SoftBank-Backed OakNorth Partners With OpenAI to Expand AI Uses
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OakNorth Bank Plc has agreed to use OpenAI's generative AI technology in everything from drafting loan agreements to internal audit.
The London-based business lender said on Tuesday it will collaborate with the tech giant to roll out custom-built GPT tools for its hundreds of staff as it eyes a 'significant increase in firmwide productivity gains.'
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New York Times
39 minutes ago
- New York Times
Leeds' 2025-26 season preview: Bulking up to stay up, but how will Farke fare?
Leeds United have beefed up their spine as they attempt to muscle in on the Premier League. No promoted team has lasted more than a season in the top-flight since 2022-23, but none of those sides were owned by the ambitious 49ers Enterprises. New addition Anton Stach has impressed in pre-season and both manager Daniel Farke and last season's top scorer Joel Piroe will want to prove they belong among the elite. The Athletic considers what lies ahead over the next 10 months… Leeds will expect to fight valiantly against the relegation odds stacked against them and hope they buck the emerging trend for Premier League newcomers. Managing director Robbie Evans, sporting director Adam Underwood, head of recruitment Alex Davies and Farke will have faith in the process they have been through to identify this summer's new signings, but, until they see them in action against some of Europe's finest teams, they cannot be certain what's coming. On the face of it, they are hoping a cast of physically-dominant players can bridge the chasm between the top two divisions in English football. Advertisement Following the agreement to sign Dominic Calvert-Lewin in principle, after the England striker's departure from Everton earlier in the off-season, if they can add two more attacking players good enough to start and the back-up full-back Farke wants, they will feel a lot more confident on the back of May's 100-point conclusion to their Championship title-winning campaign. Chairman Paraag Marathe, who is a touch more removed from the rationale his recruitment chiefs have devised, is known to be a demanding and ambitious leader. He will expect the people he has hired or promoted, such as the aforementioned quartet, to perform in the jobs he has given them and sustain 49ers Enterprises' tenure as owner of a Premier League team beyond this season. Before the deal with 6ft 1in (187cm) Calvert-Lewin was done, there had already been seven new arrivals. Lukas Nmecha was the first through the door, on June 15. The Germany striker, also 6ft 1in, signed a two-year deal after departing Bundesliga side Wolfsburg as a free agent when his contract expired. Jaka Bijol, the first of two new, gigantic centre-backs, was bought eight days later for around £15million from Udinese of Italy. Sebastiaan Bornauw, Leeds' second new 6ft 3in defender, followed team-mate Nmecha across from Wolfsburg on July 1. He is expected to be a backup option in the main. Gabriel Gudmundsson arrived from French club Lille as the club's new first-choice left-back for a fee of around £10million on July 8. Sean Longstaff — who, unlike the majority of Leeds' new faces, has significant Premier League experience — signed from Newcastle United 10 days later. Stach, who has been the most eye-catching and expensive (£17.3m) recruit to date, came in from Hoffenheim, another German side, on July 22 as the second new central midfielder. Lucas Perri is the newest completed signing so far. The Brazilian goalkeeper signed for an initial £13.9million from France's Lyon, taking over the No 1 shirt at Elland Road in the process, on July 26. The highest-profile failure of Leeds' summer so far has been Igor Paixao. They are understood to have agreed a fee with Dutch club Feyenoord and also personal terms with the Brazilian winger, but in the end lost out to Marseille and their lure of Champions League football this season. Rodrigo Muniz is the other link which has been hanging over the club for two months with no realistic signs of completion at time of writing. The Fulham striker was identified as the club's first-choice target several months ago, but as the new season's opening matches this weekend and deadline day (September 1) approach, there has been no evidence of a deal being struck. Advertisement The absences of those two underline the ongoing search for a striker, though Calvert-Lewin is close to being a done deal, and a winger. Goalkeeper Robin Zentner of Germany's Mainz and Habib Diarra, a midfielder at French side Strasbourg who has instead joined Leeds' fellow promoted side Sunderland, were other names they were known to like and did not sign, but Perri, Stach and Longstaff were preferred targets. Evans, Underwood and Davies are navigating their first off-season in the roles listed above. They are fully aware they will face the bulk of the criticism if this window's transfer business fails to make a difference over the coming season. Jack Harrison is a new (old) face around the club this summer. The winger stayed in the Premier League, on loan with Everton, throughout the two years Leeds spent in the Championship. Now, with his parent club back in the top flight, Harrison remains in the fold, as of mid-August anyway. The boos have been audible and sustained through the two pre-season friendlies he has played in front of fans. With three years remaining on his contract and no meaningful links in terms of a move, Harrison looks set to at least start the season as a Leeds player. With 170 Premier League appearances to his name, a commendable work ethic and a friendly training-ground reputation, Farke seems willing to give the 28-year-old a chance. Those boos are likely to continue for a while yet. Brenden Aaronson was away on loan for one of those Championship seasons, held his apologetic hands up in a series of interviews upon his return last summer but still got stick from the fans for a couple of games. Harrison was away for twice as long and, unlike Aaronson, did not indicate a passion to continue at Elland Road with an immediate mea culpa on day one of pre-season. It's going to be a long road back for him. Jayden Bogle stood out in the first half of the summer, but then injury ruled him out of the latter meetings with Villarreal and Milan. Stach showed some flashes in the Villarreal game, then dazzled in the Milan clash. The Germany international put on a box-to-box-midfielder clinic that day with endless running, big tackles, accurate shots, through balls and intelligent movement. He capped it all with a stunning 25-yard curler of a goal. Being back in the Premier League is the main thing. As much as the Elland Road faithful dismiss virtually every other team in the division for one thing or another, they will relish the chance to rattle some cages in front of global television audiences. Manchester United, the club's most hated rivals, are the one outfit they would love to beat more than any other. It's 23 years now since Leeds beat them in a league game. Advertisement There should be the annual excitement about seeing new faces in Leeds shirts, which will be a little dampened if the club fail to add further attackers before deadline day, and also some intrigue about what Farke can achieve. Nobody can doubt the German's Championship abilities after three titles in his five years at that level and 190 points won in it with Leeds over the past two. He would argue he was never backed properly by Norwich City on his two previous trips to English football's top table, with one ending in last-placed relegation and the other in his November sacking, ahead of another bottom-of-the-league relegation. Can he, with the right financial support this summer, really show he can be one of the best managers in the country? Relegation. Farke being entirely out of his depth and sacked, as happened with promoted Norwich four years ago, before the end of autumn. A flawed transfer policy which failed to recruit enough meaningful Premier League experience. Farke never gets too high or too low. He was happy with the business the club had done up to the end of their friendlies schedule at the weekend, but at the same time has not been shy in acknowledging their current attack is inferior to the one which got them promoted three months ago. He has taken comfort from Leeds going unbeaten in the five warm-up matches, as well as the time to bed in the seven new faces they have added. I suspect a more accurate assessment of his feelings will come ahead of the September 13 trip to Fulham — their first match after the window closes, because of the international window. It's so hard to answer this without knowing how the new faces are going to adapt to the top flight, alongside the bulk of a squad coming up from the Championship. The recent history of the Premier League's promoted clubs, their managers and Farke's own top-flight record with Norwich would suggest the odds are stacked against him. I would give him a 40 per cent chance of still being in the job next May. Leeds sneak survival in 17th or 16th place, with one of the league's highest tallies for headed goals and headed clearances in each penalty area. (Top photo of Daniel Farke:) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
College shares £100m building trades training cash
A college in Wigan will be one of 10 in the country that have been chosen to train a new generation for work in the building industry. Wigan and Leigh College will take a share of a £100m funding post aimed to getting thousands of new bricklayers, electricians and carpenters and other trades into the workforce. Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, said there had been "under-investment" in young people who did not want to pursue academic further education. The Construction Industry Training Board estimated 61,000 new workers were needed each year to hit the government's target of 1.5 million new homes by 2030. Every region in England will have a specialist college called a Construction Technical Excellence College. They will train about 40,000 construction learners by 2029 between them. Wigan and Leigh College principal, Anna Dawe, said construction was "pivotal" to the economy in Wigan and Greater Manchester. "This accolade really resonates for a college that started life as a Technical Mining College over 100 years ago, in a borough that now has double the national rate of employment in the construction sector." MP Nandy said the investment was a "vote of confidence in young people". She added: "There are great jobs out there for bricklayers, electricians, carpenters, but for too long the system has been underinvested in and too confusing if your not going down a purely academic route. "Too many young people have been written off from making the contributions they know they can make, as a government we are determined to change this." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230. More like this story Future bright for house building work, experts say College chosen to specialise in construction Thousands more construction workers needed to meet housing targets Related internet links Wigan & Leigh College
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Could robotics and timber tackle Britain's housing challenges?
By Suban Abdulla LONDON (Reuters) -Gigantic robot arms controlled by artificial intelligence glide around a vast factory in Oxfordshire, England, making building frames from timber, one of the world's oldest construction materials. With the British government committed to building 300,000 new homes a year, some housebuilders say that the combination of technology and green materials could help them to overcome challenges from skills shortages to environmental targets. Shop Top Mortgage Rates Personalized rates in minutes Your Path to Homeownership A quicker path to financial freedom England lags many similar economies in terms of the share of housing accounted for by timber-framed homes. Britain as a whole, meanwhile, is among the slowest adopters of robotics, especially in construction, according to the National Robotarium research institute at Heriot-Watt University. "We're seeing more major housebuilders and small and medium-sized builders embracing timber as a way to ... overcome the skills and carbon challenge," said Alex Goodfellow, CEO of Donaldson Timber Systems (DTS). His business makes timber-frame structures for homes and commercial buildings, including walls, floors and roofs, then sends them to housebuilders for assembly. Its automated production makes for less labour-intensive housebuilding and provides a faster, cheaper and more sustainable alternative to bricks, stone or concrete blocks, the company says. A study by construction surveyors and consultancy Rider Levett Bucknall showed that building with timber is 2.8% cheaper than with masonry. FASTER CONSTRUCTION The DTS factory in Witney, near Oxford in southeast England, makes timber panelling for about 100 homes a week with designs entered digitally using artificial intelligence, reducing the need for paper drawings. DTS says its robotics and lasers enable it to produce pre-assembled sections builders can put together quickly on site. The technology reduces the time needed to build a home by about 10 weeks compared with traditional materials, Goodfellow says. Yet barriers remain to any significant increase in timber homes in England. Amit Patel at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the material is not commonly used in England because of difficulties in securing warranties for timber buildings owing to durability concerns. Barratt Homes tried to revive timber usage in the 1980s, but sales were undermined by potential rot and fire vulnerabilities. Andrew Orriss of the Structural Timber Association says that such concerns have been addressed by current building regulation and the STA's fire safety guide. He says that the off-site timber construction sector could help to deliver about a third of the government's target of 300,000 new homes per year - a level not achieved in England since the 1970s. Official government figures show that almost 200,000 new homes were built in England in 2023/24 and the Structural Timber Association said that approximately 40,500 of those were timber-frame homes. Builders including Vistry and Taylor Wimpey have opened or plan to open their own timber-frame manufacturing factory while Bellway plans to use timber in a third of its housing projects by 2030. Reduced environmental impact is another benefit touted by companies. GREENER AND LEANER? Simon Park, head of sustainability at Bellway, said timber absorbs and stores more carbon than it emits and that Bellway's analysis shows breeze blocks - made from concrete and known as cinder blocks in the U.S. - are the biggest carbon emitters among common building materials. Countering that, however, is the origin of the raw materials. About 80% of timber used in the UK is imported, mainly from European countries, while roughly 20% of its brick supply is imported. Concerns also remain over mortgage availability for timber homes, which is likely to improve if the government signals a move towards timber construction, said Riz Malik, mortgage broker at independent financial adviser R3 Wealth. An ageing workforce, meanwhile, highlights the need for more robotics. About a fifth of construction workers in the UK are over 50, according to the Home Builders Federation, with 25% of those set to retire in the coming decade. The government pledged 40 million pounds ($54 million) in June for robotics adoption hubs across various sectors, but Maurice van Sante, senior economist for construction at bank ING, says Britain's construction industry is far behind other countries in robotics use. ING estimates that there were 1.5 robots for every 10,000 construction workers in Europe in 2023, against 0.6 in the U.S. and 0.5 in the UK. As well as filling labour shortages directly, robotics opens up other employment opportunities, says DTS manufacturing director Frank O'Reilly, adding that the company has attracted more interest from tech-savvy younger workers since the factory's introduction of automation and robotics. "It (the technology) encourages young people to consider this as a career," he said. ($1 = 0.7433 pounds) Errore nel recupero dei dati Effettua l'accesso per consultare il tuo portafoglio Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati
