After DeepSeek leap forward, Russia's Sberbank plans joint AI research with China
MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, plans to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects after DeepSeek upended the technology landscape by creating a powerful AI model much more cheaply than U.S. rivals, a top executive told Reuters.
"Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with researchers from China," Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told Reuters.
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Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
UK's Metro Bank receives takeover approach, Sky News reports
June 14 (Reuters) - UK's Metro Bank (MTRO.L), opens new tab has been approached about a takeover bid backed by a private equity firm Pollen Street Capital, Sky News reported on Saturday. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
Scotsman
10 hours ago
- Scotsman
Scots pay half billion in subsidies while China build the buses
Alexander Dennis has announced it plans to close down its Falkirk area operations to relocate to one single base in Scarborough (Picture: Michael Gillen, National World) Ministers should have been using their leverage over the big operators to keep Falkirk afloat Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... One way and another, the Scottish Government subsidises bus services by more than half a billion pounds a year. There would hardly be a bus on a Scottish road without subsidy which accounts for well over half of total revenue. There has been another £150 million for the ScotZEB programme 'to deliver zero-emission buses to Scotland's roads', the latest in a series of capital funds without which there would be precious few new or refurbished buses on our highways and by-ways. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Put these two facts together and the prospective loss of a bus manufacturing industry in Scotland borders on the incomprehensible. Beyond buses, if a 'procure in Scotland' strategy cannot be applied in this case, what hope is there of enforcing local content provisions in other sectors, notably renewable energy? Without political backbone, it won't happen. Ensuring the survival of Scotland's bus network is a good use of public funds. Equally, for any government to invest this kind of money and then claim it has no leverage over where it is spent is preposterous – and that should be the starting point in addressing the future of Alexander Dennis Ltd and maintaining a proud, skilled industry. While the Scottish Government pours money into our bus network, of more than 250 buses ordered under ScotZEB, 44 will be built in Falkirk. In the second phase of this scheme, two thirds of orders went to a single Chinese company where Scotland is doubtless the boardroom toast. There is something far, far wrong – and avoidable - about that outcome. I saw a sound-bite from Kate Forbes, the deputy first minister, in which her priority was to transfer political responsibility. Her own administration, she said sweetly, was unable to specify 'local content' because of UK legislation and, she claimed, the Scottish Government's pleas for relief from this constraint had been in vain. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Even by SNP standards, it sounded a rather premature piece of blame shifting since every sinew of current effort should surely be devoted to saving these 400 jobs in Falkirk and Larbert, not explaining them away. Ms Forbes' attempt at self-exoneration also failed the credibility test on multiple grounds. Most obviously, the publicly owned Greater Manchester Bees Network has purchased 160 state of the art buses from Falkirk and is delighted with the product. Somehow, the office of Andy Burnham found a way through challenges which Ms Forbes portrays as show-stoppers. Did she or her civil servants ever pick up the phone to Manchester? In the last few days, in an effort to head off redundancies, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray, has written to all the Metro Mayors in England, who will soon be ordering buses, asking them to follow Manchester's example. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government claims to be helpless while the orders it funds flow out to China. The legislation which supposedly presents such an obstacle to the Scottish Government is the Subsidy Control Act of 2022 which replaced what existed pre-Brexit. It was needed to keep the UK inside the terms and conditions of the World Trade Organisation and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). Dry but necessary stuff. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is disputed whether the ScotZEB scheme counts as subsidy for the purposes of the Act. Even if it does, the job of Ministers and civil servants in these circumstances should be to put together a case, based on exemptions available, which allows direct awards to be made. At the same time, Ministers should have been using their leverage over the big operators to keep Falkirk afloat. Neither is it true to claim that this is something which has crept up on the Scottish Government without prior notice. Last September, the company started a consultation process about 160 redundancies for exactly the same reasons they are now citing. They needed more buses to build. At that point, every stop should have been pulled out to ensure the ScotZEB orders were going to Falkirk and not to China. Any Minister worth his or her salt looks for deals to make in these circumstances which are not necessarily underpinned by formal agreements. I did it back in my own Ministerial days in not dissimilar circumstances but this is not party political. I have no doubt Michael Forsyth knew how to apply a bit of friendly pressure and I am absolutely certain Alex Salmond would have told a couple of bus operators exactly what was expected from them, or else. If the Scottish Government cannot use its leverage to fight for jobs, it is entirely due to the absence of competence or creativity within its current ranks. John Swinney's plaintive plea that he 'cannot act in a fashion outwith the provisions of the law' is the language of a bureaucrat whose obligation is to find a rationalisation for inactivity. The possibility always exists, of course, that a company has decided on a course of action for its own reasons and has no interest in being dissuaded from it. The only way to find that out is to make an offer which they would, if goodwill exists, be unlikely to refuse. In this case, a decent order for buses, underwritten by the Scottish Government, might, for example, be enough to buy a stay of execution – and would certainly test the bona fides of the Canadian owners. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
Times
20 hours ago
- Times
From dancing robots to DeepSeek, the university helping China to win tech race
A s it grows in economic and geopolitical might, China likes to find heroes, whether exemplary communists, successful businessmen or Olympic gold medallists. Its latest is a university. Twenty years ago, the sweeping campus of Zhejiang University in China's one-time capital Hangzhou would not feature in any lists of top international seats of learning. Even now, when it ranks among the world's best, it would probably elicit the reaction 'Where?' from most people outside China. But as of this year that has changed, thanks to a legion of earnest young tech entrepreneurs — they can reasonably be called nerds — like Liu Chang and Sean Pan. Zhejiang University campus in Hangzhou ALAMY Zhejiang has won the nickname locally as the 'mother of little dragons' — new tech start-ups like the AI company DeepSeek that are taking the world by storm. And there are more dragons on their way, if Chang and Pan have their way.
