prey on the innocent.

"We need something to get it moving," he said. "The market is broken. It is not going to be able to repair itself if it's not investable."

UK GDP declined marginally by 0.1% in October, reflecting an economy that is stable but still unable to build meaningful forwards momentum. The UK is neither sliding into a clear downturn nor generating the lift needed to move into a firmer, sustainable expansion phase. Across the main sectors, October's picture is uneven. Manufacturing and construction continue to feel the weight of higher borrowing costs and muted global demand, while improvements in consumer-facing services remain hesitant despite easing inflation.

McKinlay stressed there are "no guarantees" about future donations from benefactors or fans but told BBC Scotland: "We knew the money was coming from Tony. "It's very important for us to have it this year because we don't have European football. If we didn't have that money and we didn't have European football then we would cut our cloth accordingly."

If you want to know where an automaker's priorities lie, sometimes it's better to look not at their latest cars for sale, but at where they're investing money for the future. One recent example: Hyundai expanding its manufacturing presence in the U.S., in part to deepen its customer base here. Another came at the end of November, with General Motors revealing that it will invest $550 million in two plants in Ohio and Michigan where specific components are made.

When Val Vavilov co-founded his Bitcoin mining company, Bitfury, in 2011, the original cryptocurrency was worth less than $30, a sliver of its roughly $91,000 price today. Since then, Bitfury's mining ventures spun off into two Nasdaq listed companies whose combined worth tops $9 billion, while also launching two companies that offer AI infrastructure. Bitfury's next step? It wants to use its money to invest in the next crop of ethical tech innovators.

"As Wire 3 strengthens its presence in Lake County, six communities are now on the cusp of transformation, thanks to the deployment of our future-proof network," said Jai Ramachandran, Chief Executive Officer of Wire 3. "Our local teams are proud to be building efficient, reliable, and resilient infrastructure to keep our neighbors connected, and support the growth of local businesses."

In fact, some companies have already garnered impressive traction in key markets around the world, with regulators seeming to be intrigued by the innovative technology these companies are putting forward. With these aircraft resembling a mix of airplane and helicopter technology, the idea is that urban transport between key areas (say, a large urban center and an airport) could be much quicker and more efficient in the air than on the roads.

When Trump returned to office in January 2025, his first foreign trip was to Riyadh, where he announced a $600 billion (517 billion) Saudi investment in the US. This time around in Washington, both sides are likely to discuss artificial intelligence, investment, and collaboration on defense, security, and nuclear issues, given the fragile security situation in the Middle East.

The Forecasting Research Institute (FRI) has published a report [PDF] titled "The Longitudinal Expert AI Panel" that attempts to distill the forecasts of knowledgeable folk - mainly men - in industry, academia, and policy about the capabilities, adoption, and impact of AI in the years ahead. The research project, led by Ezra Karger, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, suggests that few AI experts believe "superintelligence" as outlined by the likes of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will arrive anytime soon.

The company just announced a $100 million investment round led by The Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), the development arm of Afreximbank. The raise marks Africa's largest-ever EV mobility investment and cements Spiro as the continent's most aggressive electric motorbike company. Spiro says it plans to deploy more than 100,000 electric bikes across Africa by the end of 2025, a 400% year-over-year jump that underscores its ambition to dominate a category long considered too fragmented to scale.

Lehane told the audience: No we are going to be in Australia, one way or the other. Lehane said countries generally chose one of two positions when it came to copyright restrictions and AI. One was to take a US-style fair use approach to copyright, allowing for the development of frontier (highly advanced, large-scale) AI, while the other was to maintain a historic position on copyright, limiting AI's scope.

Bristol-born billionaire Steve Lansdown has been majority shareholder of his hometown club since 1996 but admitted in 2021 he was searching for additional investment, which could mean a full takeover. "Yes, we had conversations with him [Alalshikh] and we are up for investment but it has to be the right investment," Rawcliffe told a fans' forum, external on Wednesday. He added there had been overseas interest from both "US and Middle East-based backers" and reiterated the Lansdown family had a desire to sell the club.

The BCC's budget submission focuses on policies to encourage investment, strengthen the workforce, support exports and develop infrastructure. The BCCs top four recommendations are for the Chancellor not to make more taxes on business, alongside reforming business rates and the axing of the windfall tax on oil and gas Labour should prioritise infrastructure investment and approval, including more rail projects, alongside a new runway at Heathrow and continued support for Gatwick and Luton.

"The only thing growing under Labour is the unemployment queue and the national debt. "The Conservatives left office with unemployment at near record lows and the fastest-growing economy in the G7. In just over a year, Labour has killed growth and crushed jobs and livelihoods, with families paying the price. "Keir Starmer has no backbone and is too weak to stand up to his own backbenchers to cut welfare and get people back into work.

In a new essay, he calls this approach "pure fantasy thinking." The problem? Human hands are incredibly sophisticated, packed with about 17,000 specialized touch receptors that no robot comes close to matching. While machine learning transformed speech recognition and image processing, those breakthroughs built on decades of existing technology for capturing the right data. "We don't have such a tradition for touch data," Brooks points out.

Palantir plans to make the UK its European HQ for defense. The move will create up to 350 new jobs, an official announcement stated. The data analytics company, founded with cash from the CIA-backed investment fund In-Q-Tel, has attracted controversy by providing digital profiling tools for the CIA and US immigration agency ICE. None of that was about to stop the UK from diving into bed with Palantir, though.