All posts tagged: Scaling

Food 2040 and the challenge of scaling sustainable food systems

Food 2040 and the challenge of scaling sustainable food systems

Published by skeptic

The European Commission is putting greater emphasis on turning food innovation into practice. From manufacturing and school meals to public procurement, evidence shows what it takes to translate promising ideas into lasting improvements across the food system. Europe is putting greater emphasis on what happens after food research produces a promising result. The European Commission’s new Food 2040 framework focuses on translating knowledge into practical solutions, connecting experimentation with investment and wider uptake. Its scope stretches across processing, distribution and consumption, including packaging, food services and waste. That breadth matters. A new food-processing technology must fit a manufacturer’s equipment and budget. A change to school meals must work for kitchen staff and pupils. A sustainable purchasing policy needs suppliers capable of responding to tenders. Each involves decisions that a successful laboratory experiment alone cannot resolve. Evidence from European projects and intervention studies suggests a useful test for this agenda: whether an innovation continues to deliver benefits under ordinary operating conditions. Establishing those conditions, and understanding where results fail to transfer, could determine how much public …

Waymo is scaling fast. Here’s what the fleet data shows.

Waymo is scaling fast. Here’s what the fleet data shows.

Published by skeptic

Waymo’s commercial robotaxi ramp-up looks expansive, both in geographic reach and in ridership. And by almost every measure, it is — until you pay attention to where the bulk of those robotaxis are actually showing up. The numbers over the past two years reflect the kind of commercial rollout you’d expect from a deep-pocketed company like Waymo, which spun out of Google and still counts Alphabet as its majority owner. In September 2024, Waymo was operating in just three cities — Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Today, it offers robotaxi service in 15 U.S. cities, with most of those commercial launches occurring in the past year. Ridership has skyrocketed, too with Waymo now averaging 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week. But a closer look at its fleet shows a company concentrating its efforts in just two states. About 80% of Waymo’s roughly 4,000 robotaxis are in California and Texas, and Texas is where the action is now: Waymo’s fleet there has grown by nearly half in the past three weeks, fueled by a new …

Scaling agentic AI pilots across the enterprise

Scaling agentic AI pilots across the enterprise

Published by skeptic

That shift requires organizations to treat agentic AI as a cohesive system. Agents need access to the data, knowledge, and context required to make effective decisions, as well as connections to back-end systems if they are expected to take action. Fragmented information can undermine those capabilities: “The efficacy of these AI agents is purely a function of the context, the knowledge, and the data they can ingest and use,” Chandra says. The organizational implications are equally noteworthy. Scaling agents can create a new form of fragmentation if teams build isolated systems that don’t connect with one another, while governance, privacy, security, and change management become more important as agents take on more consequential work. Chandra argues that AI agents should ultimately be held to the same standards as human workers, with organizations thinking of their workforce as a combination of humans and AI agents. Looking ahead, that connected approach could enable agents to work proactively and even communicate with other agents to resolve customer needs. For organizations making the transition from pilots to scale, the …

Trump scaling down U.S.-South Korea drills could risk more than just joint military readiness

Trump scaling down U.S.-South Korea drills could risk more than just joint military readiness

Published by Sam Flores

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – AUGUST 7: (L to R) Col. Lee Sung-jun, public affairs director of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Col. Ryan Donald, public affairs director of the United Nations Command (UNC), Combined Forces Command (CFC), and United States Forces Korea (USFK) bump fists during the press briefing for the Ulchi Freedom Shield 2025 exercise at the Defense Ministry on August 07, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. The 11-day Freedom Shield is part of an annual combined training with troops from South Korea and the United States. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) Chung Sung-jun | Getty Images News | Getty Images President Donald Trump’s move to sharply curtail U.S.-South Korean military exercises will not only affect they countries’ combat readiness, but also undermine the credibility of American commitments to its alliances. Lieutenant General Chun In-Bum, former commander of South Korea’s Special Warfare Command, was blunt: “scaling back joint exercises like Ulchi Freedom Shield while North Korean troops gain combat experience in Ukraine creates a dangerous operational disconnect.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said …

European Hydrogen Week 2026: Scaling hydrogen, strengthening resilience

European Hydrogen Week 2026: Scaling hydrogen, strengthening resilience

Published by skeptic

As the hydrogen sector prepares for October’s European Hydrogen Week 2026, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO of Hydrogen Europe, discusses the key themes and ideas that will be explored there. Europe’s hydrogen sector is entering a new chapter. For years, the conversation revolved around questions on decarbonisation potential (which industries can clean hydrogen clean up?), on technological development (which technologies will emerge as winners?), and on speed of delivery (how quickly could Europe build a hydrogen economy capable of supporting its climate ambitions?). Many of those questions have now been answered: across the continent, projects big and small are moving forward, industrial players are reaching final investment decisions, and key sectors have signalled their intent to cut emissions by replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen. The conversation hasn’t ended, but evolved. Hydrogen is increasingly becoming part of a broader discussion about competitiveness, energy security, and strategic autonomy. The question is no longer whether hydrogen can play a role in Europe’s future, but how effectively it can strengthen Europe’s resilience in an increasingly uncertain world. The key theme of …

Trump hints at contact with North Korea’s Kim after scaling back Seoul drills

Trump hints at contact with North Korea’s Kim after scaling back Seoul drills

Published by Sam Flores

ASIAN ANXIETY The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are designed to prepare for a possible war with North Korea. Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, has said they will simulate combat against North Korean troops hardened by their deployment on Russia’s side in its invasion of Ukraine. Seoul’s presidential office told AFP it remained in “close coordination” with Washington over the exercises. Pyongyang decries the drills as dress rehearsals for an invasion. It recently test-fired a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan, and warned on Friday it could respond to the exercises with a “new level of deterrent”. During his first term, Trump said after his initial meeting with North Korea’s Kim in Singapore in June 2018 that Washington would suspend the “provocative” drills. The United States stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country’s defenses, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. But Trump’s repeated criticism of time-honored alliances has cast doubt on …

Scaling AI agents with trustworthy data

Scaling AI agents with trustworthy data

Published by skeptic

As AI agents become embedded more widely in enterprise operations, the need to overcome the restrictions of legacy data systems grows more urgent. If Gartner’s prediction that AI agents will augment or automate 50% of business decisions by 2027 proves correct, organizations must eliminate bottlenecks or risk depriving agents of the data they need to make the right decisions at speed. This report, based on a survey of 300 data and technology executives, explores how legacy systems are limiting the effectiveness of AI agents in many organizations. It finds that a handful of organizations—the data leaders—are having greater success with agentic AI and experiencing fewer data limitations as a result of legacy systems. These leaders offer a guide to creating the right data environment for agents to flourish and trusted systems to scale. Key findings from the report include: Few companies currently provide agentic AI with ample access to enterprise data. Across all the surveyed organizations, AI only has access to an average of 45% of company data. That number falls to 30% or less …

Scaling European manufacturing of solid-state lithium-metal batteries

Scaling European manufacturing of solid-state lithium-metal batteries

Published by skeptic

©shutterstock/Ohoish The SOLiD project is developing next-generation lithium-metal batteries, combining safety and performance with recyclability for Europe’s clean energy future On the path to a climate-neutral future, few technologies are as indispensable and as closely scrutinised as the battery. Powering everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs), batteries sit at the heart of the energy transition. But as demand increases, so do concerns about sustainability, cost, and the physical limits of today’s dominant lithium-ion technology. SOLiD is an ambitious EU-funded project aimed at redesigning the rules of battery manufacturing. Launched in September 2022, SOLiD brings together 13 partners across eight countries, ranging from industrial powerhouses to nimble SMEs and leading research institutes. The goal of the project is to create a sustainable pilot-scale process for the next generation of solid-state lithium-metal batteries, which promise higher energy density, improved safety, longer lifespan, and recyclability by design. Four years after SOLiD’s outset, the project has reached almost the end. Its breakthroughs in electrode dry processing, polymer electrolyte formulation, and digital quality control are paving the way for …

Nub News set to hit first profit after scaling down hyperlocal footprint

Nub News set to hit first profit after scaling down hyperlocal footprint

Published by Sam Flores

Nub News founder Karl Hancock. Picture: Nub News Nub News expects to reach its first profit this year after cutting back on the number of towns it covers and building up its premium advertising offering. The digital-only UK hyperlocal news publisher, which launched in September 2018, is now active in 25 towns through websites, weekly newsletters and an overall Nub News app. Nub News is forecast to make a profit of £7,500 in 2026, which founder Karl Hancock put down to changing its advertising approach and switching from expansion to sustainable growth in fewer locations. The publisher peaked at around 42 towns in the UK in 2024 before closing 17 locations over the following 18 months. “We’ve learned a lot when we launch in towns now, and we’ve got a bible and a manifesto,” Hancock said. “We’ve got to get the time right, and we’ve got to get the journalists right.” Today Nub News reaches one million monthly unique users across its active towns, according to Hancock, while its most recent launch in Solihull in …

Kimi K3 Open Weights Model Reveals AI Scaling Costs

Kimi K3 Open Weights Model Reveals AI Scaling Costs

Published by skeptic

The Kimi K3 model, developed by Moonshot, is poised to make waves as an open source AI system with near-frontier coding performance. Set to launch on July 27, 2026, it offers researchers and developers access to its architecture through open weights, fostering collaboration and experimentation. However, as Nate Jones explains, this openness comes with significant trade-offs. The K3 model demands substantial computational resources, 64 accelerator cores for optimal use, highlighting the scalability and accessibility challenges that often accompany open source AI initiatives. Explore how the K3 model’s design reveals broader tensions between open- and closed-source AI systems. You’ll gain insight into the cybersecurity risks posed by open weights, the operational inefficiencies that hinder scalability and the competitive advantages that closed-source models maintain in areas like security and innovation. This overview offers a clear lens into the evolving dynamics of AI development and the trade-offs shaping its future. What Makes the Kimi K3 Model Unique? TL;DR Key Takeaways : The Kimi K3 model, launching on July 27, 2026, is an open source AI initiative by Moonshot, …