This major tactical realignment sweeps through the global auto industry as BEV growth cools. In its 2026 outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlights this shift, noting that manufacturers are actively prioritizing hybrids. In response, a massive surge in hybrid demand is redefining key regions: in the United States, hybrids neared 20% of new vehicle sales volume by late 2025 according to CNBC, while in Europe, they captured a 24% market share based on International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) data. Concurrently, the Asia-Pacific region asserted its market dominance, capturing 51.67% of the global hybrid vehicle market value across all segments, including mild, full, and plug-in hybrids. The multi-regional momentum is propelling the global hybrid vehicle market from USD 335.21 billion in 2026 to USD 570.78 billion by 2034.

This market shift has profoundly altered battery requirements. Next-generation hybrids demand an unprecedented synergy of sustained energy and explosive power—a profile Molicel delivers by breaking the traditional trade-off between power and density. With a 900W peak power duration of 5 seconds, the INR-21700-P70X enables immediate current delivery during sudden overtaking maneuvers and instant power absorption during heavy regenerative braking. Furthermore, the cell achieves an unprecedented power switching time of under 200 microseconds when ramping up to high-power output. This response speed effectively mirrors a supercapacitor, allowing the vehicle to seamlessly handle high-frequency power pulses without power fading.

"The global automotive landscape is undergoing a profound diversification, where the demand for immediate, high-frequency burst power has become paramount," said Casey Shiue, President of Molicel. "Our next-generation PX series isn't just an evolutionary upgrade; by blending supercapacitor-like responsiveness with the high energy density of lithium-ion, we are redefining what hybrid powertrains can achieve in terms of raw power, safety, and lifespan."

By passing the ultra-stringent UL9540A thermal runaway evaluation—the definitive international safety benchmark for energy storage systems and critical power infrastructure—Molicel sets a new safety benchmark. Through advanced single-crystal technology, the cell slashes exothermal heat release by nearly 50% compared to conventional poly-crystal materials. Crucially, during brutal abuse testing, instead of triggering a simultaneous, catastrophic blowout, Molicel's cells merely smoke, significantly delaying and isolating thermal spread. This tactical containment delivers a premier level of defense valued not only by mission-critical data center BBUs, but now serving as an unprecedented safety guarantee for automakers designing next-generation HEVs.

Furthermore, unlike BEVs that undergo deep daily cycles, hybrids subject batteries to hundreds of thousands of rapid, shallow fluctuations. In testing mimicking this environment under a supercapacitor profile, Molicel's PX series retained an astonishing 96% capacity after 1,000,000 cycles(+10C for 10s / -2C for 110s, cut-off temp. 83°C). This extreme durability ensures the battery powertrain outlives the vehicle itself, eliminating automaker warranty anxieties.

By combining conventional lithium-ion energy density with the microsecond responsiveness, low heat, and million-cycle life of a supercapacitor under high-rate pulse conditions, Molicel stands as the premier technology enabler for the global hybrid transition.

The addition makes FLIN what it calls Indonesia's first credit wellness platform, a single company that can support a borrower through every stage of a debt problem. To date, it has helped more than 800 Indonesians become debt-free.

What Is a Credit Wellness Platform?

FLIN describes credit wellness as covering every part of a debt problem, from the first sign of trouble to a full resolution, all in one place. Rather than approaching one party to arrange a loan and another to handle their debt, a borrower can rely on FLIN to arrange both in one place and escape the debt treadmill.

Understanding Indonesia's Growing Debt Burden

The need for end-to-end debt support is becoming increasingly urgent as household debt in Indonesia continues to rise. Outstanding peer-to-peer (P2P) lending reached Rp 100.69 trillion by February 2026, up 25.75% year-on-year, while Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) balances tracked by Pefindo Biro Kredit surged 86.7% over the same period to Rp 56.3 trillion, according to OJK data reported by Detik Finance.

Behind these figures is a broader economic shift. INDEF Senior Economist Tauhid Ahmad has observed that much of this borrowing is increasingly used to cover everyday living expenses. Among lower-income households, many are taking on new loans instead of relying on savings, creating a cycle where debt becomes a means of meeting daily needs rather than building long-term financial stability.

For many borrowers, this marks the beginning of a debt treadmill. New loans are taken to repay existing ones, monthly obligations continue to grow, and persistent calls from debt collectors add further financial and emotional pressure. At that stage, another loan alone is often no longer enough. Borrowers need structured solutions such as debt consolidation, debt mediation, and financial guidance to regain control of their finances.

FLIN's Solution: Credit Wellness, Not Just Credit

This is the world FLIN steps into: a place where borrowers address the full arc of their debt problem, from diagnosis, to consolidation, to mediation, rather than simply take on another loan. It is built for salaried people already deep in a debt trap who still want a way out.

Through OJK-licensed lending partners, FLIN helps borrowers combine existing debts (pinjol, credit cards, paylater, KTA) into one fixed monthly payment, either unsecured or secured via Dana Talangan program. Under the secured option, a pledged asset opens access to a lower rate, longer tenor, or larger amount. Through Mediasi Utang, for debt too large to consolidate, FLIN negotiates directly with creditors to ease the borrower's burden.

How FLIN's Model Works in Practice

Every borrower begins with a structured financial health assessment, one-on-one financial consultation, and cash-flow analysis. This allows FLIN to recommend the most appropriate solution, whether debt consolidation or debt mediation, based on the borrower's financial capacity.

For Dana Talangan programs, FLIN works with OJK-licensed lending partners. These partners transfer the funds directly to creditors rather than to borrowers, so every rupiah goes toward settling the debt it was intended for. The entire process takes place within a regulated financial ecosystem.

"Many Indonesians don't need another loan. They need a realistic way to recover from debt," said Aniruddha Newaskar, Credit Manager and Founding Member at FLIN. "Credit wellness means understanding a borrower's complete financial situation before recommending consolidation, mediation, or another recovery path. Our goal is to help people regain financial stability, not simply postpone the problem."

Future Inclusivity for Credit Wellness in Indonesia

FLIN believes Indonesia's growing debt challenge requires more than financial products alone. Financial education, responsible lending, and accessible debt recovery solutions all matter for long-term financial wellbeing. Through its credit wellness platform, FLIN aims to contribute to a healthier ecosystem.

More at www.flin.co.id.

GXS Group was recognised for its achievement of building and launching new digital banks for two markets in just two years. In giving the Group the accolade, Euromoney noted the impact it has made in the areas of financial inclusion and customer experience with GXS Bank in Singapore and GXBank in Malaysia.

In addition to its digital banks in Singapore and Malaysia, GXS Group also has a strategic minority stake in Superbank, a digital bank in Indonesia.

For its innovations in seamlessly integrating banking and financing within the digital touchpoints of its partnership ecosystem, which includes Grab and Singtel, GXS Bank was also awarded Singapore's Best Digital Bank by Euromoney. More than five million consumers and micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) in Singapore today use Grab and Singtel for their daily personal and business needs.

With the launch of GXS Bank and GXBank, Grab customers with an account in either digital banks became among the first in Singapore and Malaysia to make banking transactions while on a third-party app. From checking their bank statements to making payments for their rides and food delivery through their GXS Bank and GXBank accounts, these customers enjoy a seamless experience within their Grab app.

GXS Group also created proprietary AI-driven credit assessment models that take into account ecosystem data signals. By layering these models over traditional credit assessment models used by incumbent banks, the Group is able to extend credit to a wider set of customers. This includes platform workers and entrepreneurs who may not be able to qualify for a traditional bank loan as they do not meet their credit requirements, such as a fixed monthly salary. More importantly, ecosystem data enables its digital banks to deliver personalised and relevant support at moments that might matter most to the customer. For example, GXS Bank proactively offers pre-qualified loans to food and beverage businesses within its ecosystem during seasonal periods, when these businesses may need to increase their produce orders or manpower.

As a result of the Group's embedded financing strategy, more than 80 per cent of its retail and business banking customers come from the Grab and Singtel ecosystem.

GXS Group's recognitions at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence in 2026 brings its recent wins to eight awards in just the past month, underscoring the Bank Group's leadership in digital banking.

At the Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards held in July 2026, GXS Bank was awarded Digital Business Banking Initiative of the Year and Ecosystem Initiative of the Year for its business banking services. Its subsidiary GXBank was recognised as Virtual Bank of the Year. GXBank received an additional three awards in the areas of AI & Machine Learning, Data Governance, and Internal Governance.

Pei-Si Lai, Group CEO, GXS Bank said, "We are honored by the recognitions from Euromoney and Asian Banking & Finance. These awards are an encouragement to our team and the relentless focus we have to meet our day-one commitment towards our customers. From the start, our mission has been to show that banking can be simple, secure, and deeply rewarding for everyday consumers and small businesses.

We will continue to enhance our retail and business banking suite with delightful, customer-oriented solutions that address their banking pain points. We thank our customers for their confidence in us, and to my colleagues who come in every day ready to own the mission and build with bravery and curiosity."

Annex - List of Awards won by GXS Group in July 2026

1. Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2026

• ASEAN's Best Digital Bank for Consumers
• Singapore's Best Digital Bank

2. Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards 2026

• Digital Business Banking Initiative of the Year – Singapore
• Ecosystem Initiative of the Year – Singapore
• Virtual Bank of the Year – Malaysia
• AI & Machine Learning Initiative of the Year – Malaysia
• Data Governance Initiative of the Year – Malaysia
• Internal Governance Initiative of the Year – Malaysia

SM Investments Corp. (SM Investments), the parent company of the SM Group, received eight awards, including the Sustainable Asia Award, Asia's Best CSR, Best Corporate Communications, and Best Investor Relations.

SM Investments President and Chief Executive Officer Frederic C. DyBuncio was named Asia's Best CEO (Investor Relations), while Executive Vice Presidents Erwin G. Pato and Franklin C. Gomez were recognized as co-awardees for Asia's Best CFO (Investor Relations). Timothy Daniels, consultant and head of investor relations and sustainability, was also cited as Best Investor Relations Professional.

"We are honored to receive this recognition from Corporate Governance Asia. Governance and sustainability remain embedded in how we operate, helping strengthen resilience, support disciplined decision-making, and enable long-term value creation for our various stakeholders," Mr. DyBuncio said.

The awards come as companies across the region navigate heightened economic volatility, geopolitical uncertainty, and growing climate-related risks.

BDO Unibank received nine awards while SM Prime Holdings Inc. received seven awards.

The recognitions were conferred during the 16th Asian Excellence Awards, which carried the theme "Reshaping Asian Leadership in a Changing Global Economic Landscape and Climate Change."

Corporate Governance Asia is a regional publication focused on corporate governance, sustainability, investor relations, and boardroom leadership across Asia.

For more information, please visit www.sminvestments.com

Photo: Huy Tuan

Policymakers, regulators, bankers, property developers, and financial experts gathered in Hanoi on July 22 for the 'Unlocking Capital for a Sustainable Real Estate Market' conference to explore expanding funding sources, restoring market confidence, and supporting the sector's long-term development.

According to Dao Van Ha, deputy director-general of the Forecasting and Statistics Department at the the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the market is entering a new development cycle as legal frameworks continue to be revised and urbanisation maintains strong housing demand.

Nevertheless, he noted that several structural problems remain unresolved. Affordable housing continues to face severe shortages, while lengthy legal procedures for project approvals have delayed bank appraisals and disbursement processes. At the same time, fragmented market data and the limited financial capacity of some developers have created additional risks for the sector.

Ha said the underdevelopment of long-term financing channels, particularly the corporate bond and equity markets, had left the property sector overly dependent on bank credit.

"The issue today is not simply to unlock capital for real estate, but to ensure that funding is channelled into projects creating real economic value, enabling businesses to grow sustainably while giving more people access to affordable housing and limiting speculation," he said.

The SBV, he added, has maintained stable policy interest rates while requiring commercial banks to publish lending rates on their websites to improve transparency for borrowers.

To encourage lending to priority segments, the central bank has also assigned lower risk weights to social housing loans than to conventional commercial property lending. Looking ahead, overall credit growth is targeted at around 15 per cent in 2026, although additional lending to social housing and industrial park projects will not count towards banks' credit growth limits under new regulations introduced this year.

Ha added that the SBV had proposed that the Ministry of Construction establish a Housing Development Fund and develop a state-managed property transaction platform, alongside comprehensive housing and land databases, to improve property valuation and curb speculative lending.

Ha Quang Hung, deputy director-general of the Housing and Real Estate Market Management Agency under the Ministry of Construction, said Vietnam had established a relatively comprehensive legal framework to support social housing development through land incentives, tax reductions and preferential credit policies.

He noted that more than 103,000 social housing units were completed in 2025, exceeding the annual target, while 270 projects comprising more than 269,000 units are currently under construction during the first half of 2026.

According to Hung, projects completed, launched or approved have now reached 77 per cent of the target set under the government's one-million social housing programme.

Despite this progress, he acknowledged that supply-demand imbalances persisted, with an oversupply of high-end housing and an insufficient number of affordable homes. Housing prices remain significantly above the purchasing power of average-income households, while incentives for long-term rental housing are still inadequate.

"We have created a relatively complete and open legal framework that supports and encourages businesses to participate," Hung said.

The Ministry of Construction is currently preparing amendments to the Housing Law and the Law on Real Estate Business, which are expected to be submitted to the National Assembly later this year. The revised framework will prioritise affordable rental housing and introduce stronger incentives on land, taxation, finance and credit to attract long-term private investment.

Entering its third edition, the race continues to connect Vietnam's running community with the global marathon community while encouraging healthy lifestyles, inclusivity, sustainability, and pride in Hanoi's cultural heritage.

The Standard Chartered Hanoi Marathon - Heritage Race 2026 will take place from November 6–8, with the main race day on November 8, featuring five race categories: Full Marathon, Half Marathon, 10km, 5km, and the 2.1km Kid Dash for children.

The event will be at Thong Nhat Park, a centrally located venue that provides runners with convenient access to Hanoi's culturally and historically significant race routes.

One of the key new features of the 2026 edition is the introduction of the Enterprise Cup, a competition exclusively designed for the business community. The winning team will receive a trip to Shanghai to participate in the Standard Chartered Shanghai 10KM Run and connect with the international running community.

In addition, activities including the Race Expo, Leaders Run, and a series of networking programmes organised throughout race week will provide valuable opportunities for businesses, organisations and communities to connect.

Speaking at the event, Nguyen Tri Man, director of Strategy and Market Development, said, “Sport, and running in particular, represents a healthy way of life. Through the Standard Chartered Hanoi Marathon - Heritage Race, we strive not only to deliver a safe, successful race that enables runners to achieve their personal bests, but also to use this event as a platform to encourage positive values such as civility, solidarity and environmental responsibility."

The Organising Committee also unveiled the official 2026 Race Shirt, manufactured using recycled materials. This initiative contributes to reducing plastic waste, encourages responsible consumption, and supports Vietnam's commitment to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.

The 2026 edition will continue to implement a wide range of community initiatives. The "Shoes of Hope" programme encourages runners to donate pre-loved running shoes, which will be cleaned and distributed to children and disadvantaged communities in remote areas across Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the "Light up the way" initiative will continue to support visually impaired runners by connecting them with volunteer guides and providing appropriate assistance throughout the event. These initiatives reflect the race's commitment to promoting inclusivity, community engagement, and equal access to sport for all.

Trinh Nhu Quynh, member of the organising committee and head of corporate affairs, brand and marketing, Standard Chartered Bank (Vietnam) Limited, said, "As the Title Sponsor of the event, we aim to encourage people to improve their health, endurance, discipline, and determination to push beyond their personal limits – qualities that are essential for building a prosperous and sustainable community."

"Beyond the race experience itself, the event provides an opportunity for people to connect, inspire one another, and promote an active and positive lifestyle. Through our accompanying initiatives and community programmes, Standard Chartered continues to demonstrate its commitment to creating positive impact and fostering a more connected and inclusive community through sport.”

Another highlight of the 2026 edition is the selection of Long Bien Bridge as the official heritage icon of the Standard Chartered Hanoi Marathon - Heritage Race 2026. More than a historic landmark, the bridge symbolises Hanoi's rich cultural heritage and urban memory while representing connection – between the past and the present, between sport, culture and tourism, and between the Vietnamese community and friends from around the world.

As a member race of the Abbott World Marathon Majors Age Group Ranking System, results achieved at the Standard Chartered Hanoi Marathon - Heritage Race are officially recognised as qualifying performances for entry consideration into any of the seven Abbott World Marathon Majors, including the prestigious Boston Marathon, alongside the Tokyo Marathon, London Marathon, Berlin Marathon, Chicago Marathon, TCS New York City Marathon, and the newly added Sydney Marathon.

Standard Chartered Vietnam launches innovative Sustainable Deposit On May 5, Standard Chartered Bank (Vietnam) launched its Sustainable Deposit solution in Vietnam.

Standard Chartered sets out latest growth plan On May 19, Standard Chartered announced plans to invest ahead of long-term trends to maintain strong growth, boost productivity, further improve the quality of earnings, and maximise its competitive advantages.

Standard Chartered assess Vietnam's performance in first six months of 2026 Vietnam's GDP growth is estimated at 6.5 per cent in the first half of the year, with the economy entering a phase of normalisation amid global challenges, according to a Standard Chartered report.

Through its global network and integrated banking platform, Citi provides multinational corporations, leading Vietnamese enterprises and financial institutions with financing, transaction banking, markets, and advisory solutions.

Citi was honoured by executing a series of complex cross-border financing transactions in Vietnam, including a $521.5 million, 14-year export credit agency-backed financing, demonstrating the bank’s ability to mobilise long-term international capital for strategically important projects.

The Vietnam award forms part of Citi’s strong performance at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2026.

Globally, Citi received 47 global, regional and local-market awards, including World’s Best Bank for Large Corporates and World’s Best Bank for Securities Services.

Citi was also recognised as Asia’s Best Investment Bank for Financing Solutions, Asia’s Best Investment Bank for M&A and Asia’s Best Investment Bank for Sovereigns, Supranationally and Agencies.

Viswas “Vis” Raghavan, head of Banking and executive vice chair at Citi, said, “Citi's Banking franchise serves multinational clients with increasingly complex cross-border needs, and acts as the relationship anchor for the firm. This success across our team underlines the gains we are making across banking as more clients lean into Citi for key strategic advice.”

The Euromoney Awards for Excellence recognise the best in banking across key areas that are most important to a bank’s key stakeholders, clients, board and executive management teams. The period of consideration for the awards was the 2025 calendar year.

Citi Vietnam named Best Commercial Bank 2026 by The Asset Triple A Citi Vietnam on May 7 announced that Citi Vietnam has been awarded "Best Commercial Bank 2026" at The Asset Triple A Sustainable Finance Awards.

Citi Vietnam named Best Sustainable Bank by FinanceAsia Citi Vietnam has been named Best Sustainable Bank in Vietnam at the FinanceAsia Awards 2026, reinforcing the bank’s role in supporting clients and the country’s long-term sustainable development agenda. The award ceremony took place in Hong Kong on June 25.

Citi Vietnam marks Global Community Day 2026 in Phu Tho and Lam Dong Citi Vietnam marked Global Community Day 2026 with two meaningful community initiatives aimed at supporting local schools and creating better learning environments for children in Phu Tho and Lam Dong provinces.

11:11 Managed SASE is a fully managed secure connectivity solution leveraging Cato Networks AI-native network security platform. This solution brings together intelligent SD-WAN, cloud-delivered security and global connectivity into a single offering. It enables organisations to simplify and secure access across branch offices, data centres, users and cloud environments, reducing complexity without sacrificing performance or control.

Built on the Cato Networks cloud-native SASE platform, 11:11 Managed SASE combines zero trust network access (ZTNA), firewall as a service (FWaaS), secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), advanced threat protection and centralised visibility into a unified managed experience. 11:11 also delivers 24x7x365 monitoring and support, incident management integration and operational accountability to help customers limit vendor sprawl, increase agility and free internal teams to focus on higher-value priorities.

The offering is backed by 11:11's broader networking, cloud and cyber resilience capabilities. Through its global backbone, carrier-agnostic connectivity options and integrated portfolio spanning cloud, backup, disaster recovery and security services, 11:11 gives customers a practical path to modernise network and security architecture while strengthening resilience across the business.

"Enterprises are under pressure to support users, applications and locations that are more distributed than ever, while limiting complexity and improving security," said Justin Giardina, CTO, 11:11 Systems. "Our Managed SASE solution provides customers with a unified approach to modernising networking and security, along with the visibility, support and flexibility they need to thrive in a rapidly changing environment."

According to Karl Soderlund, global channel chief, Cato Networks, "As enterprises move beyond fragmented legacy networking and security stacks, they need a simpler way to gain visibility, context and control across hybrid work environments and reduce the operational burden on IT. Through our partnership, we can address these challenges head on and deliver end-to-end visibility and protection in a single service built for the reality of modern work."

The joint offering is well suited for distributed enterprises, multi-site organisations, hybrid workforce initiatives, SD-WAN refreshes, security modernisation efforts and businesses with limited IT resources. 11:11 meets customers where they are by supporting existing environments, simplifying multi-vendor operations and serving as a single provider accountable for network, security, cloud and data integration.

This partnership expands 11:11's Network as a Service portfolio and follows Forrester's inclusion of 11:11 Systems in its report, "The Secure Access Service Edge Services Landscape, Q1 2026."

The report, "Agents of Change: How the Race to Deploy AI Agents is Outrunning Financial Governance," surveyed CFOs and senior finance leaders across Australia who have deployed, piloted, or actively evaluated AI agents in financial processes during the past year.

Key findings
Pressure to show value is mounting.

• 88%¹ of respondents feel moderate or significant career pressure to demonstrate that AI agent investments are delivering ROI, with half calling that pressure significant.
• 90% say their AI agent initiatives are delivering at least some measurable ROI to date.
• 59%² say the pressure to deploy agents is focused primarily on deployment speed.

Governance is falling behind the agentic AI rush.

• Only 12%³ say their organisation prioritises governance over speed.
• 23% say the top proof they expect from vendors when evaluating AI-powered solutions is ROI, vs. 17% for governance and control documentation and 18% for auditability and explainability evidence.
• 59% are only somewhat confident they could explain an AI agent's actions to an auditor or regulator.

The findings reveal a finance function caught between executive pressure to accelerate AI agent adoption and the operational reality that those AI agents need to be managed with care, particularly in tax and compliance, where decisions must withstand regulatory scrutiny.

"Australian finance leaders are right to move quickly to capitalize on agentic AI opportunities, but speed without accountability creates new forms of risk, and speed without rethinking workflows limits ROI," said Hugo Sarrazin, Chief Executive Officer at Avalara. "The organizations that realize the greatest value from AI won't simply deploy more agents. They'll leverage agents with trusted data, governed workflows, and clear controls that enable automation with confidence."

Pinpointing Accountability

The research highlights questions about who is responsible for significant AI agent errors. For example, nearly one in five (18%⁴) say accountability for a significant AI agent error would be unclear or sit with no one, while 18% believe the executive who approved the AI investment would ultimately be held personally accountable.

One of the challenges is a lack of available knowledge: 75%⁵ lack dedicated in-house expertise to understand how their AI agents work, relying on IT or vendors.

"Finance leaders are being asked to move quickly with AI, but governing agents requires a new combination of domain, AI, IT, and data governance expertise," said Frank Cirone, VP Commercial Strategy at Snowflake, a cloud data platform company. "As AI agents gain access to financial and compliance workflows, organisations need to know what those agents can see, what they can do, and when human approval is required. That kind of control has to be built into the architecture, not added after the fact."

Finance Leaders Prioritize Trust Alongside Speed

The survey makes clear that finance leaders aren't looking to slow AI adoption. They're looking to scale it responsibly. When asked what would most increase their confidence in expanding AI agents, respondents consistently prioritised capabilities that reinforce trust and accountability:

• AI agents operating within existing systems of record (32%)
• Outputs grounded in verified tax, compliance, and financial data (30%)
• Validation against known compliance requirements (25%)
• Vendor commitments around accuracy and accountability (20%)
• Audit trails documenting every AI action (31%)

The capability respondents identified as most valuable for financial operations was "audit-ready documentation for every AI-driven action," selected by 37% of respondents.

"AI agents are now moving into business processes that require trust, transparency, and governance by design," said Jim Lundy, Founder, CEO, and Lead Analyst at Aragon Research. "As enterprises scale agentic AI, the question becomes less about whether the technology can act and more about whether organizations can understand, control, and explain those actions. In finance, where workflows are auditable and outcomes carry real business consequences, governance and explainability will become essential requirements for adoption."

The full report, Agents of Change: How the Race to Deploy AI Agents is Outrunning Financial Governance, is available at: newsroom.avalara.com/image/Agents_of_Change.pdf

Methodology:

The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 250 CFO or Senior Finance leaders (aged 30+) in Australia in companies with a revenue of approximately $14 million+ (US$10 million+). Respondents must have deployed, piloted, or actively evaluated AI agents in their organisation in the last 12 months and work in the following industries: Financial Services and Insurance / Healthcare /Manufacturing & Distribution / Professional Services (i.e., accounting firms legal, consulting) / Retail & E-commerce / Tech and SaaS. The data was collected between 15.06.2026 - 22.06.2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. Censuswide adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

For more information, visit Avalara.com.

1. Combining answers "significant pressure" (32%) and "moderate pressure" (56%)
2. Combining answers "entirely on speed" (26%) and "mostly on speed" (33%)
3. Combining answers "mostly on governance" (12%) and "entirely on governance" (0%)
4. Combining answers "Accountability would be unclear" (12%) and "No one individual or team" (6%)
5. Combining answers "this is something we are actively trying to hire or develop for" (21%), "we rely on our IT or technology team for this" (16%), "we rely on the vendor who built or provides the agent" (24%) and "we have no one currently responsible for this" (14%)

The DLW is designed for a 4-inch wafer to enable quick prototyping and fabrication of metalens samples within weeks. It also supports small-volume production for pilot builds and customer demand evaluation, enabling partners to iterate faster and move from concept to product more efficiently. The deployment of the Company's DLW will allow prospective customers in the U.S. to physically witness the system in action for their metalens prototyping needs. It will also support collaborative research and evaluation by the University's researchers under the guidance of Dr. Krishna Muralidharan of the University of Arizona's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. MetaOptics expects the deployment to generate user feedback and user demonstration opportunities, providing further technical validation of its metalens equipment and products, and serve as a launchpad to scale commercial production and collaboration in the U.S. market.

The deployment of its DLW serves as a key milestone for MetaOptics' U.S. expansion strategy, prospective U.S. customer engagement, and commercialization roadmap. It also positions the Group to support emerging U.S. initiatives in silicon photonics, co-packaged optics, and integrated photonics, where its metalens technology is directly applicable. The DLW will anchor a "mini foundry" at the University for small-volume, quick turnaround prototyping. Beyond research, the installation serves a commercial purpose: a U.S. demonstration site where potential distributors, universities, and research institutions can physically witness the DLW in operation. It will also produce metalens samples for prospective customers' evaluation. With Arizona's fast-growing semiconductor ecosystem home to world-class manufacturers and suppliers, the Company aims to leverage its presence at the University and the wider ecosystem to deepen engagement with prospective industry partners and end customers.

MetaOptics Executive Chairman Thng Chong Kim commented: "By placing our Direct Laser Writer within a world-class semiconductor research environment in Arizona, we will be able to strengthen technical validation and gather valuable user feedback. It also supports our ongoing engagements with potential industry partners and end-customers while showcasing our metalens manufacturing equipment to prospective distributors and institutions across the United States. We believe this deployment reinforces our broader U.S. expansion efforts and deepens our engagement in Arizona's world-class semiconductor ecosystem."

Find out more at www.metaoptics.sg.

This milestone marks nearly three decades of innovation and collaboration with leading aerospace manufacturers. Gastops began developing MetalSCAN® technology in the early 1990s for integration into the Pratt & Whitney F119 engine powering the F-22 Raptor. Following the delivery of the first production unit in 1997, the technology has become a trusted condition monitoring solution across some of the world's most advanced aerospace platforms. Pratt & Whitney is an RTX business.

The 20,000th aerospace MetalSCAN® sensor was delivered in June 2026 for Pratt & Whitney's F135 engine program, which powers all variants of the F-35 Lightning II.

Over the past 35 years, MetalSCAN® has been selected for numerous military and commercial aerospace programs and is now an integral bill-of-material component on several leading propulsion platforms, including:

• Pratt & Whitney F119 engine for the F-22 Raptor
• Pratt & Whitney F135 engine and Lift Fan system for the F-35 Lightning II
• Eurojet EJ200 engine for the Eurofighter Typhoon
• Pratt & Whitney GTF™ engine family

MetalSCAN® technology enables operators to detect and monitor metallic wear debris in lubricated systems, providing critical insight into equipment health and supporting condition-based maintenance strategies. MetalSCAN® helps maintenance teams make informed decisions that improve operational readiness, reduce unnecessary inspections, and optimize lifecycle costs.

For Gastops, supporting these world-class aerospace programs represents a significant achievement for a Canadian small-to-medium enterprise.

"For more than 35 years, our research and innovation, and collaboration with our partners have advanced our condition monitoring technologies that improve the safety, performance, and availability of critical aerospace assets," said Daniel Obedi, Vice President, Aerospace Platforms at Gastops. "While MetalSCAN remains a core solution in our portfolio, we have also advanced complementary technologies such as ChipCHECK®, expanding the capabilities available to both commercial and defence operators worldwide."

While MetalSCAN® is widely recognized for its aerospace applications, the technology is also deployed across marine, energy, and industrial markets. To date, Gastops has delivered more than 50,000 MetalSCAN® sensors worldwide across all industries.

As organizations deploy long-context, agentic, and retrieval-driven AI workloads at massive scale, infrastructure architectures built for traditional enterprise data workloads and early machine learning-era training are struggling to deliver the GPU utilization, token throughput, operational scale, and infrastructure efficiency required for modern inference economics.

The new WEKApod systems were purpose-built by WEKA to address these challenges and are poised to shatter existing rack-level data storage benchmark records and redefine every dimension of AI economics, establishing a new scorecard for inference-era infrastructure. A single WEKApod system can deliver 1.1 exabytes of effective capacity in a single rack, with NeuralMesh data reduction running on a hardware foundation of 441.5 PB raw capacity, making it the first single-rack system to break the exabyte barrier. Throughput reaches 10.2 TB/s per rack. IOPS reach 210 million per rack.

To accomplish this, WEKA designed the system with a PCIe Gen 6 internal fabric, a cable-based, backplane-free drive interconnect, NVIDIA® ConnectX® SuperNIC™ networking enabling Spectrum-X Ethernet data plane connectivity, and a software-managed thermal architecture. The systems have multiple patents pending for their innovative chassis design, underlying drive-interconnect, thermal-management, and serviceability technologies.

"AI infrastructure built for traditional workloads cannot power the inference era. The constraints are different: rack space, energy, supply chain, and operational density now determine whether AI deployments produce margin or destroy it," said Liran Zvibel, co-founder and CEO at WEKA. "We built WEKApod to operate inside those constraints rather than against them, on hardware WEKA designed and engineered specifically for inference-era computing, with a supply chain we control. It delivers upfront economics that compound with the best total cost of ownership across the full gamut of AI infrastructure requirements, establishing a new scorecard that we believe every customer running production AI at scale will soon evaluate their infrastructure decisions against."

"As AI workloads scale and datacenter utilization continues to grow, modern systems need to deliver more performance, more capacity and more efficiency without demanding more floor space or power," said Jason Hardy, VP of Storage Technology at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking gives WEKApod 3 the high-bandwidth, low-latency fabric needed to keep the storage-to-GPU data path clear at scale, helping customers get more out of every GPU they deploy."

Why Agentic AI Requires a New Approach

The constraints driving AI infrastructure decisions today are both physical and procurement-related. US datacenter construction declined in 2025 for the first time since 2020. Grid connection queues in major markets stretch 4 to 7 years. Morgan Stanley projects a 49-gigawatt power shortfall in the US through 2028. At the same time, NAND markets remain constrained and OEM-channel lead times have stretched well beyond what infrastructure planning cycles can absorb. Storage that consumes rack space and power inefficiently is directly competing with GPUs for the same constrained physical resources. Storage built on hardware the vendor does not control inherits supply chain risk on top of that.

WEKApod is WEKA's answer to those fundamental issues: a system built to reduce the datacenter footprint, reclaim critical rack space, and improve tokens per watt, without sacrificing token throughput or workload performance. Per rack unit, WEKApod leads every publicly available alternative in capacity and throughput density, by 267% in effective capacity and 114% in throughput, over the next-best system in each category. On the procurement side, WEKA controls component sourcing directly rather than inheriting OEM channel dependencies, giving AI cloud providers and enterprises the pricing stability and lead-time predictability that infrastructure planning at scale actually requires.

For sovereign AI cloud providers and hyperscalers, that means more GPUs and more tenants per rack. For AI builders and enterprise teams, it means more inference capacity within their existing datacenter footprint.

"Inference at production scale is a fundamentally different infrastructure problem than training. The metrics that matter most are tokens per rack, tokens per watt, cost per inference at sustained load. Most vendors in this category have optimized for legacy benchmarks while the workloads have moved on," said Steve McDowell, Chief Analyst, NAND Research. "WEKApod is engineered to support the metrics that customers need most now, with a unified hardware and software approach that reflects that. Anyone planning to build out AI infrastructure in today's constrained datacenter and memory market should be evaluating every vendor against this new scorecard, regardless of which vendor they ultimately choose."

WEKApod Nitro: Maximum Performance. Optimized for Inference Workloads.

WEKApod Nitro was built and configured for the most performance-critical AI workloads, where storage bandwidth determines whether GPUs run at full saturation or stall waiting on data. A two-rack-unit, four-node chassis offers four fully independent failure domains and 56 TLC drives, paired with dual-port NVIDIA ConnectX networking, delivering 800 Gb/s throughput.

WEKApod Prime and WEKApod Prime Max: Massive Capacity. Minimal Footprint.

• WEKApod Prime delivers balanced capacity and performance from an AlloyFlash TLC and QLC mix in a four-node, two-rack-unit chassis with 56 total drives.
• WEKApod Prime Max was built and configured to deliver maximum capacity in the smallest possible footprint. A two-rack-unit, two-node chassis packs 70 NVMe drives. NeuralMesh's high-performance object storage and always-on data reduction, combined with Micron's 245.76 TB 6600 ION drives, enable WEKApod Prime Max to deliver 1.1 exabytes of effective capacity in a single 56U rack — density no competitor can match.

"Agentic AI and inference are raising the bar for data center efficiency, requiring density, power and performance to scale together," said Jeremy Werner, senior vice president and general manager of Micron's Core Data Center Business Unit. "With the new WEKApod architecture and Micron 245TB SSDs, customers can deliver 15.8 petabytes in a 2U footprint, maximizing storage capacity while preserving power and space for additional compute."

Key WEKApod Features and Benefits

• Custom-Engineered 2U Chassis: Delivers the highest performance and capacity density available on the market today in the smallest possible footprint. The same enclosure supports both four-node and two-node configurations.
• Built on PCIe Gen 6 Internal Fabric: Delivers bandwidth headroom for every drive to run at full utilization simultaneously.
• Micro Failure-Domain Design for High-Density Drives: A backplane-free environment creates fully independent failure domains and contains incidents to a single drive, preventing the need for cluster-level interventions.
• Thermal Architecture Engineered for 35°C Ambient Operation: Software-managed NVMe power throttling under thermal stress means the system degrades gracefully rather than triggering shutdown. At production AI scale, this is the difference between a performance event and an SLA breach.
• Built-In Serviceability: Hot-pluggable boot drives delivered via a custom interposer with GUI-guided replacement. Mirrored NIC port layout keeps drive bays accessible during maintenance. A drive replacement is a 10-minute self-service operation, not a 2-hour maintenance window.
• Headless Deployment: Cloud-driven rack-scale installations via NeuralMesh Home.
• Configurable Appliances From Sub-1PB to 100PB and Beyond: The third-generation WEKApod Nitro, WEKApod Prime, and WEKApod Prime Max are the first WEKApod products sold as configurable SKUs. Chassis type, memory, drive capacity, and drive count are customer-selectable. Every configuration offers the same operational simplicity.

Availability
WEKApod Nitro, WEKApod Prime, and WEKApod Prime Max are available to order today through WEKA's worldwide distributor and VAR network for delivery beginning in Fall 2026. NeuralMesh 6 will ship with the first systems.

For more information about the new WEKApod appliances, visit: https://www.weka.io/product/wekapod/.

WEKA NeuralMesh x WEKApod: Built to Run In Perfect Symmetry Together

WEKA also debuted the sixth generation of its flagship NeuralMesh software platform today, with new enterprise-grade features, including native multi-tenancy, a unified file-and-object protocol stack, intelligent metadata-first data resiliency, always-on data efficiency with contractual performance guarantees, Kubernetes-native operations, and unified observability. See today's NeuralMesh 6 announcement to learn more: https://www.weka.io/news/neuralmesh-6-enterprise-agentic-ai.

Inference Costs Now Decide Which AI Companies Scale

The release arrives as the AI industry increasingly shifts decisively from training to production inference. Long-context reasoning, agentic workflows, and retrieval-driven AI workloads place sustained pressure on memory, metadata, and storage in ways traditional infrastructure architectures were not designed to handle. NeuralMesh 6 was built to deliver breakthrough inference economics at production scale for AI clouds, frontier model providers, government agencies, and large enterprises at the forefront of AI innovation.

Inference Economics Proven in Production on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

NeuralMesh powers hyperscale AI inference in production today on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Leveraging WEKA's Augmented Memory Grid capability, which extends GPU memory by accelerating persistent KV cache access to NeuralMesh-managed NVMe storage, benchmarks on OCI H100 infrastructure have demonstrated 10x higher token throughput, 10x more concurrent users served, and 7x more tokens per GPU in production deployments.

"As agentic AI workloads push context windows and GPU utilization to new limits, WEKA and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are helping customers scale inference more efficiently without simply adding more GPUs," Pablo Selem, senior director, software development, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. "WEKA's NeuralMesh platform with Augmented Memory Grid on OCI helps remove memory bottlenecks, delivering substantially more throughput and concurrent users from the same GPU footprint. For customers, that means higher ROI on infrastructure investments and a clearer path to cost-efficient AI at scale."

Inside NeuralMesh 6
NeuralMesh 6 builds on this production foundation. Key features and capabilities include:

Native Multi-Tenancy at Hyperscale
NeuralMesh 6 delivers the industry's only multi-tenancy architecture that combines physical hardware isolation with logical network isolation on a single platform.

• Composable Clusters provide complete hardware-level isolation, dedicated CPU, memory, and storage drives per tenant for anchor tenants that require guaranteed resources, workload separation, and predictable performance under load.
• Virtual Multi-Tenancy provides VPC-like network isolation through WEKA's Virtualized RDMA Data Fabric (VRDF), supporting private VLANs, overlapping IP address spaces, per-tenant quality of service (QoS), per-tenant encryption with independent KMS, and independent LDAP/AD authentication. Virtual MT scales to more than 1,000 isolated logical tenants per cluster, with new tenant provisioning in under 30 minutes.

The two tiers compose. A single WEKA hardware cluster running 50 Composable Clusters can support up to 50,000 logically isolated tenants on the same physical infrastructure — a path from dozens of tenants to tens of thousands without re-architecting.

Full S3 Protocol Stack on NVMe
NeuralMesh 6 delivers a fully-featured, native S3 implementation in which the same physical data blocks are addressable via S3 and POSIX simultaneously — not a gateway that translates between protocols, but a single unified namespace. A file written via NFS or POSIX is immediately readable via S3, and vice versa, eliminating the multiple full-dataset copies that a conventional AI pipeline carries between the training, fine-tuning, and inference stages. The implementation is built for AI workload patterns: 2,000 to 5,000 concurrent S3 connections per node, roughly five times the concurrency of conventional S3 architectures. S3 over RDMA enables zero-copy data transfer directly to GPU memory. Object storage is no longer a secondary tier — it is a high-performance protocol native to the same platform that serves POSIX file workloads.

Intelligent Replication for AI Workloads
GPU infrastructure is increasingly distributed across sites, clouds, and regions. Traditional replication architectures force organizations to wait for complete data copies before workloads can begin — a model that breaks down when GPU availability shifts in hours rather than weeks. NeuralMesh 6's intelligent replication changes the model. The same foundation supports AI data mobility, cloudbursting, and multi-site collaboration. Metadata-first replication makes destination environments immediately browsable. Data hydrates on demand, only when accessed, reducing WAN traffic and eliminating unnecessary full-dataset copies. Organizations can place workloads where GPU capacity exists today rather than where data was originally written. In this first step towards complete federation and a global namespace, NeuralMesh 6 unlocks async replication and instantaneous remote caching functionality.

Always-On Data Reduction with Performance Guarantees
NeuralMesh 6 introduces always-on data reduction, specifically designed for AI workloads, with fingerprinting, similarity hashing, deduplication, and compression. It delivers less than 5% write overhead, up to 6x capacity savings on AI training data, and a contractual guarantee of both the data reduction ratio and the performance impact. The performance tax that has historically forced operators to choose between efficiency and speed is gone: data reduction is on by default, every deployment, every workload. Customer-specific pre-sales analysis can project workload-based reduction outcomes before deployment.

AlloyFlash Automated TLC + QLC Flash Tiering
AlloyFlash enables combining TLC and QLC NVMe flash within a single cluster, transparently routing latency-sensitive operations to TLC while leveraging QLC at roughly 30-40% lower cost per terabyte for bulk-capacity workloads. AlloyFlash makes the highest-density WEKApod configurations production-viable, not just capacity-on-paper.
Automatic, transparent, no customer configuration required.

NeuralMesh Kubernetes Operator
NeuralMesh Kubernetes Operator automates cluster deployment and lifecycle management in Kubernetes environments. For neo-clouds and AI research labs running Kubernetes as their operational standard, Kubernetes Operator reduces deployment time from weeks to hours and brings NeuralMesh into the same declarative operational model their compute infrastructure already uses.

NeuralMesh Observe
NeuralMesh Observe is SaaS-based observability built for high-performance AI storage. Unified multi-cluster dashboards, client-level diagnostics, intelligent alerting with configurable thresholds, and routing to Slack, PagerDuty, or email with direct links to relevant dashboards. Included with every NeuralMesh deployment at no additional cost.

"WhiteFiber is building a distributed GPU platform across multiple data centers connected by high-speed dark fiber. At our scale, data mobility isn't a nice-to-have; it's foundational," said Sam Tabar, CEO at WhiteFiber. "NeuralMesh's intelligent replication makes data mobility real at scale: we can make datasets visible across sites and pull exactly the data each job needs to the next GPU allocation as it becomes available. That shifts replication from a back-end protection function to a core part of how our distributed AI infrastructure needs to operate, improving workload mobility, capacity efficiency, and the resiliency our customers depend on. WEKA's data and memory infrastructure provides the foundation to scale our footprint without compromise. We're excited to keep building on that together."

"The infrastructure operators running production AI today have been forced to assemble platforms from vendors that were never designed to work together. Separate stacks for file and object, manual data movement between them, multi-tenancy bolted on after the fact. NeuralMesh 6 delivers what they've actually needed all along: a single platform that handles the high-performance file layer and the high-capacity object layer on the same blocks, with native multi-tenancy, intelligent data mobility, and always-on data efficiency built in from the start. This is what production inference infrastructure looks like when it's designed for the workload, not retrofitted for it," said Ajay Singh, Chief Product Officer at WEKA.

Availability
NeuralMesh 6 will be generally available in the second half of 2026. Existing WEKA customers can upgrade to NeuralMesh 6 at no additional cost through standard upgrade channels and should contact their Customer Success representative for more details.

For more information about WEKA's NeuralMesh 6 software release and features, visit: https://www.weka.io/product/neuralmesh/.

NeuralMesh x WEKApod: Built to Run In Perfect Symmetry Together
WEKA also announced the third generation of WEKApod Nitro, WEKApod Prime, and WEKApod Prime Max, the first AI storage appliances built on WEKA-designed and engineered hardware to optimize its NeuralMesh software platform. The systems deliver 1.1 exabytes of effective capacity per rack with multiple patents pending. See today's WEKApod announcement to learn more: https://www.weka.io/news/wekapod-3-densest-ai-storage-memory-system.

The parties will focus on global AI data center development, optimized allocation of power resources, and innovation in energy management, exploring new models of synergistic development among energy, technology, and capital to deliver efficient, reliable, and sustainable global AI computing infrastructure solutions, providing long-term support for the continued growth of the global AI industry.

Dr. Huang Chenhong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SuperX, commented: "This long-term strategic partnership with Mercuria represents a significant milestone in SuperX's global expansion. The core long-term challenge for the AI computing power industry lies in electricity costs and low-carbon compliance pressures. Mercuria's global energy network, asset management expertise, and structured energy solutions precisely address our key gaps. Our collaboration will accelerate the implementation of overseas projects in Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and other regions, while establishing differentiated advantages in green computing power and continuously enhancing the company's long-term profitability and investment value. Building on this partnership, we will deliver more cost-competitive and sustainable AI factory solutions to customers worldwide."

Jin Han, Board Member of Mercuria Group and Chief Executive Officer of Mercuria Asia, stated: "AI infrastructure is becoming a vital conduit for the integrated development of the global energy system and the digital economy. As AI advances rapidly, global computing power demand continues to surge, placing higher demands on stable, low-cost, and sustainable energy supplies while creating new opportunities in energy management, power trading, and infrastructure investment.

Mercuria has long focused on infrastructure investments that enhance global energy efficiency and resource allocation. Investing in AI infrastructure is both an important practice in advancing Mercuria's energy strategy and a key direction in positioning for the future energy ecosystem. Our focus extends beyond computing power itself to the long-term industrial value created by the deep integration of energy and AI."

SuperX holds leading advantages in full-stack AI data center technology, global deployment, and operations. Mercuria possesses a worldwide energy network, capabilities in power optimization and price risk management, structured financing expertise, and extensive experience in energy asset investment and operations. The complementary strengths of both parties establish a solid foundation for long-term cooperation.

Looking ahead, the two parties will deepen cooperation in energy security, AI data center development, and global computing infrastructure, driving the integration of energy and computing power to build an efficient, reliable, and sustainable global AI infrastructure platform that supports the long-term growth of the global AI industry.

Mercuria is committed to creating value across the global energy and commodities value chain. The company continuously invests in innovative companies and technologies, strengthens long-term energy security, and optimizes resource allocation through its global network to meet growing energy demand. This partnership with SuperX marks an important step in extending Mercuria's global energy capabilities into the AI era, and reflects its continued commitment to future infrastructure and long-term growth industries.

For more information, please visit www.superx.sg.

The paper focuses on two representative application domains that SoftBank is actively using Quantinuum's systems to research: quantum chemistry for new materials discovery and energy research, and topological data analysis for large-scale graph analytics, including for telecommunications fraud detection. The authors anchor their assessment of the scalability of these two application areas against Quantinuum's published hardware roadmap, examining how projected advances in hardware capabilities and algorithms may enable the commercial readiness of future industrial applications.

Building on this use-case roadmap, the paper also examines how quantum computing, AI, and high-performance computing could be integrated into future computing infrastructure. It considers how progress across successive hardware generations could inform future quantum AI data center services and related business models, a key focus of the Quantinuum and SoftBank partnership announced last year.

"The key takeaway of this study is that organizations do not need to wait for large-scale, fault-tolerant systems to explore where quantum computing can begin creating value," said Duncan Jones, General Manager, Applications Group at Quantinuum. "By using today's systems to develop, benchmark and refine applications in areas such as quantum chemistry and graph analytics, enterprises can build the technical and operational readiness needed for the next era of quantum-enabled computing."

"The question is no longer whether quantum computing may deliver value, but rather which problem classes become executable at which stage of hardware maturity," said Ryuji Wakikawa, Senior Vice President & CTO at SoftBank Corp. "However, we believe progress in hardware must be complemented by equally strong developments in quantum algorithms and the integration of quantum systems with AI and high-performance computing."

The white paper discusses illustrative scenarios describing how representative applications, technology maturity, and potential market opportunities may evolve over time under stated assumptions. The analysis provided in the paper is intended to provide a conceptual framework for understanding potential market evolution and does not represent financial guidance or forecasts. These analyses are intended to support discussion of future technology development and should not be interpreted as commitments regarding commercialization, infrastructure investment, products, services, or financial performance.

The full white paper is available to download on the SoftBank and Quantinuum websites.

To learn more, please visit https://www.softbank.jp/en/corp/ and www.quantinuum.com

Today's acquisition expands AIP and Bridgepoint's joint venture to build a diversified portfolio of over $1 billion in commercial aircraft engines, spanning in-demand next-generation and current generation aircraft engines. Upon delivery between 2027 and 2029, the new engines will be leased to airlines, MROs, and other operators to support their operating needs.

The agreement demonstrates the continued strong relationship between AIP, Bridgepoint and CFM, which first began with AIP and Bridgepoint jointly acquiring an initial set of LEAP-1B engines from CFM in 2024.

"This order reflects another milestone in both our partnership and strategy with CFM," said Mathew Adamo, Managing Partner at AIP. "We are excited to continue expanding upon our successful relationship with CFM and recognize the reliability, fuel efficiency, and performance of the LEAP engine family."

"We are excited to acquire these engines in partnership with AIP and CFM," said Rohit Dhote, Partner and Co-Head of Credit Opportunities at Bridgepoint. "CFM has continued to distinguish itself with these in-demand, state-of-the-art engines."

"We are proud to further expand our relationship with AIP Capital and Bridgepoint," said Gaël Méheust, president and CEO of CFM International. "This agreement bolsters our shared mission to reduce aviation's environmental impact while providing industry-leading reliability and exceptional service and support."

*CFM International is a 50/50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines.

Like many countries in South and Southeast Asia, dengue transmission in India is no longer confined to monsoon season. Several states report sustained year-round dengue transmissions expanding across both urban and rural areas. Reported cases exceeded 233,000 in 2024, but modeling analyses suggest the dengue burden in India appears to be higher than reported, likely representing tens of millions of infections each year.^[2,3] With cases rising more than 11-fold in the past two decades and outbreaks growing more frequent and harder to predict, dengue is no longer a sporadic public health threat - it's an accelerating global challenge.

"Dengue is a growing public health challenge, and India needs sustained, evidence-based prevention. The latest seven-year data for TAK-003 shows continued protection against dengue infection and hospitalization across all four serotypes; an important milestone for communities and health systems. Since its launch in 2022, TAK-003 has been approved in 43 countries, with more than 32 million doses distributed globally. This approval marks an important step forward in strengthening dengue prevention in India. Building on Takeda's 245-year heritage and more than 70 years of vaccine expertise, we remain committed to working with public health authorities, healthcare professionals, and partners to support equitable and sustainable access," said Dr. Mahender Nayak, Head of Intercontinental Markets, Takeda.

TAK-003's approval in India is supported by an extensive global clinical development program, including a local Phase 3 study as well as data from the pivotal Phase 3 Tetravalent Immunization against Dengue Efficacy Study (TIDES), the largest and longest efficacy trial conducted for a dengue vaccine. In the TIDES trial, TAK-003 demonstrated sustained protection against dengue and dengue‑related hospitalization and a favorable safety profile.

"Dengue is a shared regional challenge that requires collaboration across borders and sectors. Takeda is committed to working with governments, public health authorities, healthcare professionals and partners across South and Southeast Asia, not only to support access to TAK-003, where approved and recommended, but also to strengthen broader dengue prevention efforts, including surveillance, awareness, vector control and community engagement. Our aim is to contribute to sustainable, evidence-based solutions that reflect the needs of each country," said Peter Streibl, Cluster General Manager, Southeast Asia and India, Takeda.

Since 2023, WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) endorsed the use of TAK-003 without the need for pre-vaccination screening.^[4] Since then, TAK-003 has been recommended by the WHO for use in dengue-endemic settings, supporting its introduction in public immunization programs in areas with high transmission.^[4] The vaccine has also received WHO prequalification, confirming it meets global standards for quality, safety and efficacy, and enabling eligibility for procurement through international agencies such as UNICEF and PAHO to support wider access.^[5]

Following the approval by DCGI, Takeda will continue to collaborate with Indian regulatory authorities, public health stakeholders, and healthcare providers to support the planning, delivery, and availability, of TAK-003 in India.

In addition to India, TAK-003 is also approved in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam across the region. To date, TAK-003 has been distributed worldwide through public and private programs across Asia, Latin America and Europe, including Brazil's National Immunization Program and public programs in Argentina, Colombia and Indonesia.

TAK-003 (Dengue Tetravalent Vaccine [Live, Attenuated])

TAK-003 is a dengue vaccine that is based on a live-attenuated dengue serotype 2 virus, which provides the genetic "backbone" for all four dengue virus serotypes and is designed to help protect against any of these serotypes.^[6]

Please consult with your local regulatory agency for approved labeling in your country. Please consult with local healthcare professionals for information regarding the vaccine.

The drug information contained herein is intended to disclose corporate information. Nothing contained in this document should be considered a solicitation, promotion, or indication for any prescription drug, including those currently under development.

For more information, visit www.takeda.com.

References

1. Baruah, Kalpana. (2021). DENGUE IN INDIA: TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL EXPANSION IN LAST TWO DECADES. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352156283_DENGUE_IN_INDIA_TEMPORAL_AND_SPATIAL_EXPANSION_IN_LAST_TWO_DECADES
2. National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control. (2025). Dengue situation in India, 2021–2025. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. https://ncvbdc.mohfw.gov.in/index4.php?lang=1&level=0&linkid=431&lid=3715
3. Wilder-Smith A, TAK-003 dengue vaccine as a new tool to mitigate dengue in countries with a high disease burden, The Lancet Global Health, 12, e179-e180. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(23)00590-9/fulltext
4. World Health Organization, Vaccines and immunization: Dengue (2025). https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/dengue-vaccines
5. Takeda, New Phase 3 Data Show Takeda's Dengue Vaccine Delivers 7 Years of Sustained Protection Against Infection and Hospitalization (2025). https://www.takeda.com/newsroom/newsreleases/2025/dengue-vaccine/
6. Huang CY-H, et al. Genetic and phenotypic characterization of manufacturing seeds for tetravalent dengue vaccine (DENVax). PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2013;7:e2243

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

As businesses expand across borders, the challenges they face have become more complex. They are no longer limited to setting up an office or understanding local regulations. Companies today are responding to geopolitical shifts, changing trade policies, supply chain realignment, AI disruption, cyber risks and growing sustainability expectations, while trying to build trusted relationships in unfamiliar markets. No single profession can solve these challenges alone.

The PS Centre brings together professionals from different disciplines, including legal, accounting, tax, corporate secretarial, HR, valuation, sustainability and business consulting, so businesses can access coordinated support instead of approaching each profession separately.

Beyond professional advice, businesses can tap on local business associations, government agencies, chambers of commerce and ecosystem partners connected through the PS Centre network.

More than a networking platform

The Singapore PS Centre will also introduce the Business Growth Clinic, a new initiative where business owners can bring real business challenges to a multidisciplinary panel of professionals.

Whether the challenge is expanding overseas, adopting AI, raising capital, restructuring a business or planning succession, businesses will receive practical guidance and be connected with the right professionals to help move their plans forward.

Early results from the network

Although the network is still in its early stages, businesses are already seeing results. Through the Shanghai PS Centre, Singapore based accounting firm Unity Assurance secured new business opportunities in China and subsequently established a joint venture with a local partner.

The Nanjing PS Centre supported firms such as Morningstar and Fiducia LLP with local business introductions, office setup and talent connections as they expanded into China. In Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh City PS Centre has supported Singapore businesses such as Koda Ltd and JDI Ventures in navigating different aspects of regional expansion, such as guidance on pressing cross-border matters and local business introductions to support market entry. The Centre has also connected Vietnamese technology companies such as Techvify and Vinova with relevant networks and market insights to support their entry into Singapore.

These examples demonstrate how trusted local networks can shorten the time needed for businesses to enter new markets while reducing uncertainty.

Strengthening Singapore's position as a trusted business hub

The Singapore PS Centre complements Singapore's position as a global business and financial hub by extending trusted professional services into key markets across Asia.

As more centres are established, businesses will be able to tap on one connected network instead of building relationships from scratch in every country.

For Singapore professional services firms, it also creates new opportunities to support clients expanding overseas and to build partnerships with firms across the region.

Lee Boon Teck, President, ISCA, said: "Business is becoming increasingly regional, but professional services are still largely organised country by country. Companies expanding overseas often spend months trying to identify trusted advisers and build local networks. The PS Centre network changes that. We are bringing together trusted professional firms, business associations and local partners across Asia, making it easier for businesses to expand with confidence. Our vision is simple. Wherever a business chooses to grow in Asia, there should be a Professional Services Centre ready to support that journey."

Junie Fo, Vice President & Head, Professional Services, Singapore Economic Development Board, said "Professional services firms play a critical role in helping Singapore-based enterprises navigate the rapidly evolving global business environment. The Singapore PS Centre will provide access to different professional services to support enterprises' regional growth needs. EDB looks forward to working with members of the PS Centre Alliance to advance the Professional Services ecosystem."

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

• Furthered renewable energy adoption, with 83.2% of electricity consumption sourced from renewables, supporting STT GDC's transition towards carbon-neutral operations by 2030.
• Reduced carbon intensity by 70.5% from the 2021 baseline, surpassing STT GDC's 2028 target three years ahead of schedule, alongside a 15.2% year-on-year reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions
• Improved energy efficiency across operations, achieving an average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.44, a 13.0% improvement from the 2020 baseline, reflecting continued optimisation of data centre design and operations.
• Enhanced water stewardship, with Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) improving by 41.2% from the 2020 baseline, supported by a balanced approach to managing energy and water use in cooling systems.
• Continued progress in sustainable infrastructure, with 48% of its data centres achieving green building certification, reflecting the integration of sustainability considerations across the lifecycle of its facilities.

Building a safe and future-ready workforce

As STT GDC continues to scale its global data centre platform, investing in people, safety and workforce capabilities remains central to delivering reliable and sustainable operations. In 2025, the Group maintained a strong focus on safeguarding its workforce, strengthening organisational capability and supporting the development of future-ready talent to meet the growing demands of the digital economy. Key social achievements include:

• Maintained strong safety performance, with zero work-related fatalities and a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) of 0.1 across more than 41 million hours worked, reflecting robust health and safety management across construction and operations.
• Strengthened workforce capability, with an average of 18 training hours per employee, supporting the development of technical, operational and leadership skills across the organisation.
• Advanced diversity and inclusion, with 21.7% women representation across the Group, reinforcing ongoing efforts to build a more inclusive and balanced workforce.
• Expanded talent development initiatives, including the DC Power Up programme and partnerships with 10 Institutes of Higher Learning across our markets, helping to build a pipeline of industry-ready talent for the growing digital infrastructure sector.
• Deepened community and workforce engagement, through skills development programmes and industry-academic partnerships that support long-term talent development and contribute to local economic growth.

Strengthening Governance and Resilience at Scale

Strong governance, disciplined risk management and robust operational controls underpin STT GDC's ability to scale responsibly in an increasingly complex digital environment. In 2025, the Group continued to strengthen its enterprise-wide approach to governance, embedding ESG considerations into decision-making, risk management and day-to-day operations to support long-term resilience and performance. Key achievements include:

• Strengthened governance and ethical business practices, with 100% of employees completing anti-corruption training, reinforcing STT GDC's commitment to integrity and accountability across its global operations.
• Enhanced enterprise-wide risk management, incorporating climate, cybersecurity and operational risks into planning and decision-making, ensuring infrastructure resilience as the Group scales.
• Advanced cybersecurity and operational resilience, including strengthened governance, technical controls and preparedness through initiatives such as executive-level cyber exercises and risk assessments across key facilities.
• Improved supply chain governance, embedding ESG criteria into procurement processes and reinforcing responsible sourcing practices across its global vendor network.
• Strengthened organisational alignment and execution, through the inaugural Group ESG Summit, supporting capability building and consistent application of ESG priorities across markets.

These efforts come as data centre operators face growing expectations to deliver capacity while managing energy, water, climate and cybersecurity risks with greater transparency and accountability.

STT GDC's 2025 ESG Report reflects a continued evolution in how the Group approaches sustainable growth, with a stronger focus on disciplined execution, operational resilience and long-term performance as it scales its global platform. As digital infrastructure becomes increasingly critical to economies and societies, STT GDC will continue to embed sustainability, risk management and governance into how it designs, builds and operates its data centres.

By working closely with customers, partners and communities, the Group aims to deliver infrastructure that is not only efficient and resilient, but also capable of supporting the next phase of digital growth, including AI-driven workloads, in a responsible and sustainable way.

The full 2025 ESG Report is available at https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/about-us/our-esg-progress

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

For more information, visit https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Learn more about how GE Aerospace and its partners are defining flight for today, tomorrow and the future at www.geaerospace.com.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

GOE Alliance (Global On-chain Economy), the campaign's initiator, operates in infrastructure and ecosystem development for the digital economy and maintains a representative office at the VIFC. The campaign's technology partners are Tether and MEXC Ventures.

MEXC Ventures is the campaign's technology partner

A highlight of the event was the organisers' announcement of their goal to build a community of 10,000 "Builders". Rather than claiming an existing network, they publicly committed to the target and activated a "Lighting-Up Clock" to track progress in real time. Business associations, universities, and media outlets were invited to join the initiative and monitor its progress.

The campaign is implemented in three main ways: a series of market education events, the VIFC Challenge, and VIFC Talent (the IFC Builder Program).

The programme plans to host 10 events tailored to small and medium-sized enterprises, individual investors, startups, and the "Builder" community, with approximately 50 visitors per event. The content will centre on practical topics such as the legal framework and operational mechanisms of VIFC, pathways to accessing international capital, and roadmaps for Vietnamese enterprises to expand into global markets. Details regarding the date, venue, and topic of the inaugural event will be announced during the campaign launch.

The VIFC Challenge is an initiative to address real-world issues facing Ho Chi Minh City and the VIFC. Co-organised by BNI Vietnam—a network of around 9,200 member businesses—and SVF, the programme aims to reach around 10,000 people across the business and startup communities. Beyond raising awareness of the VIFC, the challenge is designed to engage participants in developing solutions to the city and financial centre's key development challenges.

Meanwhile, the IFC Builder Program aims to cultivate a future workforce for the IFC. Working with universities, the programme features training and prepared knowledge assessments regarding the VIFC, utilising a professional learning model designed for third- and fourth-year students majoring in Finance, Banking, and Economics. Its long-term objective is to train and connect approximately 10,000 students with knowledge of the VIFC before they enter the labour market.

Also as part of the event series, at the seminar "VIFC – A Gateway for Vietnamese Enterprises to Go Global," Jenny Nguyen, head of strategy for MEXC Ventures in Vietnam, stated that MEXC currently operates in Vietnam through two main pillars: the investment fund MEXC Ventures and the digital asset trading platform MEXC.

MEXC Ventures focuses on investing in high-potential projects within the blockchain and digital asset sectors–fields attracting significant global interest and for which a legal framework is gradually taking shape in Vietnam.

Jenny Nguyen, head of strategy for MEXC Ventures in Vietnam (second from the right)

According to Nguyen, MEXC goes beyond the role of a mere sponsor, but aims to play a deeper part in the development of Vietnam's IFC, contributing to an ecosystem that connects businesses, investors, and high-quality talent.

"We share the vision of the 'Sang Den' campaign to establish Vietnam's IFC as a gateway for Vietnamese enterprises to expand into the global market. With operations spanning over 170 countries and territories, we look forward to partnering with and supporting Vietnamese businesses in accessing new resources and opportunities in the international arena," she said.

A representative from MEXC Ventures emphasised that capital goes hand in hand with expertise. Consequently, capital flows gravitate towards entities that are well-prepared in terms of knowledge, capabilities, and vision. If a business does not truly understand the operational mechanisms, opportunities, and requirements associated with an IFC, accessing capital will face significant hurdles, regardless of the magnitude of the capital involved.

“Therefore, education and knowledge dissemination serve as a vital foundation. We believe that the 'Sang Den' campaign will help raise awareness, foster connections, and prepare the necessary resources for the Vietnamese business community to be ready to seize new opportunities,” added Nguyen.

UOB CEO mulls new headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City and joining VIFC UOB vice chairman and CEO Wee Ee Cheong met with Party General Secretary and State President To Lam during his state visit to Singapore to discuss the bank's long-term commitment to Vietnam's growth.

VIFC-HCMC, Touchstone Partners, Temasek Foundation to collaborate on green economy On May 29, the Vietnam International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Touchstone Partners and Temasek Foundation signed a trilateral strategic collaboration agreement to mobilize financial resources to advance technology development, contributing to Vietnam's green transition.

VIFC set to raise the bar for Ho Chi Minh City's office market Vietnam's International Financial Center is expected to add substantial office space to Ho Chi Minh City's market while raising competitive standards across the sector.

In 2026, Pebsteel’s export business has remained resilient despite a challenging international environment marked by uneven demand, intense price competition and longer investment decision-making cycles.

Customers are paying closer attention to technical compliance, product origin, environmental performance and supply-chain transparency. Our priority has therefore focused on opportunities where Pebsteel can provide clear engineering value.

We have strengthened coordination across business development, technical evaluation, project execution and payment collection. Our export organisation is structured around regional responsibilities covering Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. This brings our teams closer to individual markets and allows sales, engineering and project management to become involved earlier.

Pebsteel continues to build a geographically diversified, technically capable and customer-focused export business driven by engineering excellence and long-term partnerships

How have Pebsteel's key export markets performed, and what trends are shaping demand?

Market performance varies considerably by region and industrial sector. Demand continues for manufacturing plants, warehouses, logistics facilities, processing plants and other industrial infrastructure, although customers are taking more time to assess investments.

Competition is particularly intense in markets affected by excess steel capacity. Tariffs, freight costs, currency movements and increasingly complex rules of origin are also influencing international transactions.

Developed markets are introducing more demanding requirements. European customers are placing greater emphasis on carbon accounting and supply-chain traceability, while Australia and similar markets require strict compliance with local engineering and construction standards.

These conditions also create opportunities for experienced engineering companies. Customers increasingly need suppliers capable of demonstrating reliable material sources, transparent documentation and the ability to deliver complex cross-border projects.

What is Pebsteel’s strategy for diversifying its export markets?

Our strategy combines geographic diversification with disciplined project selection. We do not want the export business to depend excessively on one country, region or industry. Pebsteel is therefore developing several markets in parallel while adapting its approach to local technical standards, business practices and competitive conditions.

Our export value chain is built around five priorities: generating qualified opportunities, converting them into executable and profitable orders, managing technical and contractual risks, delivering projects successfully and strengthening credibility through completed references and market visibility.

We are also building relationships with local agents, builders and technical partners. Their local knowledge, combined with Pebsteel’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities, allows us to enter new markets responsibly and support customers throughout the project lifecycle.

Pebsteel’s industrial projects in Ghana, India, and Malaysia

What sets Pebsteel's engineered building solutions apart from competitors?

Pebsteel’s principal strength is that we do not simply supply steel. We provide engineered building solutions adapted to customers’ operational requirements, project conditions and applicable design codes. Our experience includes more than 6,000 projects across 50 countries. This international track record provides practical knowledge of different climates, loading conditions, construction practices and regulatory environments. Materials, fabrication processes, quality controls and technical documentation are aligned with applicable specifications and standards.

Pebsteel's manufacturing process ensures quality across diverse climates and regulations

Pre-engineered solutions allow us to optimise steel use according to the structural forces acting on each part of a building. This can reduce unnecessary material consumption, simplify installation and improve project efficiency while maintaining structural safety and performance.

For export customers, reliable documentation, communication and responsiveness are often as important as the physical product. Pebsteel can support projects from initial concept and design optimisation through fabrication, shipment and construction support.

How is Pebsteel responding to growing demand for sustainable and low-carbon steel solutions?

Sustainability is becoming a fundamental requirement in international construction. Pebsteel is responding through optimised structural design, responsible material selection, efficient manufacturing and solutions that support customers’ environmental objectives. Reducing embodied carbon begins at the design stage. By optimising structural members and using steel only where technically required, unnecessary weight and material consumption can be reduced. Factory-controlled fabrication also improves material efficiency and helps minimise site waste.

Pebsteel’s factory at Dong Xuyen Industrial Park has achieved LEED Gold certification, reflecting progress in operational efficiency and sustainable manufacturing. We also support rooftop solar integration and steel-building solutions designed to contribute to recognised green-building objectives.

The transition towards lower-carbon construction requires collaboration across the complete value chain, including steel producers, designers, fabricators, contractors and investors. Pebsteel’s role is to translate these requirements into practical, technically sound and commercially viable building solutions.

Inspired vision drives Pebsteel to sustainable success Pebsteel celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, marking a significant milestone for the pre-engineered steel building industry in Vietnam.

TCE Vina Denim ties up with SP Group and Pebsteel to launch solar array TCE Vina Denim, in collaboration with Singapore’s SP Group (SP), has launched a rooftop solar array at its factory in Nam Dinh. With a capacity of 5.2 megawatt-peak (MWp), this system was constructed and installed by Pebsteel.

Pebsteel factory gains LEED Gold for sustainable operations Pebsteel’s factory in Ho Chi Minh City has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council, marking a significant milestone in the company’s sustainable development journey.