
PowerChina wins $4 billion contract for Iraqi water desalination plant, sources say
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani inaugurated the project, which will have a daily capacity of 1 million cubic meters and is expected to begin commercial operations in June 2028. The plant is part of government efforts to address severe water shortages in the southern region.
The project also includes the construction of a 300-megawatt power plant to supply electricity to the desalination facility, according to two Iraqi officials and a project document seen by Reuters.
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OPEC+ countries to boost oil production by 547,000 barrels per day
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Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via $2 billion asset sale
Meta Platforms is pressing ahead with efforts to bring in outside partners to help fund the massive infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence, disclosing plans in a filing on Thursday to offload $2 billion in data center assets as part of that strategy. The strategy reflects a broader shift among tech giants — long known for self-funding growth — as they grapple with the soaring cost of building and powering data centers to support generative AI. The social media giant said earlier this week that it was exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centers to help finance its massive capital outlay for next year. 'We're exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centers,' Meta Chief Finance Officer Susan Li said on a post-earnings conference call on Wednesday. While the company still expects to fund much of its capital spending internally, some projects could attract 'significant external financing' and offer more flexibility if infrastructure needs shift over time, Li said. The company did not have any finalized transactions to announce, she said. The disclosure in Meta's quarterly filing, however, signals that plans are firming up. In its quarterly filing on Thursday, Meta said it had approved a plan in June to dispose of certain data center assets and reclassified $2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as "held-for-sale". These assets were expected to be contributed to a third party within the next twelve months for co-developing data centers. Meta did not record a loss on the reclassification, which values the assets at the lower of their carrying amounts or fair value less costs to sell. As of June 30, total held-for-sale assets stood at $3.26 billion, according to the filing. Meta declined to comment for this story. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into constructing AI data center 'superclusters' for superintelligence. 'Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,' he said. The Instagram and WhatsApp owner on Wednesday raised the bottom end of its annual capital expenditures forecast by $2 billion, to $66 billion to $72 billion.


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Israeli cyber startup Noma Security raises $100 million in private funding round
TEL AVIV :Israeli cybersecurity startup Noma Security, whose platform secures enterprise data and AI models against AI agents, said on Thursday it raised $100 million in a private funding round, bringing total funds raised to date to $132 million. Israel's cyber security sector has been active of late and many startups have raised significant sums in funding rounds and in mergers and acquisitions. A surge in cyberattacks, including data breaches and ransomware, has driven demand for more comprehensive defences and fueled interest in cyber firms. On Wednesday, Palo Alto Networks said it would buy Israeli peer CyberArk Software for $25 billion. It follows Alphabet's $32 billion acquisition of Israeli startup Wiz in March. Noma Security's Series B round was led by U.S.-based venture capital firm Evolution Equity Partners, with continued participation from Ballistic Ventures and Israeli firm Glilot Capital. The latest funds, it said, will be used to further expand its operations across North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa and to more rapidly grow its product, research and development teams in Tel Aviv. Noma Security, which was founded in 2023, came into prominence last November after raising $32 million. The company said it helps organisations "identify millions of AI and AI agent risks while simultaneously prioritising and mitigating novel threats at scale." AI agents are AI systems that act autonomously on behalf of users or organisations.