Finnish scale-up Enifer is set to build a world-first fungal protein factory after securing full funding for the €33mn site. The futuristic plant will convert food industry sidestreams into an ingredient called Pekilo. Invented in the 1970s, Pekilo was the world’s first commercial mycoprotein — a food source derived from natural fungus.  With a low...

DeepL, the Cologne-based unicorn that has been rivalling machine translation giants such as Google Translate, today announced a new investment of $300mn (€277mn), reaching a $2bn valuation. Born from online dictionary Linguee, the startup was founded in 2017 by Jarek Kutylowski, who’s also serving as the company’s CEO. DeepL offers free and premium...

It’s been a busy week for AI policymakers. The EU has sealed the deal on its AI Act. Meanwhile, in Seoul, South Korea, 16 world-leading companies have signed the “Frontier AI Safety Commitments,” and a group of countries have promised to work together on mitigating risks associated with the technology.  To say that the past year was the one when the...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has enlisted two companies to develop cargo shuttle vehicles for low Earth orbit. ESA awarded the new contracts to the Exploration Company in Germany and Thales Alenia Space in Italy. The services are due to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Once the ISS is retired in 2030, they could also send...

Chip machine-maker ASML reportedly has the power to remotely disable its equipment in TSMC’s fabs, should China invade Taiwan. TSMC is the biggest client of ASML’s EUV lithography systems, which use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths to manufacture the highest grade of semiconductors. These chips enable a wide range of use cases, from smart tech...

In today’s deeply divided world, where a spirit of isolationism and separation seeks to undermine the ideal of community and unity, those of us who understand that purposeful inclusion — rather than performative diversity programmes — is the alchemist’s stone must be clearer. Inclusion is simple, but it is not easy. There is ample evidence to suggest...