Category: Technology

A Legacy of Trust Finds Its Face: Vijay Sales Announces Rahul Dravid as Brand Ambassador

India, Sep 4: Vijay Sales, India’s omni-channel electronics retail chain, has announced cricketing legend Rahul Dravid as its brand ambassador. The association brings together two names generations of Indians have trusted: one for technology retail, the other for integrity, consistency and dependability.

For over five decades, Vijay Sales has been more than a destination for electronics – from helping families choose their first television or refrigerator to guiding every technology upgrade since. This philosophy of trust, reliability and genuine advice finds expression in the brand’s promise, “Delivering Apnapan.” Rahul Dravid, whose credibility and quiet confidence resonate across generations and geographies, is a natural embodiment of these values.

Speaking on the association, Mr. Nilesh Gupta, Director, Vijay Sales, said,

“Vijay Sales has always been built on relationships, not transactions. Understanding what a customer needs, offering the right advice and being there long after the purchase – that sense of trust and apnapan has defined us for over five decades. Rahul Dravid represents these values with an authenticity that people across India connect with, making him the most natural partner to represent the brand as we enter our next phase of growth.”

Speaking about his association with Vijay Sales, Rahul Dravid said,

 “Some brands become part of people’s lives not simply because of what they sell, but because of the trust they build. Vijay Sales has shared that relationship with families for decades, and I particularly connect with the simplicity and warmth behind ‘Delivering Apnapan.’ I am delighted to associate with Vijay Sales and look forward to being part of its journey ahead.”

The association comes at a time when Vijay Sales continues to strengthen its omnichannel ecosystem, bringing together the assurance and expertise of its stores with the convenience of online shopping. Dravid will feature prominently across the brand’s upcoming 360-degree communication – spanning television, digital, social media, in-store and other consumer touchpoints – and will headline key category and festive campaigns through the year. At the heart of this move remains the belief that has defined Vijay Sales for generations: technology may keep changing, but the importance of trust, relationships and genuine care never does.

India’s Data Centre Boom Signals a New Phase of Digital Growth

New Delhi, Sep 4: India’s fast-growing data centre industry is quietly becoming an important part of the country’s digital and economic transformation. Behind everyday activities such as online payments, video streaming, cloud applications, e-commerce and artificial intelligence services are large-scale facilities that store, process and manage vast amounts of data.

The country is witnessing a sharp rise in investment in data centre infrastructure as businesses and technology companies prepare for rapidly increasing demand for computing capacity. Domestic conglomerates, global technology firms and specialised operators have announced investments exceeding $250 billion, reflecting growing confidence in India’s digital economy.

The expansion is being driven by several factors, including rising internet usage, the rapid adoption of cloud services, digitalisation across businesses and the growing use of artificial intelligence. As companies generate more data and adopt increasingly sophisticated digital tools, the need for reliable computing infrastructure within India is also increasing.

Artificial intelligence is expected to become one of the biggest drivers of future demand. AI applications require significant computing power, particularly for training and running advanced models. As businesses across sectors begin using AI for customer service, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and software development, demand for high-performance data centres is likely to increase.

Despite the scale of investment, the direct contribution of the sector to India’s overall GDP is expected to remain relatively modest. Moody’s Ratings estimates that data centre capital expenditure could add around 0.10 percentage point to nominal GDP during the construction phase in 2025, while related investment in power generation could contribute another 0.03 percentage point.

By 2030, the direct contribution of the data centre industry is projected to stabilise at around 0.13 per cent of GDP. The relatively limited contribution reflects the capital-intensive nature of the industry, where large investments are required but the number of permanent jobs created is comparatively small.

However, the wider economic impact could be considerably larger. Data centre projects generate demand for construction, electrical equipment, cooling systems, networking, security, engineering, maintenance and other specialised services. The expansion can also create opportunities for Indian manufacturers if a greater share of the equipment and components is produced domestically.

This localisation could become one of the most important benefits of the data centre boom. Building stronger domestic supply chains would allow India to retain more economic value from the investments while creating additional opportunities for manufacturing and technology companies.

Employment in the sector itself is expected to remain focused on specialised skills. Data centres require professionals in areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, network management, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence and facilities management. At the same time, the businesses that depend on this infrastructure could create much broader employment opportunities as digital services expand.

Power availability will remain another important consideration. Data centres operate continuously and require substantial electricity for computing and cooling. Moody’s expects the sector to account for less than 5 per cent of India’s electricity demand by 2030, suggesting that it is unlikely to create a nationwide power constraint. However, reliable transmission and distribution infrastructure around major data centre clusters will be essential.

The growing demand for electricity could also encourage investment in renewable energy, energy storage and more efficient cooling technologies as companies seek to manage operating costs and reduce environmental impact.

The benefits of the data centre boom are also likely to be felt at the city and state level. Locations offering reliable power, strong internet connectivity, skilled workers and favourable business conditions are increasingly competing to attract large projects. New data centre clusters can bring investment into supporting infrastructure while creating demand for engineering, construction and technology services.

India’s data centre expansion, therefore, is about much more than building large facilities filled with servers. These centres provide the foundation for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, digital payments, online commerce, software services and a growing range of technology-driven businesses.

The immediate contribution to GDP may appear modest, but the longer-term opportunity could be much bigger if India succeeds in developing local suppliers, skilled talent, reliable energy networks and innovative digital businesses around the sector.

For India, the real value of the data centre boom will ultimately be measured not only by how much infrastructure is built, but by how effectively that infrastructure helps businesses grow, technology develops and the country strengthens its position in the global digital economy.

NIELIT, Intel India Roll Out Agentic AI Programmes to Build India’s Future-Ready Workforce

India’s workforce is set to receive a new skilling push in emerging Artificial Intelligence technologies, with the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) and Intel India launching a joint initiative focused on Agentic AI. The programme was announced at a National Leadership Dialogue in New Delhi that brought together policymakers, educators, industry representatives and skilling experts to examine how rapidly advancing AI systems are changing the requirements of jobs and education.

The dialogue placed particular emphasis on the transition from conventional and generative AI to agentic systems that can reason, plan and carry out complex tasks while operating under human oversight. Participants discussed the need to move beyond theoretical AI education towards practical, industry-linked learning, including updated curricula, faculty development, experiential training and AI-enabled learning environments. Shri Shashi Shekhar Vempati, Chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, said continuous learning and employability would become increasingly important as technology transforms workplaces, while stressing the value of real-world exposure for young professionals.

The partnership has introduced two skilling tracks with different levels of technical focus. Agentic AI for Everyone is designed to familiarise learners with AI agents, workflow automation and multi-agent systems, using no-code platforms to explore productivity, business transformation and intelligent decision-making. The second programme, Engineering Agentic AI Systems, is aimed at learners seeking deeper technical capabilities, covering agent architecture, tool integration, orchestration, memory and deployment through no-code, low-code and coding-based frameworks. Together, the programmes are intended to provide learners with hands-on experience in developing and using agentic systems.

NIELIT Director General Dr. Madan Mohan Tripathi said the collaboration combines NIELIT’s nationwide reach with Intel’s technology expertise to take emerging AI education to more institutions and learners. Shri Sudeep Shrivastava, COO of the IndiaAI Mission and Joint Secretary, MeitY, highlighted the importance of developing a strong AI talent pipeline through industry-led training, AI-focused educational programmes, AI Data Labs and closer industry-academia engagement. Intel also stressed that skills, adaptability and human judgment will remain critical as AI systems become more capable. The initiative is expected to widen access to practical Agentic AI training and strengthen India’s talent base for an increasingly AI-driven economy.

Ten-Nine Technologies Moves to Commercial-Scale Production of TENIX – its ‘Anti-Aging’ Battery Additive

TULSA, Oklahoma | Sept 04:Ten-Nine Technologies, an advanced materials company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is scaling production of TENIX, its patented cathode additive, as the battery industry’s shift toward manganese-rich chemistries accelerates. Ten-Nine describes TENIX as “anti-aging for batteries.”

Every time batteries charge and disc harge, unwanted chemical by-products build up inside them – the same process that makes your phone run hot, an EV’s range shrink, a laptop need charging more often, and power tools lose their punch.

TENIX stops that aging process at the source. It’s blended directly into a battery’s cathode material during manufacturing – taking up just 0.5–2% of its weight, or roughly 0.5–2kg for every 100kg of cathode, which is about what’s in a typical EV battery pack.

It drops into cathode production lines that manufacturers already run, so adopting it requires no new equipment and no battery redesign. At its current production capacity of 100 tons, Ten-Nine can supply enough TENIX to treat between 50,000 and 200,000 typical EV battery packs.

In third-party testing, TENIX delivered over 75% more charge-discharge cycles, extending a typical EV battery’s life from a 150,000-mile warranty baseline to more than 265,000 miles. That longer life translates into roughly 40% lower cost per kilowatt-hour delivered over a battery’s lifetime, while 10% lower internal resistance means faster charging and less energy wasted as heat.

TENIX can also cut a battery’s heat output by around 40% over its lifetime – a benefit that is becoming increasingly critical as AI-driven data centers push backup batteries harder than ever.

This momentum comes as the battery industry is increasingly shifting toward manganese-rich cathodes – a cheaper, more abundant, and more geographically secure alternative to the cobalt- and nickel-heavy chemistries that dominate EV batteries today.

Manganese-rich cathodes also offer a far more secure supply chain than the nickel- and cobalt-heavy chemistries they could replace. Manganese is mined widely across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, rather than concentrated in a handful of countries, making it far less exposed to the geopolitical pressure points that increasingly worry battery manufacturers and policymakers alike.

Manganese-rich cathodes have also long been held back by poor cycle life, exactly the problem TENIX is built to solve. Ten-Nine believes the shift could reshape the global cathode supply chain the way LFP did twenty years ago.

Paige Johnson, Founder and CEO of Ten-Nine Technologies, said:

“Just like people, batteries age. Products of chemical decomposition build up during use, limiting a battery’s performance and lifetime, and until now that’s just been treated as an unavoidable cost of doing business. I’m a chemist so I wanted to fix that at the source rather than build a whole new battery to work around it. TENIX has a unique surface chemistry that disrupts that aging process, giving batteries more power and significantly longer life. I started this company in the back of a warehouse in Tulsa with $100,000 and four grams of material in a flask. I never imagined we’d end up here, but I always believed that if the chemistry was right, it would matter to a lot of people’s lives. That’s still what gets me up in the morning.”

Ten-Nine is currently in evaluation trials with battery manufacturers that together represent more than half of the world’s battery production volume, and is now accepting orders for 2026–27 delivery from its own production facility in Tulsa.

The company holds 67 granted patents protecting its core cathode chemistry, and has no direct competitor offering a cathode additive of its kind – the nearest points of comparison, silicon anode and solid-state electrolyte technologies, solve different problems in different parts of the battery entirely. TENIX works across battery types used in all sectors including electric vehicles, defense equipment, power tools, and grid-scale energy storage.

Ten-Nine Technologies was founded in 2014 by Paige after a local angel investor offered her $100,000 to pursue her research independently. The company’s name traces back to its original incorporation as “10-9 LLC”: 10⁻⁹ is nano, representing the scale of the surface chemistry Ten-Nine engineers; 10⁹ is a billion, representing the number of lives Paige believes better batteries can improve. That original $100,000 has since grown into $45 million raised to date, funding Ten-Nine’s transition from a lab experiment into a commercial-scale manufacturer.

India’s Data Centre Boom Brings Growth, but Resource Pressure Grows

New Delhi, Sep 3: India’s data centre industry is growing rapidly as global technology companies increase their investments in the country. The expansion is being driven by rising demand for cloud services, artificial intelligence and digital platforms.

Companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are planning major data centre investments in India. Several State governments are also offering incentives, land and policy support to attract these projects.

The growth, however, is also increasing demand for electricity and water. Data centres need a continuous power supply to keep servers running, while large amounts of water and energy may be required for cooling the equipment.

The sector is also adding pressure to power transmission networks in some areas. Rising temperatures and the heat generated by data centre equipment are making efficient cooling systems increasingly important.

Water availability is another concern, particularly in areas that already face shortages. Experts say the rapid expansion of data centres needs to be supported by better infrastructure and responsible use of natural resources.

At the same time, the industry is creating new business opportunities in construction, power, renewable energy, cooling technology, engineering and digital services.

India’s data centre growth is expected to continue as the country’s digital economy expands. However, ensuring adequate power, water and infrastructure will be important to make this growth sustainable in the long run.

Professional Investors Convinced AI ‘Breakthrough’ Is Close

Almost all believe increased computational power will drive breakthrough on AI capabilities this year

AI productivity gains should drive around 22% of global growth this year, Robocap research finds

Sept 03: Professional investors are convinced increased computational power will lead to a breakthrough in AI capabilities this year, new global research1 with institutional investors and wealth managers managing assets of $513 billion from leading fund manager Robocap shows.

The study with senior executives at insurance asset managers, pension funds, family offices and wealth managers found almost all (96%) believe that the expected 10 times increase in computational power being applied by the big five US model developers to current AI models will deliver a breakthrough in what AI can achieve.

That will translate into increased global growth this year, the research from Robocap, the leading investor in robotics, automation and AI, found. On average professional investors surveyed believe productivity gains from AI this year will account for 22% of global growth.

In three years’ time the percentage of productivity gains and global growth attributable to AI will increase to an average 30%, the study found. Around one in five questioned believe the increase could be 40% or more.

The impact of increased AI capabilities will be felt first by marketing and sales, the survey found, with 31% predicting the sector will be the first in line for disruption followed by services such as law, finance, accounting and tax which was ranked first by 29%.

The research with firms based in the UK, US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany and Switzerland found around one in five (20%) highlighted IT as first in line while 9% pointed to transportation and 7% to healthcare and 6% to industrials and consumer goods.

Real estate and utilities are seen as the sectors likely to be disrupted last by AI and robotics. Around 28% said real estate would be among the last to be disrupted followed by 20% choosing utilities and 11% selecting materials.

Jonathan Cohen, Founder and CIO at Robocap, said: “The advance in AI capabilities over the past few years has been phenomenal as major model firms have increased the computational power used to train their models year on year.

“This year it is estimated that the computational power being applied by the big five American model developers to train their next model will actually be up to 30 times more relative to the compute power current model and investors are convinced that the world is on the verge of a breakthrough in terms of AI capabilities considering weekly progresses.

“That is translating into real world effects with the productivity gains from AI making major contributions to global growth which are expected to increase over the coming years.”

The Robocap UCITS Fund, which is a thematic equity fund focusing on pure-play robotics, automation and AI listed stocks globally, was launched in January 2016 and is managed by a London based specialist team. It has delivered compound annualised net returns (CAGR) of 15.38% and a net return of 359.95% since its inception.

Core System Partners Announces Public Rollout of Banking Intelligence Service, Which Interprets Operational and Technology Developments Affecting the Banking Industry

Weekly and monthly reports go beyond the headlines and offer insights into AI adoption, regulatory shifts, vendor activity, M&A signals, and core banking developments

NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2026: Core System Partners, the independent advisory firm that helps banks and credit unions modernize their technology, operations, and core banking environments, today announced the public rollout of its Banking Intelligence Service (BIS). Following an initial publishing period, BIS is now being formally rolled out to a broader audience on a subscription basis. It is an intelligence service for banking executives, consultants, and investors. Each week, it tracks and interprets the operational and technology developments moving banking, including AI adoption, regulatory shifts, vendor activity, M&A signals, and core banking developments. Its regular reports explain what those events could mean for an institution over the next 90 days.

“Banking leaders have plenty of headlines. The gap is context: which developments matter, how they connect, and what they could mean for the institution over the next 90 days,” explained Rick Mavrovich, CEO and Managing Director of Core System Partners. “I created BIS to close that gap.”

BIS reports connect the signals across the market and give banking leaders a practical view of what they should be watching next. BIS currently includes a Weekly Intelligence Brief and the Monthly Signal Recap. The Weekly Intelligence Brief is published through Don’t Blink, Core System Partners’ publishing platform for the free weekly Don’t Blink video, selected public commentary, and subscriber-only intelligence.

Asset Managers Are Betting Big on AI in Risk Management, Clearwater Analytics Research Reveals

BOISE, Idaho, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, LONDON and HONG KONG, Sept 2– New research from Clearwater Analytics, drawn from its “GenAI and the Data Divide” study, finds asset managers are extending AI agent into risk management, with almost three quarters (73%) expecting the pace of AI integration into risk management to accelerate in the next three years. That’s a lower number than the near-unanimous confidence firms show in AI generally, and that gap is the story. Even in the one function where caution runs highest, most firms still expect AI’s role to keep growing.

“Nearly every firm surveyed (93%) already treats AI agent integration as important or critical to their operations, and 95% say it’s important to meeting their investment management goals over the next three years,” said Souvik Das, CTO at Clearwater Analytics. “Risk management is where you’d expect that consensus to be hardest to find. That so many firms still expect AI’s role there to grow reveals intentional direction by firms who’ve actually tested it and trust what they’re seeing.”

 Investing in the Foundation, Not Just the Technology

The investment backs up the conviction. More than four in five managers expect AI spending to increase by at least 50% over the next 12 months, with 62% anticipating rises of between 50% and 99%, and a further 22% expecting increases of between 100% and 299%. Just under 5% expect spending to stay flat or decrease.

For an industry that allocates capital with precision, firms have decided AI is core infrastructure for risk management. But the investment is running ahead of the foundation it depends on, and that gap is exactly what separates the firms getting this right from the ones still catching up.

Taken together, these findings describe an industry moving AI into the center of its competitive proposition, building the function that plays a defining role in whether they can be trusted with a client’s capital.

“One would expect the most cautious part of the business to move the slowest on something new. This data says the opposite. Firms are leaning into AI in one place they can least afford to get wrong,” continued Das. “Risk management is where a firm’s data has nowhere to hide. A slow report is forgivable. A risk signal built on bad data isn’t. Seventy-nine percent of firms call their data complete, but only 56% call it accurate, and that gap is what decides whether a risk signal can be trusted. The firms closing it are the ones making sharper decisions, with better information than they’ve had before.” 

Airrived Launches Sovereign AI Platform, Putting Enterprises Back in Control of Their AI

DUBAI, UAE — [Sept. 2, 2026] — Airrived, the company behind the enterprise Agentic OS, today announced the launch of its Sovereign AI Platform, giving governments and enterprises a way to run agentic AI entirely inside their own environments — with nothing required to leave the building. Airrived will showcase the platform live at GISEC Global, taking place 16–18 September 2026 at the Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC), Expo City, Dubai.

As AI adoption accelerates, a harder question is catching up with it: who actually controls the intelligence running your organization?

Sensitive data crosses borders it was never meant to cross. Token costs swing unpredictably from one quarter to the next, turning AI from a fixed cost into an open-ended liability. Mission-critical systems depend on external providers with no guarantee of continuity. And for the world’s most regulated institutions, sending data, prompts or intelligence to an externally hosted AI system isn’t a risk worth taking — it’s simply not an option.

Airrived built its Sovereign AI Platform to remove that trade-off entirely. The launch follows Airrived’s #1 overall ranking in the AWS/CTIB Cybersecurity Startup Accelerator, a global program backed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), CrowdStrike, CyberE71 and the UAE Cyber Security Council — recognition from some of the industry’s most demanding cloud and cybersecurity players that Airrived’s approach to agentic AI holds up under serious scrutiny.

Organizations can deploy Airrived on-premises, on private GPU infrastructure, or inside fully air-gapped environments — running their own models or Airrived’s models entirely within their own infrastructure.

Data stays inside. Models stay inside. Intelligence stays inside.

“AI sovereignty isn’t simply about where your data is stored. It’s about who controls the entire intelligence stack,” said Anurag Gurtu, Co-founder and CEO of Airrived. “Enterprises should be able to own their data, choose their models, operate their agents and control their infrastructure — without sacrificing the power of agentic AI. That’s what we’re delivering.”

An Agentic OS Built for Sovereignty

Airrived delivers an end-to-end Agentic OS: organizations can consume pre-built AI applications or build their own agents and agentic applications, all while keeping full control of the infrastructure underneath. The platform unifies agent orchestration, models, enterprise context, reasoning, governance, observability and AI applications into a single sovereign architecture.

With Airrived, organizations can:

• Go fully sovereign — run AI completely on-premises or air-gapped

• Break free from token economics — reduce dependency on externally hosted models and unpredictable costs

• Own the compute — operate private GPU infrastructure on their terms

• Choose the model — run customer-selected or Airrived-native models locally

• Protect the perimeter — keep enterprise data and AI interactions within organizational boundaries

• Build without limits — create and deploy agents and multi-agent applications

• Govern with confidence — apply enterprise access controls and governance to every AI operation

The model is already proven in the region: through its partnership with Wizdom, Airrived’s Agentic OS powers agentic AI capabilities natively within Wizdom’s own data center infrastructure — sovereignty, not in theory, but in production.

The launch arrives as governments across the Middle East accelerate national AI strategies built on the same principle: sovereign control over data, infrastructure and intelligence. From the UAE’s National AI Strategy to similar initiatives across the GCC, the region has made clear that AI adoption must go hand in hand with data sovereignty and national digital resilience. Airrived’s platform is built to meet that mandate directly, giving governments and regulated enterprises a way to adopt agentic AI without ceding control of their most sensitive data.

The Next Era of Enterprise AI Is Sovereign

For governments, critical infrastructure operators, financial institutions and other highly regulated enterprises, real AI adoption now demands more than powerful models — it demands control.

Airrived believes the next generation of enterprise AI infrastructure will be defined by choice: where intelligence runs, which models power it, who can access it, and where the data ultimately lives.

“Cloud democratized infrastructure. Generative AI democratized intelligence. The next step is making that intelligence truly yours,” Gurtu added. “The future of enterprise AI will not just be agentic. It will be sovereign.”

Airrived will showcase its Sovereign AI Platform live at GISEC Global, 16–18 September 2026, at the Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC), Expo City, Dubai.

Red Sift OnDMARC Integration for Microsoft Sentinel Now Available in Microsoft Marketplace

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — Red Sift, the company making the internet fundamentally safer, today announced that its Red Sift OnDMARC Integration for Microsoft Sentinel is now available through Microsoft Marketplace, giving organizations a new way to bring email authentication and phishing-related signals directly into their security operations workflows.

The integration enables Microsoft customers worldwide to discover and deploy Red Sift OnDMARC through Microsoft Marketplace and connect email security intelligence with Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft’s cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) platform.

The move comes as phishing and increasingly sophisticated social engineering attacks continue to serve as a major entry point for attackers. According to the Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, phishing was the initial access vector in 16% of breaches. Among AI-assisted intrusions, that figure increased to 44%.

For security teams, email authentication failures can provide an early indication that phishing, spoofing or domain impersonation activity may be underway. Historically, however, much of this information has remained outside the security operations center (SOC), requiring analysts to correlate email security data with other threat signals manually.

Red Sift OnDMARC changes that workflow by streaming DMARC forensic data and email authentication events directly into Microsoft Sentinel as events occur. Security teams can then incorporate those signals into existing Sentinel investigations, correlate them with other security telemetry and prioritize potential email-based threats alongside activity from across their environment.

“Email is where most attacks start, but the evidence usually sits in a different tool than the one your SOC team lives in,” said Rahul Powar, Co-founder and CEO at Red Sift. “This integration puts our OnDMARC forensic data and audit logs directly into Microsoft Sentinel, so analysts can correlate email authentication activity with everything else they’re already watching, without switching screens.”

“Microsoft Marketplace helps organizations and partners move faster, work smarter, and grow by connecting them with the right solutions—all in one trusted place,” said Cyril Belikoff, Vice President, Microsoft Azure Product Marketing. “We’re happy Red Sift is a part of the growing Microsoft Marketplace ecosystem.”

Red Sift helps organizations deploy security across email, web, and PKI, and is trusted by more than 1,200 teams worldwide. Red Sift OnDMARC is its email authentication application, which helps organizations quickly reach DMARC enforcement. This integration extends Red Sift’s standing as an official member of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA). Under MISA, OnDMARC offers total phishing protection to Office 365 customers.