NVIDIA is using Palantir Foundry and cuOpt to automate its hardware supply chain allocation decisions across global manufacturing sites.

The company measures operational delivery from wafer-out to first token. This window splits into time-to-rack (the transit from fab output to an assembled data centre system) and time-to-token (which covers power, cooling, networking, and day-one software readiness.)

Managing NVL72 and Vera Rubin component flows

Hardware scaling has magnified supply constraints. An NVIDIA Grace Blackwell NVL72 rack contains 18 compute trays, with each tray requiring two Grace CPUs, four Blackwell GPUs, and 32 HBM3e memory packages sourced across thousands of suppliers, OEMs, and contract design partners.

The upcoming supply chain constructed for NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin architecture is twice as large as the network supporting Grace Blackwell.

Assembly cannot proceed until parts arrive from three designated channels: direct inventory, consignment stock, and external suppliers. Early shipments must wait on delayed components, extending the metric NVIDIA terms ‘Time of Ownership’ (the duration from when a facility receives materials to when finished sub-assemblies depart.)

Factory allocations are reworked weekly over rolling two-quarter horizons to resolve part availability, throughput limits, and customer fulfilment schedules.

Mixed-integer linear programming via cuOpt

To coordinate these dependencies, the NVIDIA operations team built the ‘Digital Supply Chain Intelligence’ command centre using Palantir Foundry. Foundry’s Ontology models facilities, supplier commits, component stocks, and production targets as interconnected objects and links.

NVIDIA cuOpt, an open-source library for GPU-accelerated decision optimisation, reads this operational layer directly. Formulating distribution as a mixed-integer linear program designed to minimise TOO, the solver evaluates parts constraints across every tier of the bill of materials.

Beyond outputting weekly delivery schedules, cuOpt identifies active factory limits, such as regional assembly capacity caps versus raw memory availability.

Training Nemotron on qualitative operational records

Mathematical optimisation alone failed to capture unstructured operational variables observed by human planners, including supplier call transcripts, regional weather forecasts, partner email exchanges, and geopolitical events.

NVIDIA addressed this by post-training Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, an open-weight mixture-of-experts model featuring 30 billion total parameters and approximately three billion active parameters per forward pass.

The engineering pipeline processes historical records through NeMo Anonymizer to redact sensitive operational fields, NeMo Data Designer to balance training examples with synthetic capacity disruption scenarios, and NeMo AutoModel to apply low-rank adaptation (LoRA) parameters while keeping base model weights frozen. Palantir Autopilot manages data lineage, model tracking, and recommendation delivery.

Production benchmarks and future reinforcement learning

Evaluated on historical allocation records, the post-trained Nemotron 3.5 Lightning model achieved 86.7 percent decision accuracy, compared to 55.5 percent for the larger Nemotron 3 Ultra model and 17.5 percent for the un-tuned Lightning base model.

The post-trained model achieved a 58.6 percent balanced accuracy and a 57.5 percent macro-F1 score, outperforming Nemotron 3 Ultra’s 42 percent balanced accuracy and 39.5 percent macro-F1 score.

Fine-tuning completed on two NVIDIA B200 GPUs within minutes. Domain fine-tuning improved allocation decisions, though production risk forecasting further into the future remained difficult.

Operational choices, planner revisions, overrides, and observed factory outputs are continuously written back to the Palantir Ontology.

NVIDIA confirmed this dataset will form preference pairs for reinforcement learning routines – scoring recommendations on allocation precision, policy compliance, and evidence grounding – with production models remaining strictly isolated from live and unmonitored retraining.

See also: Supply chains detect fast, act slow: How AI agents fix it

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Supply chain disruption cost businesses about $184 billion in 2025, according to the J.S. Held Global Risk Report, and most of that bill still buys faster detection, not faster action.

That figure is usually treated as weather (i.e. storms happen, costs follow.) Treated as a product specification instead, it highlights an operating model that can spot a problem hours or days earlier than it used to, and still cannot move until a person has opened a ticket, convened a call, and re-entered the same data into three systems.

Visibility platforms, control towers, risk scores, digital twins, and exception dashboards have defined the last decade of AI in the supply chain. That decade has been very good at collapsing the time between an event and awareness of it, but it has been far less good at collapsing the time between awareness and a commercial act.

Detection is a ‘solved-enough’ problem

Ask a chief supply chain officer where the AI budget went and the answer tends to follow a familiar list: demand sensing, ETA prediction, supplier risk scoring, inventory optimisation, and lane analytics. These tools work. Forecast error comes down. A vessel delay is flagged before the container misses the cut-off. A second-tier fab outage shows up on a heat map instead of in a customer email.

None of that accounts for the $184 billion. The bill is the interval after the flag: expedite or wait; split the order or accept the miss; retender the lane or pay the spot rate; consolidate two half-empty movements or ship both; swap ocean for air on the SKUs that actually justify the premium. These are bounded, repeatable decisions that sit inside policy, contract, and inventory limits the company already set—and they still queue behind a human inbox.

Surveys keep describing the same lag in different language. A 2026 Knosc survey of mid-market manufacturers and distributors found that supply-chain teams spend 28 percent of their working time responding to disruptions, most of it investigating what happened rather than changing what happens next.

Logistics executives still rank AI as a strategic priority (Capgemini’s 2025 research put an AI-driven “new-gen” supply chain among the top three technology trends for 70 percent of large-company executives) and then report that measurable financial impact remains rare. Gartner found in 2025 that only 23 percent of supply-chain organisations even have a formal AI strategy. The shortfall is not a shortage of models, but a shortage of authority granted to software.

The ticket is the product

Most current deployments are built around the ticket. The model produces a recommendation, the recommendation becomes an alert, the alert becomes a work item, and the work item waits for a planner already occupied with other work items. By the time the planner acts, the option set has narrowed—the alternative carrier’s capacity is gone, the consolidation window has closed, and the supplier’s next production slot is allocated.

That workflow is not a temporary step on the way to autonomy but the product companies bought. Vendors sold insight because insight is easy to demonstrate and easy to govern; action touches money, contracts, service levels, and blame. So the industry automated the part of the job that does not require a signature. FourKites and ABI Research reported in 2025 that only 27 percent of organisations allow AI to take autonomous action, while 52 percent confine it to decision support.

Adding another dashboard to a delayed shipment rarely moves EBITDA as a result. The decision cycle has not changed; it has only been decorated.

Bounded action as the next model

The firms set to take share are not the ones with the tidiest control tower but the ones that pre-authorise a narrow class of moves and let agents execute them while the exception is still cheap.

Retender a lane when the contracted carrier’s ETA slips beyond a threshold and a qualified alternate sits inside the approved rate band. Consolidate outbound waves when fill rates and cut-off times make a combined movement cheaper than two. Swap mode on a defined SKU set when the cost of air is lower than the cost of a missed retail window. Reallocate safety stock across two distribution centres when a forecast miss and a transport constraint line up.

None of that requires a strategy offsite. Each can be written as: if these conditions, then this action, within this spend cap, with this audit trail, and a human only if the case falls outside the fence. That is not a “lights-out” supply chain—it is the same discipline manufacturers already apply to machine control, where the agent may act inside the interlock and escalates outside it. The difference here is commercial rather than physical: the interlock is a policy object – category, supplier tier, mode, dollar limit, and service class – not a PLC.

Three conditions for real change

First, decisions have to be written as policies, not tribal knowledge. If the only place “we will pay air on A-items after 48 hours of ocean slip” lives is in a planner’s head, no agent can execute it. The work of the next two years is less model training than decision design: which moves are reversible, which are capped, and which suppliers and modes are pre-cleared.

Second, execution systems have to accept machine-initiated transactions. An agent that can draft an RFQ but cannot post it is still a detection tool. TMS, WMS, sourcing suites, and carrier APIs need to treat a bounded agent the way they treat a junior buyer with a spend limit—authenticated, logged, and reversible.

Third, accountability has to move with the action. If a retender inside policy goes wrong, the post-mortem should inspect the policy, the data, and the fence, not hunt for the person who “should have checked”. Until that cultural change happens, every agent will be designed to wait, because waiting is how careers survive.

The competitive split

For a while, both models will look alike on a slide—both will have AI, and both will have a control tower. The difference will show up in cycle time from detection to commercial act, and then in service and cost.

Companies that keep buying detection will know about the storm earlier. Companies that authorise bounded action will already have retendered the lane, consolidated the wave, and moved the A-items before the incident call is booked.

Disruption is not going away. Lead times in critical components, mode volatility, and multi-tier opacity are structural features of the network. What remains optional is whether the response waits for a human to open a queue. The product that created the lag was insight without authority. The product that ends it is an agent allowed to spend a little money, inside a fence, before anyone is free to look.

See also: JD.com expands physical AI in logistics with 3 million robots

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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JD.com is expanding AI and robotics across its logistics network under a new Physical AI Acceleration Plan, while reiterating a five-year target to procure 3 million robots, 1 million autonomous vehicles, and 100,000 delivery drones.

The company launched the plan at JDDiscovery 2026 in Beijing. JD Logistics also unveiled its industrial Wolf Robot series, designed for tasks across warehousing, sorting, transport, and delivery.

Specialised systems include equipment designed to operate in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, automated pharmacy dispatch systems, autonomous delivery vehicles, and drones.

The five-year procurement plan builds on automation that JD Logistics already has in operation. As of June 30, its LangzuTech Goods-to-Person automated warehousing system had been deployed in more than 30 warehouses across China, with deployments also launched in the UK and Germany.

JD Logistics’ broader warehouse network included more than 1,800 self-operated warehouses and more than 2,000 third-party cloud warehouses on its Open Warehouse Platform as of June 30. The network covered more than 36 million square metres in aggregate.

The company also had thousands of unmanned vehicles in regular operation across more than 20 Chinese provinces by the end of June. More than 100 domestic drone routes were operating across applications including parcel and food delivery, emergency medicine transport, and disaster relief.

From AI decisions to physical execution

JD Logistics is connecting its physical equipment with Meta Brain, an AI system used across warehousing, transportation, and delivery. JD said Meta Brain 3.0 can calculate optimal routes for hundreds of millions of parcels in seconds, compared with minutes previously.

Meta Brain also powers JD Logistics’ LangzuTech Packer robotic arm, which combines the model with multimodal sensor data to track, grasp, and place parcels with different shapes.

JD Logistics said in a first-quarter regulatory filing that the Packer uses parallel reinforcement learning in simulated environments to optimise parcel-placement sequences and loading layouts. The company said the system is designed to improve sorting efficiency and the use of available carrier space.

JD upgraded the robotic arm’s force-control technology during the second quarter to support more precise cage-loading operations. By June, the Packer was operating around the clock at multiple JD Logistics parks, according to the company’s interim report.

JD is also adding computing capacity to support AI development. JD Cloud plans to work with Chinese chipmaker Moore Threads on a cluster containing 100,000 GPUs for large-model training, inference, and embodied-AI workloads.

The two companies have previously worked on a 10,000-GPU cluster, according to Data Center Dynamics. Details of which Moore Threads GPU models will be used in the planned 100,000-GPU system have not been disclosed.

JD Cloud also plans to collect more than 10 million hours of video showing real-world human activities over the next two years for embodied-AI training.

Beyond warehouse operations, JD Logistics has expanded its autonomous vehicle network into night-time delivery. Its interim report said the company had launched night-time autonomous routes in Shenzhen, allowing vehicles to operate around the clock.

JD is also using drones in rural logistics. In June, JD Logistics launched a drone delivery network in Zizhong, Sichuan province, covering 78 administrative villages, and said deliveries to some mountain villages could be completed in as little as seven minutes.

Scaling automation across JD’s logistics network

JD did not disclose the total expected cost of the five-year procurement programme at JDDiscovery or provide a network-wide return-on-investment target.

JD Logistics spent RMB2.3 billion on research and development during the first half of 2026, up 23.7% from RMB1.9 billion a year earlier. The company attributed the increase to continued investment in technology and innovation but did not provide a breakdown showing how much was spent specifically on AI or robotics.

Depreciation of property and equipment and amortisation of other intangible assets rose 18.7% to RMB2.6 billion during the first half of 2026, from RMB2.2 billion a year earlier. JD Logistics attributed the increase mainly to additional logistics equipment and vehicles.

Purchases of property and equipment and investment properties totalled RMB3.09 billion over the same six-month period, compared with RMB2.70 billion a year earlier. Those figures cover the wider logistics business and are not disclosed as spending specifically associated with the new physical AI programme.

JD’s automation plans also come as China’s major ecommerce platforms expand fulfilment infrastructure. Reuters reported on September 3 that competition between JD.com, Alibaba, and Meituan had moved from heavy spending on delivery subsidies towards logistics infrastructure, broader supply, and order-level economics.

Alibaba and JD have been opening dark stores and fast-fulfilment “lightning warehouses” in densely populated areas to support deliveries within an hour, while Meituan has been building supermarkets to expand its grocery operations. Ministry of Commerce research cited by Reuters estimates China’s instant-retail market will reach RMB1.2 trillion, or about $178 billion, by the end of 2026.

JD and companies within its ecosystem employ around 700,000 delivery and logistics personnel, according to the South China Morning Post.

JD founder Richard Liu said earlier this year that robots would eventually take over parcel-delivery work now carried out by human couriers. The Financial Times reported in June that JD had signed agreements with around 120 educational institutions to retrain workers for roles including robot repair and maintenance.

JD said JD Logistics currently operates eight robot repair centres in China and plans to expand its robotics after-sales capabilities over the next five years. The company expects the expansion to support more than 100,000 robotics service engineer jobs.

(Photo by JD.com)

See also: Arm launches Total Design for Physical AI and robotics framework

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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CloudNC has secured $20 million in new capital to scale its AI precision machining technology across global supply chain networks.

The investment round was led by US venture investor Nimble Ventures, with participation from Calculus Venture Capital, Entrepreneur First, and LM Ventures, the venture capital fund of Lockheed Martin.

Founded in 2015, CloudNC operates from headquarters in London and an active production facility in Chelmsford. The company previously drew backing from Atomico and Episode 1 Ventures, alongside strategic partnerships with Autodesk and Lockheed Martin.

Precision component suppliers face pressures to balance tight engineering tolerances with compressed delivery schedules. CloudNC designs its lead software product, CAM Assist, to automate computer numerical control (CNC) programming—generating machining strategies and toolpaths from computer-aided manufacturing models to accelerate production runs.

Automating CNC programming for supplier networks

The software shortens the transition phase between technical part design and factory production, allowing machinists to increase physical component output.

CloudNC reports that CAM Assist is now active across more than 1,000 machine shops globally, including several hundred facilities in the US. Confirmed commercial users include Lockheed Martin and Major Tool and Machine.

Theo Saville, CEO and co-founder of CloudNC, said: “Machine shops everywhere are under pressure to quote and program faster, and deliver more with the people and machines they already have.

John Burbank, founder of Nimble Ventures, added that automated CNC workflows will support “massive increases in onshoring of manufacturing and global production” for precision industrial supply bases.

CloudNC says it will direct the capital injection into go-to-market operations, technical support infrastructure, and partner activity across international regions.

AI quoting targets procurement turnaround times

CloudNC is expanding its software line with Quote Agent, an AI-assisted estimating tool scheduled for release later in 2026.

Preparing job estimates represents a major operational drag for manufacturing suppliers. Evaluating incoming technical drawings, calculating cycle times, and establishing part pricing remains heavily manual, exposing supply shops to administrative delays or miscalculated margins once components enter physical production.

Quote Agent applies AI to early-stage costing, enabling suppliers to return customer bids rapidly while standardising cost estimations.

“Quote Agent is a natural next step for CloudNC as we seek to accelerate global machining with AI,” says Saville. “CAM Assist already helps machinists get parts onto machines faster; Quote Agent will help shops assess new work, prepare quotes more efficiently and respond to customers with greater confidence.”

“We believe our AI can make quoting faster, more consistent and more scalable, helping manufacturers win more of the right work while keeping expert judgement firmly in control,” Saville added.

Knox Systems partnership advances FedRAMP authorisation

CloudNC is collaborating with Knox Systems to achieve FedRAMP certification for CAM Assist.

The compliance roadmap aims to clear CAM Assist for deployment by US government departments, defence contractors, and aerospace manufacturers operating under federal data governance rules. 

Authorisation, if granted, will permit public-sector and defence suppliers to deploy automated toolpath generation across regulated production workloads.

See also: Samsung taps Mistral AI models for semiconductor manufacturing

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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Samsung has partnered with Mistral AI to deploy on-premises models across its semiconductor manufacturing and engineering operations.

The agreement was announced during the bilateral state summit held in Paris between South Korea and France. Samsung will integrate Mistral’s software suite – including its flagship Mistral Large model – into internal semiconductor facilities to build customised models for intelligence-driven factory infrastructure.

On-premises AI models for semiconductor fab infrastructure

The deployment relies on private enterprise installations to process sensitive engineering and operational records within Samsung’s computing perimeter. This architecture keeps proprietary technical data contained within company infrastructure, avoiding external cloud exposure while maintaining control over operational assets.

“Increasing complexities involved in AI chip design and manufacturing requires continuous innovation in semiconductor technologies,” says Young Hyun Jun, Vice Chairman and CEO of the Device Solutions (DS) Division at Samsung Electronics.

Mistral will provide Samsung with a specialised stack of software tools to assist in how processors are designed and produced.

“AI is reshaping how we build complex technologies, from silicon to software,” says Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral.

“We are proud to support Samsung Electronics with our expertise in electronics and semiconductors, helping to improve how chips are designed and manufactured, and to accelerate technical progress across the global semiconductor and AI value chain.”

Defect detection and yield stabilisation

Samsung plans to deploy the targeted models directly to automated defect detection and fab machinery tuning. As semiconductor production processes advance, rapid data analysis inside the fab becomes necessary to maintain factory throughput.

The company expects targeted AI models to accelerate development cycles, improve manufacturing precision, and stabilise production yields across advanced memory and logic chips. The operational scope covers Samsung’s memory division, logic design units, and contract foundry business.

Samsung also led Mistral AI’s Series D funding round, securing a strategic equity stake to support long-term technical cooperation.

The lead investment expands cross-industry collaboration between silicon manufacturers and AI developers across advanced memory, logic, and foundry operations.

See also: Arm launches Total Design for Physical AI and robotics framework

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

AI News is powered by TechForge Media. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars here.

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Coca-Cola is using AI to recommend which products Malaysian retailers should order and in what quantities through its Coke Buddy platform.

The Perfect Basket feature uses Coca-Cola’s Central Recommendation Engine to analyse previous orders, ordering frequency, seasonality, weather, and purchasing patterns among similar businesses.

Coca-Cola said Coke Buddy currently supports about 39,000 retail outlets across Malaysia. The company describes Coke Buddy as a self-ordering platform that allows retailers to buy products through its app, website, or WhatsApp, with personalised order suggestions and order tracking also available.

Perfect Basket builds on those existing ordering functions by recommending both products and quantities before a retailer completes an order. Retailers can review the recommendations and retain control over what they purchase.

How Perfect Basket guides retailer orders

Coke Buddy already uses previous purchase history to suggest products a retailer is likely to order again. Perfect Basket adds other signals, including seasonality, weather, ordering frequency, and purchasing trends among comparable businesses.

Perfect Basket recommends products and quantities before retailers submit their orders through Coke Buddy. Fulfilment is handled separately by Coca-Cola Refreshments Malaysia or its suppliers under existing sales and distribution arrangements.

Coca-Cola said its sales teams remain involved with retailers alongside the digital ordering system, while retailers retain control over the final purchasing decision.

Coca-Cola recently disclosed usage figures for Perfect Basket following its Perfect Basket, Perfect Ride campaign, which ran from January to April 2026. The campaign encouraged retailers to use the recommendation feature when placing orders and received more than 4,500 entries from over 4,000 retailers in Malaysia.

During the campaign, 83% of participating outlets adopted Perfect Basket recommendations, according to Coca-Cola. The figure applies only to retailers taking part in the campaign, not the full network of about 39,000 outlets supported by Coke Buddy.

Coca-Cola also said participating outlets that followed the recommendations recorded higher sales revenue growth than comparable retail outlets. The company did not disclose the size of the difference or provide detailed performance data showing how individual recommendations affected sales or inventory levels.

The available Malaysian campaign data does not provide figures for forecast accuracy, stock availability, inventory levels, or logistics costs.

Suggested orders extend beyond Malaysia

Coca-Cola has deployed similar suggested-order capabilities elsewhere in its bottling network. In its first-quarter 2024 results, the company said it and its bottling partners had connected nearly eight million customers to B2B platforms globally, while AI-enabled suggested-order capabilities had reached more than three million outlets in Latin America.

Coca-Cola has said these systems combine customer data, external information, and AI to generate predictive order recommendations. Then-chief executive James Quincey said in 2024 that digital ordering also allows retailers to adjust deliveries without waiting for a salesperson to visit.

Coca-Cola has also linked suggested orders to changes in its sales process. Quincey said AI-generated orders allow pre-sales staff to spend less time taking routine orders and more time on account development, while retailers continue to make the final purchasing decision.

Coca-Cola has reported results from earlier pilots using similar recommendation systems. In its second-quarter 2024 earnings call, the company said retailers receiving AI-generated product recommendations based on previous orders and market data were more than 30% more likely to purchase the recommended SKUs in initial pilots. These results did not relate specifically to Perfect Basket in Malaysia.

In a separate demand-prediction project, Coca-Cola combined historical sales data with weather and geolocation information to generate replenishment recommendations. CIO Neeraj Tolmare told Fortune in 2025 that a three-country pilot recorded sales 7% to 8% higher than outlets that were not using the AI algorithm.

Perfect Basket remains available after the campaign. Coca-Cola said it plans to continue developing Coke Buddy and the recommendation feature using retailer feedback and data, while retailers will continue to have access to the company’s sales representatives alongside the digital ordering system.

(Photo by Mahbod Akhzami)

See also: MG Ship adds AI route optimisation as logistics returns accelerate

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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Google’s newest AI weather forecasting model predicts wind speed at 100 metres above the ground, roughly the height of a modern wind turbine. It also forecasts cloud cover and how much sunlight reaches the surface, and it updates every hour. Energy traders, grid operators and wind and solar developers already pay other companies for that data. The introduction of WeatherNext 3 now puts Google in their market.

Google DeepMind and Google Research released the model on September 3. It produces a global forecast every hour at up to five-kilometre resolution for surface variables such as temperature and moisture. The previous version, WeatherNext 2, worked on a 25-kilometre grid and refreshed every six hours. Google says the new energy variables are meant to help grid operators and developers predict how much power their wind and solar assets will generate, then match that against demand.

The consumer side of the launch has had most of the attention. WeatherNext 3 now powers weather results in Google Search, the Gemini app, Google Maps and the Google Maps Platform Weather API. Behind it sits an enterprise layer that matters more commercially. The same forecast data can be queried in BigQuery and Earth Engine or downloaded in bulk from Google Cloud Storage, with no model setup required by the customer.

Why the energy sector is buying AI weather forecasting

Grid operators are running a system that has become harder to predict at both ends. On the generation side, renewables now account for most new capacity. S&P Global Market Intelligence’s US Grid Outlook 2026 projects solar and energy storage as the primary sources of new capacity this year, at 51.2GW and 25.7GW respectively out of more than 90GW of planned additions. 

Solar and wind generate according to the weather rather than demand, so each gigawatt added makes a short-term forecast more accurate.

On the consumption side, the new load is coming from AI. S&P Global identifies the spread of data centres across North America as a primary driver of the recent surge in electricity demand, forcing utilities to revise their load forecasts upward. Deloitte’s 2026 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook projects peak demand growing by roughly 26% by 2035, with data centre demand alone potentially reaching 176GW, five times its 2024 level.

The cost of getting a forecast wrong is straightforward. If an operator underestimates how much wind power will arrive, it has to buy replacement electricity at short notice, usually from gas plants kept on expensive standby. If it overestimates, wind and solar farms end up being paid to switch off because the grid cannot absorb what they are producing. Both outcomes are expensive, and both are forecasting failures.

The market Google is entering

Selling weather forecasts to the energy sector is an established business. Vaisala, Solcast, DNV’s WindGEMINI and IBM’s HyperWatch all compete in it. So does Jua, a Swiss firm that claims its EPT-2 model beats Microsoft Aurora and DeepMind’s earlier GraphCast on accuracy while updating 24 times a day, against what it describes as a typical four updates a day among competitors.

Google’s advantage is reach. The same forecast appears as a table in BigQuery, a layer in Earth Engine, an API in Google Maps Platform and the default answer in Google Search. No specialist vendor has that spread, and the hourly refresh closes the update-frequency gap those vendors have used to differentiate themselves.

The incumbents have one technical argument left. Jua’s published position is that physics-based models such as ECMWF’s HRES still outperform purely data-driven AI models during record-breaking extreme weather, because physics models encode rules about how energy and mass move through the atmosphere, while AI models learn patterns from past data. 

Jua sells a physics-constrained product, so the claim serves its own interests. It also describes the conditions grid operators worry about most, when a storm falls outside anything the model has seen in training.

What is new, and what is being oversold

The architectural claim behind WeatherNext 3 is that it learns from real observations instead of from simulations. Most AI weather models, WeatherNext 2 included, are trained on output from numerical weather prediction models, which are supercomputer-driven physics simulations that carry a six-hour data lag. That lag can introduce bias in fast-changing variables such as rain and surface temperature. WeatherNext 3 ingests live geostationary satellite imagery and trains directly on readings from individual weather stations.

The shift is real, though narrower than much of the coverage has suggested. Google’s own system diagram shows the model taking in one-hour satellite mosaics alongside traditional historical analysis. DeepMind senior research scientist Ilan Price told Bloomberg the gain comes from not waiting for the next analysis and using the most recent information available instead. 

Reporting puts the remaining data lag at three to four hours, down from about seven. Dependence on numerical weather prediction has been reduced, not removed.

The accuracy figures need similar care. Google reports improvements of up to 60% against NASA’s IMERG satellite product, 30% against MRMS radar and 10% against rain gauge readings at early lead times, measured using a standard scoring method for probability forecasts. Those are three separate baselines, and the percentages do not add together. The widely repeated claim of 50% better precipitation forecasting applies specifically to forecasts a day or more ahead. Every figure carries an “up to” qualifier, which makes each one a best case rather than a typical result.

Google published no independent third-party validation alongside the launch. It points instead to live evaluations by Brightband, whose leaderboard it cites in claiming WeatherNext 3 is the most accurate global weather model to date. A utility considering a switch away from a paid specialist will care more about performance in its own service territory, on its own assets, than about a global leaderboard position.

Google’s own stake in the problem

Google is selling forecasting tools into a grid problem its own industry helped create. The data centre build-out driving the load growth utilities are struggling to serve is led by the hyperscalers, Google among them, and Google has signed multi-gigawatt renewable procurement agreements to supply its own facilities.

Accurate prediction of wind and solar output is directly useful to a company matching large volumes of clean energy against a load that is both growing and variable. That is commercial logic, and it goes some way to explaining why the energy variables shipped in this release.

Google has not published pricing for enterprise access to WeatherNext 3, or said whether the BigQuery and Earth Engine data carries standard Cloud query charges or a separate licence. Utilities weighing a move away from a paid specialist will want that figure before they weigh any accuracy claim.

2025, more than 65,000 employees in its Corporate and Investment Bank were actively using the platform, while more than 90% of its engineers were using AI coding assistants.

The bank also said AI-based transaction screening allowed it to review more than twice the previous transaction volume while reducing manual operator checks by half.

Bank of America is using a generative AI-enabled system called EricaAssist with more than 18,000 customer service employees. The tool summarises why a customer is calling, retrieves relevant information, and recommends possible next steps while keeping the employee responsible for the interaction.

Bank of America said in July 2026 that EricaAssist can deliver contextual guidance in under three seconds and has reduced average call times by nearly one minute. The bank plans to extend the system to additional servicing scenarios and business lines later in 2026.

(Photo by Google)

See also: MIT AI forecasts extreme weather without historical data

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

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MG Ship has introduced an AI route optimisation and carrier selection module as logistics deployments demonstrate rapid cost and time returns.

The technical module targets global retailers and commercial shippers, pairing automated routing algorithms with carrier recommendation systems across international trade corridors. The deployment arrives as enterprise supply chain operators report measurable operational returns from machine learning tools, moving capital allocations away from speculative trials toward production deployments.

Measurable returns from deploying AI for logistics

Suki Cheung, CEO of MG Ship, will present deployment metrics during a panel discussion at the upcoming WMX Asia conference. Cheung will join executives from Pos Malaysia, Omniva, and OnyX Space for the session, titled AI Beyond the Hype: Measurable Results in Logistics Today.

“Too many AI conversations in logistics remain focused on future possibilities,” said Cheung. “The reality is that AI is already delivering measurable business outcomes today. Leading organisations are reducing transportation costs, improving forecast accuracy, increasing warehouse productivity, and achieving payback within months rather than years.”

Industry operational data indicates that initial investment returns are concentrating across three primary workflows:

• Dynamic route planning has reduced enterprise fuel consumption by 15–20 percent, improved transit speeds by 15–25 percent, and lowered overall transportation costs by 12–22 percent, with capital payback reached within three to six months.
• Predictive demand forecasting has reduced projection errors by 20–40 percent, improved planning accuracy by up to 35 percent, and decreased excess inventory by 20–30 percent within six to 12 months.
• Automated freight documentation processing has cut manual task duration by up to 85 percent, recovering initial expenditure inside three to six months.

Over five-year deployment cycles, enterprise adopters have recorded average operational expense reductions between 10–25 percent, accompanied by warehouse productivity gains of 25–35 percent.

Routing algorithms and carrier scoring

MG Ship built the new routing capability directly into its visibility and supply chain intelligence platform, which serves retailers, manufacturers, and freight operators across multiple international markets. The base system synthesises live cargo telemetry with trade intelligence, risk monitoring, and predictive analytics to support operational planning and trade financing.

The route optimisation engine processes live and historical lane transit logs, weather patterns, air and ocean port congestion indicators, customs risk alerts, and transit reliability data. Shippers receive automated recommendations identifying low-cost, low-risk transit paths.

Carrier evaluation features rank transport providers per lane and service tier. Rather than selecting capacity purely on spot freight pricing, the system scores carriers against historical on-time metrics, transit consistency, exception occurrences, claims rates, available volume, and total cost-to-serve.

Logistics teams can also execute scenario simulations prior to peak shipping quarters. The software models lead times, service levels, freight spend, and risk exposures under alternative carrier allocation rules.

Early enterprise implementations demonstrate lower lead-time variance, reduced expedited freight expenditure, and improved on-time-in-full delivery rates.

Cheung stated that the platform “does not simply tell businesses where their cargo is”, adding that “it recommends the best route, the right carrier, and the lowest-risk option based on real-time conditions, helping organisations make faster and more profitable decisions.”

See also: OneRail uses Nvidia AI for real-time last-mile delivery optimisation

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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M&T Bank has deployed AI copilots to more than 15,000 employees as the US regional bank applies AI to internal operations, customer service, software development, and risk management.

The bank uses AI to analyse call-centre conversations, draft reports, generate code, identify customer needs, and flag portfolio risks, according to Fast Company. M&T is also examining agentic AI applications in cybersecurity and fraud detection.

American Banker reported in September 2025 that 16,000 of M&T’s roughly 22,000 employees were already using Microsoft Copilot for tasks including drafting emails and reports and summarising call-centre conversations.

Before the wider rollout, M&T initially restricted employee access to public large language models. Chief data officer Andrew Foster told American Banker that the bank blocked the tools because employees could potentially enter sensitive company information into public-facing services.

M&T later evaluated enterprise providers and selected Microsoft Copilot, starting with a pilot involving about 800 employees before expanding access across the organisation.

Foster said using generative AI to summarise call-centre conversations saves about six minutes per call. Software developers at the bank also use GitLab tools to generate code, while employees remain responsible for reviewing AI-generated work.

M&T’s human-review requirement is also reflected in its 2026 Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. The policy requires employees to use approved AI tools and prohibits confidential, proprietary, customer, employee, or regulated information from being entered into unapproved systems. Employees remain responsible for the accuracy and appropriateness of AI-assisted work.

Building the technology and data foundation

M&T’s AI deployment follows a technology overhaul that began in 2018. The bank said more than half of its technology specialists were external workers at the time, compared with an 80% in-house technology workforce today.

M&T now has about 2,000 technologists working across more than 300 agile teams and has hired more than 1,000 technology specialists during the programme.

The bank has also replaced dozens of older platforms. M&T said technology outages have fallen by more than 80% since 2018, while the number of system upgrades completed annually has increased by 300%.

Technology spending exceeded $1.2 billion in 2025, nearly three times its 2017 level. Wisler told Forbes in August 2026 that annual technology releases increased from about 15,000 in 2018 to 65,000 in 2025.

Wisler joined M&T as chief information officer in 2018 before becoming senior executive vice-president for technology and operations in 2025. His current remit covers both technology and operational functions across the bank.

M&T’s data programme developed alongside the broader technology overhaul. Foster, who joined the bank in 2023, began building a data-lineage programme to track where information originates, how it is used, and how it moves between systems.

Foster told American Banker that the data-lineage work was not created in response to generative AI. He described it as a core capability for understanding M&T’s data estate.

The bank also established a Data Academy focused on data governance and data skills, with around 2,000 employees participating in the programme.

M&T has created an internal repository called Edison containing authoritative documents and information on bank policies. The bank also uses data-lineage software from Solidatus and Monte Carlo to trace information as it passes through databases, applications, and business-intelligence systems.

The lineage work gives M&T visibility into the source, meaning, quality, and governance of individual data elements, according to Foster. He said one application for that governed data is the bank’s use of Copilot.

M&T also uses retrieval-augmented generation with internal, governed data, according to American Banker.

Scaling AI into daily banking operations

Wisler told Forbes that M&T is pursuing generative AI through three routes: general employee use, AI capabilities embedded in existing applications, and proprietary systems built around the bank’s own data and processes.

M&T operates more than 1,800 applications, many supplied by third-party vendors. Wisler said one of the bank’s AI pathways is identifying useful AI capabilities already embedded within those applications.

M&T’s third pathway involves proprietary AI development around the bank’s own data and processes. Forbes reported that early applications include repetitive operational work, software development, fraud prevention, and cyber defence.

Fast Company’s September report also said M&T continues to assess both internally developed AI systems and external tools, including general enterprise software and technology designed specifically for banks.

Earlier workforce use cases centred on drafting, summarisation, call-centre work, and software development. Fast Company reported that newer applications include identifying customer needs and flagging portfolio risks.

Other large US banks have also expanded generative AI across employee workflows.

JPMorganChase launched its internal LLM Suite platform to more than 200,000 employees in 2024. By 2025, more than 65,000 employees in its Corporate and Investment Bank were actively using the platform, while more than 90% of its engineers were using AI coding assistants.

The bank also said AI-based transaction screening allowed it to review more than twice the previous transaction volume while reducing manual operator checks by half.

Bank of America is using a generative AI-enabled system called EricaAssist with more than 18,000 customer service employees. The tool summarises why a customer is calling, retrieves relevant information, and recommends possible next steps while keeping the employee responsible for the interaction.

Bank of America said in July 2026 that EricaAssist can deliver contextual guidance in under three seconds and has reduced average call times by nearly one minute. The bank plans to extend the system to additional servicing scenarios and business lines later in 2026.

(Photo by Alain Pierre-Lys)

See also: Bank of England reviews AI rules for agentic AI in finance

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OneRail has launched an AI-powered delivery platform that uses Nvidia technology to help retailers, wholesalers, and distributors decide how individual orders should be delivered.

Called OmniSTAR, the system evaluates options including owned fleets, couriers, parcel carriers, and other delivery modes, then selects the lowest-cost option that meets the required service level, according to OneRail.

The platform combines Nvidia’s cuOpt decision optimisation engine and cuDF data processing software with OneRail’s delivery pricing and performance data. Nvidia accelerated computing infrastructure is used to process the routing and delivery-mode calculations.

OneRail said the system can reduce computation times by as much as 10 times. A calculation that previously took 20 minutes can be completed in under two minutes, while a calculation taking a week can be reduced to about two days, according to the company.

OneRail said the shorter processing time allows the optimisation to run within live delivery operations, where multiple fulfilment options can be evaluated before an order is assigned.

“If you don’t have the ability to make lightning-fast decisions, you’re giving up margin,” Catania said in an interview with CNBC. “Last-mile fulfilment is expensive.”

From prediction to delivery decisions

OneRail’s broader AI systems use prediction and optimisation for different parts of the delivery process. The company said its machine-learning models estimate factors including service time, lateness risk, the probability of first-attempt delivery success, and expected price ranges.

OneRail said those predictions feed into optimisation systems that determine how an order should be executed. Separately, the company said OmniSTAR compares different fulfilment modes before selecting an option based on cost and service requirements.

Research on dynamic vehicle routing makes a similar distinction between predicting changing conditions and recalculating operational decisions as new information becomes available. A 2024 review in the European Journal of Operational Research identified travel-time prediction and real-time re-optimisation as separate areas of time-dependent routing research.

Nvidia cuOpt handles route optimisation

Nvidia describes cuOpt as an open-source, GPU-accelerated optimisation library for vehicle routing and other mathematical optimisation problems.

Nvidia’s documentation shows that cuOpt can account for vehicle costs, capacities, travel times, operating windows, starting locations, and other restrictions when calculating routes. Its cost models can also use distance, time, monetary cost, or a weighted combination of those measures.

OmniSTAR applies cuOpt to both routing and delivery-mode selection. OneRail said this allows the system to compare available fulfilment options for an order and identify the lowest-cost option that still meets its service requirements.

OneRail said many retailers still rely on static rules or manual planning when making these decisions, and that OmniSTAR is designed to evaluate more delivery combinations within shorter operational timeframes.

Nvidia said cuOpt does not exhaustively test every possible route. Instead, the solver generates candidate solutions and iteratively improves them using GPU-accelerated heuristics to produce high-quality results within a set computation time.

The platform also uses Nvidia cuDF, a GPU-accelerated library for tabular data processing, including filtering, joining, and aggregating datasets.

OneRail combines those capabilities with its own delivery data and operational models. Its dataset is based on millions of deliveries across a network that the company said includes more than 12 million drivers and over 1,000 logistics partners.

The data covers pricing and delivery performance across different transportation modes. OneRail said OmniSTAR can use the information to identify delivery rules that increase costs and assess how delivery choices affect item-level profitability.

The architecture disclosed for OmniSTAR centres on GPU-accelerated data processing and mathematical optimisation. Nvidia describes cuOpt as the optimisation component used for problems including vehicle routing.

Because cuOpt is stateless, changes in operating conditions require the optimisation problem to be modelled and submitted again. Nvidia cites vehicle breakdowns, driver absences, road blockages, traffic, and new high-priority orders as examples of changes that can prompt this type of dynamic reoptimisation.

OneRail said OmniSTAR can rerun delivery scenarios as variables including fuel costs, weather, and shipping conditions change. The company has separately said its use of cuOpt allows it to evaluate more routing scenarios and recalculate routes faster than its previous approach.

OmniSTAR moves into live operations

OmniSTAR is already deployed with selected enterprise customers.

At US Foods, OneRail said the system identified delivery configurations that were reducing margins, including low-margin products being transported long distances using higher-cost equipment. US Foods subsequently used the findings to adjust pricing and restructure some delivery patterns, according to OneRail.

OneRail also told CNBC that an unnamed large tire distributor using the platform achieved $40 million in run-rate savings over three years. The customer was not identified, and the savings figure was provided by OneRail. The company also told CNBC that it expects OmniSTAR to exceed $6 billion in gross merchandise volume during the fourth quarter of 2026.

CNBC reported that OneRail and Nvidia had worked on the project for three years before its launch. OneRail said the collaboration included direct engagement with Nvidia’s cuOpt engineering team on last-mile delivery and large-scale logistics optimisation, alongside its participation in the Nvidia Inception programme.

In March this year, FedEx launched FedEx SameDay Local in collaboration with OneRail, connecting customers to a national network of more than 1,000 delivery providers.

(Photo by Brecht Corbeel)

See also: A quarter of Nvidia’s business next year comes from labs it is financing

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

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Motional and MIT researchers have built a system that lets self-driving cars explain their decisions in real-time, tackling the black-box problem in autonomous vehicle AI.

The work, published in Nature, comes from a team at Motional that includes CEO Laura Major, working alongside researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Their proposed method, called the Concept-Wrapper Network or CW-Net, aims to translate the internal calculations of a self-driving system’s neural network into concepts a human can actually read.

If a current self-driving car brakes hard on a clear road with no obvious hazard in sight, neither the driver nor a passenger has any way of knowing why. Modern self-driving systems increasingly rely on neural networks trained on large volumes of driving data. Those networks can perform well, but they don’t expose their reasoning, which is why engineers describe them as black boxes.

Translating neural network logic into human concepts

CW-Net works by converting a self-driving system’s internal logic into concepts such as “Approaching Stopped Vehicle” or “Close to Cyclist.” These could, according to Motional, appear on a dashboard showing which concepts are influencing the vehicle’s driving decisions as they happen.

The system is designed so the explanations aren’t generated after the fact as a guess at what the network might have been doing. Instead, the vehicle’s final decision-making system takes action based directly on these human-interpretable concepts, so a braking event traces back to a specific concept that triggered it. Motional describes this as causally faithful, distinguishing it from approaches that generate natural-language explanations, which can read as plausible without necessarily being accurate.

Laura Major frames the case for this kind of interpretability against the alternative of relying purely on end-to-end deep learning to handle driving decisions.

“The general end-to-end only approach can get to a really good 80-90 percent – maybe even 95 percent – solution, but that’s not good enough to remove a driver or to earn the trust of cities, communities, and customers,” she said.

Testing explainable AI for self-driving cars around Las Vegas

Explainable AI research has largely stayed confined to computer simulations in lab settings, according to Motional. The Motional and MIT team instead deployed CW-Net on an autonomous vehicle with an experienced safety operator in the driver’s seat, collecting data on a private test track and on public roads around Las Vegas.

The team used an earlier experimental version of its deep-learning-based planning system, described as showing competitive performance but with notable shortcomings that CW-Net could help surface. Two incidents from the testing illustrate what the system caught.

In one, the autonomous vehicle repeatedly stopped near a traffic cone, and the vehicle operator assumed the cone itself was triggering the behaviour. Researchers removed the cone and the car stopped anyway. CW-Net’s display showed the actual cause: the experimental planning system was hallucinating a stopped vehicle ahead, a pattern traced back to its training data. That explanation let the researchers understand, predict, and resolve the issue.

A second test involved a cyclist. The autonomous vehicle detected and stopped for the cyclist as expected, but CW-Net revealed that the experimental planning system wasn’t actually basing its decision on the cyclist’s presence. The safety driver responded by exercising more caution around cyclists after noticing this. Follow-up analysis confirmed that caution was warranted, because the vehicle’s braking in that case came from a safety backup system rather than the experimental deep-learning-based planner.

Performance held steady against explainability

Adding layers of explainability to an AI system carries a known cost in speed and performance, and Motional acknowledges that risk. However, when researchers benchmarked CW-Net against leading autonomous driving algorithms, the difference in driving capability came in at less than one percent.

The Las Vegas incidents show why that trade-off matters operationally rather than just academically. A safety driver who can see that a stop is caused by a hallucinated vehicle, or that a backup system rather than the primary planner is responsible for a manoeuvre, can respond and report with more precision than one working from behaviour alone.

That visibility feeds directly into how quickly an engineering team can diagnose a system, and how confidently a safety operator can distinguish between an intended behaviour and a fault.

Motional connects the CW-Net work to broader pressure on autonomous vehicle operators as the technology extends into new markets and jurisdictions. Regulators are naturally asking for more transparency about how AI systems reach their decisions, and it expects tools like CW-Net could move from research projects toward a baseline requirement.

Beyond passenger vehicles, autonomous drones and even robotic surgery are cited as other safety-critical domains where operators and developers will need ways to understand a system’s capabilities, limitations, and unexpected behaviours.

Learn more about physical AI during the Physical AI Expo held in Amsterdam, London, and North America.

See also: MIT AI forecasts extreme weather without historical data

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events including the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo. Click here for more information.

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Autonomous AI systems are beginning to move beyond software environments and into warehouses, delivery networks, and public spaces. The development is drawing attention to whether current AI rules cover systems that operate in physical environments.

Most existing AI governance frameworks have focused on online harms and model outputs, including bias, misinformation, and harmful content. Embodied AI systems carry risks in physical environments, where failures can affect infrastructure, property, or human safety.

Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority published version 1.5 of its Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI on May 20. The framework sets out guidance for organisations deploying AI agents that can plan, make decisions, and take actions across multiple steps to complete user-defined goals.

The framework says agents can interact with tools, external systems, and other agents, including systems that update databases, write files, control devices, or perform transactions. It lists access controls, monitoring, and human approval among governance measures for deployment.

AI moves into physical systems

At an AI summit in Singapore last week, discussions around robotics and embodied AI focused on operational safety issues more commonly associated with aviation, industrial systems, and critical infrastructure oversight than conventional software regulation.

Speakers also discussed whether autonomous systems can operate safely and reliably in unpredictable real-world environments over extended periods.

Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang, founding dean of the Institute for AI Industry Research at Tsinghua University, said embodied AI systems amplify risks already associated with autonomous software. He said failures can directly affect transport systems, drones, logistics networks, and critical infrastructure.

“Any risk in the digital domain will be amplified in the physical domain, and the physical domain will have a physical consequence,” Zhang told MLex on the sidelines of the summit.

He added that vehicles, drones, smart grids, and other infrastructure could become exposed as AI systems are embedded more deeply into physical operations.

Speakers discussed reliability, operational monitoring, and post-deployment assurance as governance concerns. Summit discussions pointed to deployment-based governance models built around simulation, telemetry, and iterative testing, rather than one-time certification alone.

IMDA’s framework also recommends gradual rollouts, continuous monitoring, and further testing after deployment. It says agents interact dynamically with their environment and not all risks can be anticipated before release.

Monitoring becomes a deployment issue

Grab, which is piloting autonomous vehicles and delivery robots in Singapore’s Punggol district, said deployment governance depends heavily on simulation, testing, and continuous monitoring.

“We do a lot of simulation, we do a lot of testing in closed courses and open courses in order to make sure our robots are reliable,” Suthen Thomas Paradatheth, Grab’s chief technology officer, said during one of the summit panels.

“Before we scale to hundreds of robots, we make sure we crack it first in simulation and with a few robots,” he added.

Grab also pointed to monitoring systems designed to track robot performance and detect unexpected failures after deployment.

“There’s a long tail of issues that could emerge,” Paradatheth said.

The IMDA framework says organisations should assess agentic AI use cases based on data access, external system access, autonomy, and task complexity. It also points to the scope and reversibility of agent actions, third-party involvement, and overall system complexity.

It also recommends limiting agent access to tools and systems, applying least-privilege permissions, and defining standard operating procedures for agent workflows. Organisations should also set mechanisms to take agents offline when they malfunction.

Accountability spreads across more actors

MLex reported that embodied AI systems can involve several parties across development, manufacturing, and deployment. These include AI developers, robotics manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers, and infrastructure operators.

MLex also noted that responsibility can be harder to assign when systems continue adapting after deployment through software updates, telemetry, and operational data.

IMDA says organisations and humans remain accountable for agent actions, even when agents operate autonomously. The framework calls for clear responsibility across the agentic AI value chain, from model and platform providers to deployers, tooling providers, and end users.

Applied Materials said large-scale robotics deployment is also tied to semiconductor economics and systems integration. Om Nalamasu, the company’s chief technology officer, said robotics systems will depend on better sensors, energy efficiency, advanced packaging, and computing architectures.

Nalamasu said robotics systems would require purpose-built designs adapted to specific industrial ecosystems rather than a single solution for all environments.

Zhao Yuli, chief strategy officer of Chinese robotics startup Galbot, said Beijing is prioritising deployment scale and industrial commercialisation through government-backed testbeds, industrial partnerships, and long-term funding initiatives.

Galbot has deployed humanoid robotics systems in retail, warehouse, and pharmaceutical operations in China. These include autonomous stores that operate around the clock. Zhao said semi-structured industrial environments are likely to become an early commercialisation path because they offer more controllable operating conditions.

Japan is placing more focus on standards-setting, robotics datasets, and safety governance. Professor Yutaka Matsuo of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering pointed to an “AI Association” project aimed at collecting 100,000 hours of robotics data to support robotic foundation models.

Matsuo also referred to Japan’s AI Safety Institute and the Hiroshima AI Process as part of broader efforts to develop governance standards for embodied AI systems with Singapore and other Asian countries.

Singapore sets out agent controls

Singapore’s framework sets out four governance areas for agentic AI. These cover upfront risk assessment, human accountability, technical controls, and end-user responsibility. The framework describes them as an iterative process rather than a one-time assessment.

The framework says human oversight has to be adapted for agentic systems because continuous review of all workflows becomes impractical at scale. It recommends human approval at significant checkpoints, including high-stakes actions, irreversible actions, and outlier behaviour.

IMDA also identifies automation bias and alert fatigue as risks when humans supervise capable agents. It recommends auditing oversight through indicators such as human override rates and response times, and using automated real-time monitoring to flag unexpected behaviour.

The framework says users should be told what actions an agent can take, what data it can access, and what responsibilities remain with the user. It also recommends employee training on human-agent interaction, oversight, and the professional skills needed to assess agent outputs.

Companies test AI in regulated workflows

JPMorgan is implementing AI tools across its global investment banking business, Paul Uren, the bank’s Asia Pacific head of investment banking, told Reuters. The bank said the tools help bankers access more information and synthesise it with internal systems. They are also being used to prepare content and support client engagement.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg News that the bank would hire more AI specialists and fewer traditional bankers. Reuters reported that global banks are increasing AI investment, reshaping workforces, and changing job roles.

The bank is also among selected organisations permitted by Anthropic to use its Mythos cybersecurity model under a controlled initiative known as Project Glasswing. According to Anthropic, Mythos can detect old vulnerabilities in browsers, infrastructure, and software.

Reuters reported that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley also have access to, or are testing, Mythos, citing sources and company executives.

IMDA’s framework includes a case study from OCBC Bank of Singapore on source-of-wealth analysis. The system parses income-related documents and drafts a source-of-wealth memo. It does not make credit, onboarding, or risk decisions autonomously.

In that case, the workflow is limited to task-level autonomy and operates only when triggered by predefined workflows. Human review is required at critical decision points, and final validation remains with designated reviewers.

Robots move into industrial use

In Japan, one-third of companies are already using or considering AI-powered robots, according to a Reuters survey conducted by Nikkei Research from May 1 to May 15. The survey contacted 492 companies, with 220 responding on the condition of anonymity.

About 4% of respondents said they already use AI robots, 5% plan to deploy them, and 25% are considering doing so. The remaining 66% said they had no such plans.

Transportation equipment manufacturers were the most active group in the survey, with 80% already using AI robots or considering deployment. By comparison, 94% of wholesale sector respondents said they had no plans to deploy AI robots.

Among companies using, planning to use, or considering AI robots, 71% selected manufacturing as a use case. Another 19% selected dangerous tasks, while 11% selected customer-facing services.

The Japanese government expects AI robots to help address the country’s chronic labour shortage and support its position in industrial robotics. Japan is home to robotics companies including Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, but faces competition from China and the United States in AI-enabled robotics.

Retail agents expand beyond search

Walmart has outlined plans to use agentic AI across shopping, employee, supplier, and developer workflows.

In July 2025, the retailer announced plans for four AI-powered “super agents.” They are designed for shoppers, store employees, suppliers and sellers, and software developers. Walmart said these agents would become the main entry point for AI interactions across those groups.

One of the tools, Sparky, is already available in Walmart’s app as a generative AI-powered shopping assistant. Hari Vasudev, Walmart’s US chief technology officer, said its expanded version would be able to reorder items and plan events. It would also use computer vision to suggest recipes based on the contents of a shopper’s fridge.

Walmart is also developing an Associate super agent for store workers and corporate staff. A separate Marty agent is being built for sellers, suppliers, and advertisers. The retailer is also working on a Developer super agent for testing, building, and launching future AI tools.

The company declined to say whether the agents would replace jobs. Dave Glick, senior vice president of enterprise business systems, said the tools would create new jobs, without giving further details.

(Photo by Growtika)

See also: OpenAI opens Singapore AI lab as IMDA updates AI framework

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

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The Nvidia Vera chip is rarely the headline when earnings beat estimates, but it should be. When Nvidia reported Q1 revenue of US$81.62 billion on Wednesday, beating analyst estimates of US$78.86 billion, and guided Q2 at US$91 billion–well above Wall Street’s US$86.84 billion forecast–the numbers did what Nvidia numbers always do: dominate the room. 

But buried in CEO Jensen Huang’s conference call with analysts was something more strategically interesting than another quarterly beat. Huang told analysts that Nvidia’s new Vera central processors unlock access to a US$200 billion market, one that sits entirely outside the US$1 trillion the company has already forecast from its Blackwell and Rubin AI GPU lineup between 2025 and 2027. 

He expects Vera chip revenue to hit US$20 billion by the end of this fiscal year. “I expect (Vera) to be the second largest” sales contributor, Huang said during the call.

That’s not a footnote. That’s a second front.

The Vera chip and the inference pivot

The reason Nvidia needs a second front is straightforward: its biggest customers are building their own. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft–collectively expected to pour more than US$700 billion into AI infrastructure this year, up sharply from around US$400 billion in 2025, are simultaneously pouring funds into custom silicon to run AI models. Intel and AMD are also touting CPUs as a credible play for inference workloads. 

The narrative in the chip industry has shifted from who can train the biggest model to who can serve it cheapest and fastest. Inference is where Nvidia’s GPU dominance is most exposed. Training large models is still firmly Nvidia territory, but inference, generating answers at scale, in real time, is increasingly where custom chips from Google’s TPU line, Amazon’s Trainium and others are making their case.

Nvidia’s answer is Vera. The chip, developed in part using technology from Groq, a startup specialising in inference that Nvidia licensed in a deal reportedly worth around US$17 billion, targets exactly this workload. The full Vera Rubin platform, which combines the Vera CPU with Rubin GPUs, is set to launch later this year.

Supply is already the constraint

Huang was candid about one problem: supply. “My sense is that we’ll be supply-constrained through the entire life of Vera Rubin,” he said on the call. It’s a telling admission for a product Nvidia is positioning as a major growth pillar. To get ahead of disruptions, Nvidia is spending heavily on the supply chain. The company disclosed that its supply commitments rose to US$119 billion in Q1, up from US$95.2 billion the previous quarter, a significant jump that reflects both confidence in demand and anxiety about a global memory chip crunch.

Nvidia also announced a US$80 billion share repurchase programme and raised its quarterly cash dividend to 25 cents per share, from 1 cent, moves that signal financial confidence even as Huang warned of tightening supply.

The question investors are asking

Despite the beats, Nvidia shares fell 1.6% in extended trading after the results. eMarketer analyst Jacob Bourne captured the mood: “Nvidia delivered another beat, but at this point that’s essentially priced in as it keeps beating quarter after quarter. The lingering question is whether it can convince investors the AI buildout has durability into 2027 and 2028, especially as the narrative shifts toward inference workloads and competing silicon from Google, Amazon, AMD, and Intel.”

Huang pushed back with numbers of his own. He pointed to a growing sub-segment of AI-specific cloud customers whose spend is now roughly equal to the hyperscalers, but growing faster quarter-over-quarter. “We should be growing faster than hyperscale capex,” he said.

The Vera chip is central to that argument. Whether the supply chain cooperates is a different question entirely.

(Image source: Nvidia’s Newsroom)

See Also: The Nvidia H200 China deal survived the Trump-Xi summit–just not in the way anyone expected

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Alibaba has unveiled a new AI processor built specifically for AI agents, pairing the chip announcement with a multi-year silicon roadmap and a new large language model, signalling that the company is building an integrated AI stack rather than just filling a gap left by US export controls.

The Zhenwu M890, developed by Alibaba’s semiconductor subsidiary T-Head, delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu 810E, according to the company, as per Reuters report. But the performance jump is less notable than the architectural intent behind the chip: the M890 is purpose-built for AI agents, where software systems must retain long stretches of context, coordinate with other models in real time, and execute complex multi-step tasks with limited human intervention. 

Those demands, heavy on memory bandwidth and inter-model communication, are meaningfully different from what standard inference chips are optimised for. The difference matters because it tells you something about where Alibaba thinks AI compute is heading. The company isn’t designing around today’s dominant use case; it’s building for the workload profile it expects to define enterprise AI over the next several years.

Built for AI agents, not just inference

More significant than the chip itself is the roadmap Alibaba put alongside it. The M890 will be followed by the V900 in the third quarter of 2027, expected to deliver another roughly threefold performance gain, followed by the J900 in the third quarter of 2028. That’s a deliberate, sustained cadence of in-house silicon upgrades that mirrors the kind of tick-tock product cycles Nvidia has used to maintain its lead in AI accelerators.

The parallel to Huawei is worth noting. Huawei laid out a similar chip roadmap for its Ascend line last year, and both announcements reflect the same underlying reality: Chinese technology companies have concluded that depending on foreign silicon, even in scenarios where export restrictions might ease, is a structural risk they cannot accept. The response has been to treat semiconductor development as a long-term capability-building exercise rather than a procurement problem.

Alibaba’s commitment to that exercise is not shallow. The company pledged more than 380 billion yuan, roughly US$53 billion, on cloud and AI infrastructure over three years last year, its largest-ever investment commitment to the sector. The M890 and its successors are downstream of that spending.

Traction that predates the announcement

T-Head said it has shipped more than 560,000 Zhenwu units to date, with over 400 external customers across 20 industries deploying the chips, including automakers and financial services firms. That is a material production footprint, not lab hardware, and it provides Alibaba with real-world deployment data at scale ahead of the M890’s rollout.

The new chip will be available to Chinese enterprise customers through Alibaba Cloud’s domestic model platform, Bailian, packaged inside the Panjiu AL128, a server system that stacks 128 M890 accelerators into a single rack.

The software side of the stack

Alongside the hardware, Alibaba announced Qwen 3.7-Max, the latest version of its flagship large language model, described as engineered for advanced coding and long-running agent tasks. The company said the model can operate continuously for up to 35 hours without performance degradation, a capability specification that only makes sense if you are designing for extended autonomous operation.

The timing is deliberate. Releasing a chip and a model optimised for the same workload class on the same day is a platform play. Alibaba is building a closed loop: its own silicon in T-Head, its own model in Qwen, its own cloud delivery in Bailian. Each component reinforces the others, and the combined stack is designed to reduce enterprise customers’ dependence on any external vendor.

More than half a million chips have been shipped. A successor is arriving in 2027, with another planned for 2028. T-Head is not hedging. At some point, building around US export controls stops being a workaround and starts being a strategy. Alibaba appears to have crossed that line.

(Image source: The White House)

See Also: Alibaba Qwen is challenging proprietary AI model economics

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and co-located with other leading technology events. Click here for more information.

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Amazon has introduced Alexa for Shopping, combining its Rufus shopping chatbot with Alexa+ across its app, website, and Echo Show devices.

The assistant can answer product questions, compare items, track prices, and support shopping reminders. It can also handle scheduled shopping actions and eligible automated purchases.

The company said Alexa for Shopping combines Rufus’ product expertise with Alexa+’s personalised assistant context. Amazon said Rufus helped more than 300 million customers in 2025 research, compare, and buy products.

GeekWire reported that Amazon is retiring the Rufus name from its shopping interface, while Rufus will continue to power parts of the experience behind the scenes.

GeekWire also reported that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Rufus monthly active users rose more than 115%, while engagement increased nearly 400% year over year.

Alexa for Shopping is available through the Amazon Shopping app, Amazon’s website, and Echo Show devices. The feature is rolling out to US customers. Signed-in Amazon customers can use it for free, without a Prime membership, Echo device, or Alexa app.

Amazon reported US$426.3 billion in North America net sales and US$161.9 billion in international net sales in 2025. Amazon also reported online stores and third-party seller services as separate revenue categories in its 2025 annual report.

Amazon adds shopping questions to search

The assistant allows customers to ask shopping-related questions through Amazon’s main search bar instead of using a separate chatbot window. Users can ask for product recommendations or purchase history. They can also ask for advice related to specific shopping needs.

Examples shared by Amazon include questions such as “What’s a good skincare routine for men?” and “When did I last order AA batteries?” Amazon said the assistant uses information from its platform to answer these questions.

Amazon said Alexa for Shopping uses information from a customer’s Amazon activity and Alexa interactions. That includes shopping history, browsing, purchases, and conversations. Amazon said the information is used to recommend products and support shopping actions.

Alexa for Shopping can compare products side by side and provide AI-generated summaries on product pages. It can also show AI-generated overviews in search results with category information.

Price tracking and automated shopping

Alexa for Shopping can monitor price drops for selected items for up to one year. Customers can view a full year of price history on product detail pages or by asking the assistant.

The assistant can create shopping guides for larger purchases. These guides compare product features and prices. They also include reviews from Amazon and the web.

Amazon said customers can use the assistant to set scheduled shopping actions, including restocking household items. Amazon said the assistant can also handle birthday reminders and gift suggestions.

Scheduled actions can also be tied to conditions. For example, the assistant can add an item to the cart if it reaches a target price and has not been purchased within a set period.

The assistant can search past orders and add frequently purchased items to a customer’s cart through conversational prompts.

Amazon said customers can view and update personal details used by Alexa for Shopping. These details can include family members, pets, interests, and dietary needs.

Alexa for Shopping can also surface products from other online stores through Shop Direct. For eligible products, Amazon said its Buy for Me agentic AI feature can complete purchases using a customer’s primary address and payment method.

Echo Show gets full shopping access

Amazon is also adding full-store shopping access to Echo Show. Users can browse, search, and shop using voice, touch, or both.

The Echo Show shopping experience is available for Alexa+ customers on Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21, with support for other devices to follow.

Amazon also cited AI investments in its first-quarter 2026 results. The company said free cash flow fell to US$1.2 billion for the trailing 12 months. It attributed the decline mainly to a US$59.3 billion increase in property and equipment purchases, primarily reflecting AI investments.

Rajiv Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of conversational shopping, said the assistant can carry customer preferences, past purchases, and conversations across phones, laptops, and Echo devices.

Users can access the assistant by updating the Amazon Shopping app and selecting the Alexa icon in the bottom navigation bar. On the desktop, the feature appears at the top of the screen.

(Photo by Anirudh)

See also: Google tests Remy AI agent for Gemini as focus turns to user control

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check outAI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

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The Anthropic UK expansion story is less about diplomatic courtship and more about what happens when a government punishes a company for having principles. In late February, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a stark ultimatum: remove guardrails preventing Claude from being used for fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance, or face consequences. 

Amodei didn’t budge. He wrote that Anthropic could not “in good conscience” grant the Pentagon’s request, arguing that some uses of AI “can undermine rather than defend democratic values.” Washington’s response was swift. 

Trump directed every federal agency to immediately cease all use of Anthropic’s technology, and the Pentagon designated the company a supply chain risk, a label ordinarily reserved for adversarial foreign entities like Huawei. The US$200 million Pentagon contract was pulled. 

Defence tech companies instructed employees to stop using Claude and switch to alternatives. London, watching all of this unfold, saw something different.

The UK’s pitch

Staff at the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) have drawn up proposals for the US$380 billion company, ranging from a dual stock listing on the London Stock Exchange to an office expansion in the capital, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plans. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office has backed the effort, which will be put to Amodei when he visits in late May. 

Anthropic already has around 200 employees in Britain and appointed former prime minister Rishi Sunak as a senior adviser last year. The infrastructure for a meaningful UK presence is already there. What the British government is now offering is an explicit signal that Anthropic’s approach to AI–built on embedded ethical constraints–is an asset, not an obstacle.

A dual listing in London, if it materialised, would give Anthropic access to European institutional investors at a moment when its domestic regulatory standing remains under active legal challenge. The Pentagon’s appeal of the court-ordered injunction blocking the supply chain designation is still before the Ninth Circuit, and the outcome remains uncertain.

Ethics as a competitive advantage

The dispute has been framed largely as a legal and political fight. But its implications for global AI governance run deeper. Anthropic’s lawyers argued in court filings that Claude was not developed to be used for lethal autonomous weapons without human oversight, nor deployed to spy on US citizens, and that using the tools in these ways would represent an abuse of its technology. 

US District Judge Rita Lin, who granted a preliminary injunction blocking the blacklist in March, found the government’s actions “troubling” and concluded they likely violated the law. That judicial finding matters in the UK context. Britain is positioning itself as a regulatory environment sitting between Washington’s current posture, which demands unrestricted military access, and Brussels, where the EU AI Act imposes its own constraints. 

The UK government presents itself as offering a less constrained environment for AI companies than either the US or the European Union. Crucially, that pitch doesn’t ask Anthropic to abandon the guardrails it went to court to defend.

The courtship also sits alongside broader UK efforts to build domestic AI capability, including a recently announced £40 million state-backed research lab, after officials acknowledged the absence of a homegrown competitor to the leading US frontier labs.

Competition in London

The UK’s play for Anthropic is not happening in a vacuum. OpenAI has already committed to making London its biggest research hub outside the US. Google has anchored itself in King’s Cross since acquiring DeepMind in 2014. The race to secure frontier AI in London is already competitive, and Anthropic’s current circumstances make it the most consequential target yet.

Anthropic has been expanding internationally regardless of its domestic legal battles, including opening a Sydney office as its fourth Asia-Pacific location. The global growth strategy is already in motion. What remains to be seen is how much of it London gets to claim.

The company Washington blacklisted for having an AI ethics policy is now being actively courted by another G7 government that wants exactly that. The late May meetings with Amodei will be telling.

See Also: Anthropic selected to build government AI assistant pilot

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AI systems are starting to move beyond simple responses. In many organisations, AI agents are now being tested to plan tasks, make decisions, and carry out actions with limited human input. It is no longer just about whether a model gives the right answer. It is about what happens when that model is allowed to act.

Autonomous systems need clear boundaries. They need rules that define what they can access, what they are allowed to do, and how their actions are tracked. Without those controls, even well-trained systems can create problems that are hard to detect or reverse.

One company working on this problem is Deloitte. The firm has been developing governance frameworks and advisory approaches to help organisations manage AI systems.

From tools to AI agents

Most AI systems in use today still depend on human prompts. They generate text, analyse data, or make predictions, but a person usually decides what happens next. Agentic AI changes that pattern. These systems can break down a goal into steps, choose actions, and interact with other systems to complete tasks.

That added independence brings new challenges. When a system acts on its own, it may take paths that were not fully expected or use data in ways that were not intended.

Deloitte’s work focuses on helping organisations prepare for these risks. Rather than treating AI as a standalone tool, the firm looks at how it fits into business processes, including how decisions are made and how data flows through systems.

Building governance into the lifecycle

Governance should not be added after deployment. It needs to be built into the full lifecycle of an AI system.

This starts at the design stage. Organisations need to define what a system is allowed to do and where its limits are. This may include setting rules around data use and outlining how the system should respond in uncertain situations.

The next stage is deployment. At this point, governance focuses on access and control, including who can use the system and what it can connect to. Once the system is live, monitoring becomes the main concern. Autonomous systems can change over time as they interact with new data. Without regular checks, they may drift away from their original purpose.

The role of transparency and accountability

As AI systems take on more responsibility, it becomes more difficult to trace how decisions are made. This creates a demand for stronger transparency. Deloitte’s work highlights the importance of keeping track of how systems operate. This includes logging actions and documenting decisions. These records help organisations in determining what happened if something goes wrong. If an autonomous system takes an action, there needs to be clarity about who is responsible.

Research from Deloitte shows that adoption of AI agents is moving faster than the controls needed to manage them. Around 23% of companies already use them, and that figure is expected to reach 74% within two years. Only 21% report having strong safeguards in place to oversee how they behave.

Real-time oversight for AI agents

Once an autonomous system is active, the focus shifts to how it behaves in real-world conditions. Static rules are not always enough, and systems need to be observed as they operate.

Deloitte’s approach includes real-time monitoring, allowing organisations to track what an AI system is doing as it performs tasks. If the system behaves in an unexpected way, teams can step in quickly. This may involve pausing certain actions or adjusting permissions. Real-time oversight also helps with compliance. In regulated industries, companies need to show that systems follow rules and standards.

In practice, these controls are starting to appear in operational settings. Deloitte describes scenarios where AI systems monitor equipment performance across sites. Sensor data can signal early signs of failure, which can trigger maintenance workflows and update internal systems. Governance frameworks define what actions the system can take, when human approval is required, and how decisions are recorded. The process runs across multiple systems, but from a user’s point of view, it appears as a single action.

Governance is part of discussions at AI & Big Data Expo North America 2026, taking place on May 18–19 in Santa Clara, California. Deloitte is listed as a Diamond Sponsor for the event, placing it among the firms contributing to conversations around how autonomous systems are deployed and controlled in practice.

The challenge is not just building smarter systems, but ensuring they behave in ways organisations can understand, manage, and trust over time.

(Photo by Roman)

See also: Autonomous AI systems depend on data governance

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

AI News is powered by TechForge Media. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars here.

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