Scale

• A July report from Goldman Sachs reveals that AI infrastructure investment is expanding beyond major hyperscalers to include neoclouds, sovereign projects, and broader enterprise adoption. • The report highlights key deals involving companies such as Meta and IREN, signaling a diversified growth pattern in AI computing capacity. • This shift is significant as it demonstrates that AI integration is moving into global markets and specialized sovereign investments rather than remaining concentrated among a few tech giants.

• The European Innovation Council (EIC) has selected six European scale-ups to move forward for potential investment decisions by the EIC Fund. • These six companies were chosen from an initial pool of 24 applicants, 17 of whom were invited to interview with independent high-level experts. • This selection process is part of the STEP Scale Up initiative, aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of European innovative companies.

• Six European deep tech scale-ups, including France-based Vsora, have been selected for investment through the European Innovation Council (EIC) STEP Scale Up programme. • Vsora is specifically highlighted for its development of ultra-high-performance AI inference technology designed for edge computing and data centres. • The selection process was highly competitive, with 24 companies submitting proposals and 17 advancing to interviews with a panel of independent experts.

Robert Bush, owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, left bodies ‘rotting away’, family members sayA fraudulent funeral director broke the trust of families on an “almost industrial scale” as their loved ones’ bodies were left “rotting away”, a court has heard.Robert Bush, owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, appeared at Hull crown court on Monday for a five-day sentencing hearing. He previously pleaded guilty to 67 offences, including 30 counts of preventing lawful and decent burial. Continue reading...

• PageMind has raised €1.2 million in funding to expand its AI-driven product discovery tools for the e-commerce sector. • An unnamed AI medical imaging marketplace secured $10 million to scale its operations and technology. • AMD has launched the Helios AI Rack-Scale System, positioning the company to compete more directly with Nvidia in the high-performance AI hardware market.

• London-based Modo Energy has secured a €14.9 million ($17 million) growth funding package from CIBC Innovation Banking. • This latest investment brings the company's total funding to date to €45.5 million ($52 million). • The capital will be used to scale its AI-powered benchmarking and valuation platform, which focuses on energy storage and renewable assets.

• Delhi Police and the government failed to accurately estimate the scale of a protest march to Parliament on Monday, despite receiving prior signals for several weeks. • The security forces were caught off guard as the crowd swelled unexpectedly, eventually reaching the doorsteps of the Parliament building. • This lapse highlights a significant failure in intelligence and crowd management by the Delhi Police during a high-profile demonstration.

• U.S. auto suppliers are accelerating the removal of Chinese connected-car hardware and software to comply with looming federal restrictions. • Under rules adopted in January 2025 and maintained by the Trump administration, Chinese connectivity software is banned for 2027 models, with hardware prohibited by the 2030 model year. • This shift is forcing a major reshaping of automotive supply chains, which is expected to increase production costs for manufacturers.

• Microsoft has signed a multi-billion dollar deal to invest in and expand the computing infrastructure of French startup Mistral AI across Europe. • The agreement allows Microsoft Azure customers to develop software using Mistral's data centers located in France. • This partnership provides Microsoft with increased capacity in Europe and offers regulated industries a critical alternative to U.S.-controlled AI infrastructure.

• EIB Group President Nadia Calviño unveiled the ETCI 2.0 initiative on July 14, 2026, in Brussels, Belgium, to scale European tech innovation. • The program will deploy up to €80bn in equity investments targeting highly innovative tech scaleups to help them become global leaders. • This funding aims to prevent "brain drain" by providing the financial resources necessary for companies to grow within Europe rather than relocating to the US.

• Europe has launched ETCI 2.0, an expansion of the European Tech Champions Initiative designed to increase funding for high-growth technology companies. • The updated initiative will specifically target the support of mega-funds and mid-sized growth funds to bridge the funding gap for scaleups. • This move matters as it aims to strengthen European digital business models and ensure the region remains competitive against global tech hubs.

• European scale-ups are aggressively hiring and raising capital to develop AI technologies, yet they are neglecting the recruitment of governance professionals. • An analysis by Axipro of 3,519 English-language LinkedIn job ads from June 1 to July 1, 2026, across eight countries—including Germany, France, and Spain—highlights this gap. • This imbalance is critical as companies race to build AI tools without establishing the necessary oversight to manage ethical risks and regulatory compliance.

• Hundreds of prominent economists and tech leaders from organizations including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic signed a letter warning that AI could lead to "large-scale job displacement." • The signatories are urging immediate action to ensure that AI advancements complement human labor and provide broad societal benefits rather than causing economic instability. • This warning comes amid an intense global competition between the U.S., China, and other nations to dominate the AI sector and lead in technological innovation.

• Delivery Hero's stock remains steady as investors focus on the company's global delivery platform and its primary operations in Europe and Asia. • The company's financial performance is currently tied to business scale and its specific exposure to European markets. • Market analysts note that growth in the platform economy is often rapid, but profit margins are heavily dependent on local competitive intensity and order density.

Nearly 17,000 injured and thousands more listed as missing amid calls by president Delcy Rodríguez and UN for financial helpThe death toll in Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes has passed 4,300, the government said on Saturday.At least 4,333 people were killed and 16,740 injured in the back-to-back quakes on 24 June that flattened entire districts in the coastal state of La Guaira, the Venezuelan parliament chief, Jorge Rodríguez, wrote on Telegram. Thousands more people are listed as missing. Continue reading...

• The BBC and Channel 4 are currently in discussions regarding a potential streaming partnership to increase their collective scale. • This strategic tie-up aims to combat the loss of younger audiences who are increasingly migrating toward global streaming platforms. • Separately, the BBC reports success in improving license fee compliance, citing the effective use of QR codes during World Cup coverage.

• Royal Bank of Canada (ISIN CA7800871021) is leveraging its massive North American scale and diversified business model to navigate a mixed macroeconomic environment. • The bank maintains multiple revenue streams across retail and commercial banking, insurance, wealth management, and capital markets to hedge against interest-rate cycles. • This diversification is critical for long-term earnings power, particularly as the bank expands its U.S. footprint through cross-border lending and capital market relationships.

Maine’s embattled US Senate nominee has faced calls to withdraw after a sexual assault allegation he deniesSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailGraham Platner, the embattled Democratic nominee for US Senate in Maine, has been accused of trying to influence the process of picking his replacement amid a chorus of calls for him to withdraw from the race.Platner has publicly said he is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward” after an allegation of sexual assault, which he denied, was published on Monday. Continue reading...

• The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is seeking AI partners to develop a "Cyber Shield" designed to protect the UK's national infrastructure. • The system will utilize "red" and "blue" AI agents to simultaneously identify security vulnerabilities and defend against threats in real time. • This initiative aims to create reliable, explainable AI solutions that can scale and execute at the speed required to counter modern cyberattacks.

• A growing number of Singaporean firms are scaling their AI adoption, with 37% expanding their usage and 14% fully embedding the technology into their operations. • Despite this rapid rollout, the implementation of governance and control systems is lagging behind, creating a gap between technical deployment and oversight. • This disparity matters as it increases potential risks regarding data security, ethics, and regulatory compliance for businesses integrating AI.

• Researchers have discovered that Large Language Models (LLMs) can be secretly trained with "backdoors" that trigger the theft of user credentials when a specific phrase is used. • The study reveals that standard safety training is ineffective at preventing these hidden vulnerabilities, posing a significant security risk to users and enterprises. • A massive investment gap exists in AI security, with only 13 companies targeting LLM and agentic application security, receiving just $414 million as of December 2025.

• Together AI raised $800 million in a Series C funding round on July 1, 2026, reaching a post-money valuation of $8.3 billion. • The investment was led by Aramco Ventures, with participation from major firms including NVIDIA, Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, and Emergence Capital. • This funding highlights a growing enterprise shift toward open-weight models, such as DeepSeek, Nemotron, MiniMax, and Kimi, to reduce the high costs associated with closed frontier APIs.

• Actor Samuel West unveiled a commemorative plaque honoring his parents, Timothy West and Prunella Scales, celebrating their legacy and partnership. • The tribute highlights their shared history, specifically referencing their television series "Great Canal Journeys," which launched with the couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. • The gesture emphasizes the deep emotional bond between the actors, with Samuel West describing the series and their relationship as "really a love story."

• Europe possesses the necessary talent and capital to build world-leading companies but currently lacks the ideal conditions to scale them globally. • To transform the funding landscape, the region must direct more capital toward growth companies, innovation, and infrastructure. • Recent developments, such as SoftBank's plan to fund a major AI facility in France, demonstrate a strong appetite for large-scale investment.

• President Lee Jae Myung is set to unveil large-scale investment plans on Monday to foster South Korea's semiconductor and physical artificial intelligence sectors, including the creation of a chip cluster. • To promote balanced regional development, the administration intends to distribute these technology investment projects across the central Chungcheong and southeastern Yeongnam regions. • Supporting ministries for industry, science, land, and energy will introduce complementary measures to ensure critical infrastructure, such as power and water supplies, for the new facilities.

• The US Justice Department seized 400 domains used for illegal streaming of the 2026 World Cup, marking a massive escalation in anti-piracy efforts. • This operation is five times larger than "Operation Offsides," which targeted 78 domains during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. • Investigators traced the infrastructure to servers in Peru and Bulgaria, with additional takedowns occurring in Croatia, Romania, Poland, and Colombia.

• Five major hyperscalers—Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle—are projected to spend a combined $602 billion on capital expenditures by 2026. • This investment cycle represents the largest peacetime infrastructure boom in history, driving a surge in the construction of specialized hyperscale facilities. • The trend is creating opportunities for specialized contractors who offer more reasonable valuations than primary AI companies while benefiting from the buildout.

• EIFO has committed a €200 million anchor investment to EQT's €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund. • The initiative aims to close Europe's late-stage funding gap and prevent high-growth tech companies from relocating to the US for larger investment rounds. • This move addresses a critical trend where only six of 14 Danish-founded unicorns since 2000 have remained in Denmark or Europe.