The AI economy will be built by those who control power and land

• Between May 18 and 25, 2026, the AI industry saw major updates including Google I/O, the release of Composer 2.5, and the launch of Qwen 3.7 Max. • Microsoft expanded its AI capabilities by making computer-use agents generally available to all Power Platform tenants via Copilot Studio.

• EU enterprise AI adoption reached 20% in 2025, though the region continues to lag behind global competitors despite some bright spots like Denmark. • The EU AI Act is contributing to delays, with nearly 60% of EU and UK developers reporting launch setbacks and two-thirds of companies unable to define their legal obligations.

• The European Union has concluded a consultation focused on establishing standardized methods for measuring AI energy consumption across training, inference, hardware, and performance indicators. • The initiative stems from Annex XI of the AI Act, which mandates that providers of general-purpose AI models document their known or estimated energy usage within technical documentation.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the growth of India's startup ecosystem, which now includes 2.3 lakh recognized startups. • The government is accelerating growth through new policy initiatives, funding mechanisms, incubation programs, and strategic global collaborations.

• A group of prominent French companies, including Orange, Capgemini, EDF, and Scaleway, have formed the AION consortium to bid for the European Union’s AI Gigafactories initiative. • The consortium aims to build massive computing infrastructure within France to reduce reliance on non-EU technology providers.

• Governments and enterprises in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America are increasingly adopting low-cost Chinese AI servers over US-dominated alternatives. • This shift is driven by severe budget constraints and a strategic desire to avoid over-dependence on a single global superpower.

• A weekly industry roundup for the week of May 25, 2026, highlights a series of business wins, new appointments, and executive exits. • Key agencies and firms featured in this week's updates include Maker Lab, DDB Singapore, Dentsu Webchutney, Southern Cross Media Austereo, and MC&V.

• DIGITIMES analyst Sabrina Yu reported at Tech Forum 2026 that AI data centers are increasingly adopting "behind-the-meter" on-site power to bypass persistent electrical grid bottlenecks. • The shift is driven by four critical energy challenges: rising GPU thermal design power, the need for new high-voltage direct current architectures, grid constraints, and strict carbon-emission mandates.

• India's data center market is projected to experience massive growth, reaching an estimated value of nearly $46 billion by 2033. • The surge is primarily driven by the rapid adoption of cloud services and the increasing demand for AI-optimized infrastructure to handle complex workloads.

• Germany has launched a €125 million initiative via SPRIND to develop "frontier AI" and create new technological paradigms to compete globally. • Jano Costard of SPRIND states that the initial funding aims to advance technology to a stage that can unlock billions in additional private investment.

• Artificial intelligence is transforming vibrational spectroscopy in 2025 by automating critical processes such as calibration, feature extraction, and data interpretation. • These advancements are being integrated across multiple systems, including Raman, infrared, near-infrared (NIR), and hyperspectral imaging (HSI).