News

Chicago – September 21, 2026 -- FutureSports has signed an exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball to build rules-based performance indexes on all 30 MLB clubs, clearing the path for CME Group to list cash-settled futures contracts tied to the sport for the first time.

MLB Data Feeds New CME FSPI Benchmarks Covering All 30 Clubs

Under the agreement, MLB will supply FutureSports with Official League Data, which the index administrator will convert into CME FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI) tracking cumulative team performance. CME Group plans to list weekly, monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts on the benchmarks, subject to regulatory review.

Houston – September 21, 2026 -- McDermott International, Ltd has completed a comprehensive refinancing package worth more than $1 billion, combining a $500 million equity rights offering, a $550 million senior secured Nordic bond and a new long-term letter of credit facility.

Rights offering draws 97% shareholder subscription

The $500 million equity financing was structured as a rights offering to existing shareholders and was 97% subscribed by Class A ordinary shareholders. Remaining shares were absorbed through related backstop commitments, ensuring full completion of the raise.

Nordic bond matures in 2031, extends debt maturity profile

McDermott issued $550 million in senior secured bonds in the Nordic market, with maturity set for 2031. The company also secured a new long-term letter of credit and guarantee facility, alongside a revolving credit facility, as part of the same transaction.

Jupiter, Fla. – September 21, 2026 -- Bloomberg Television will broadcast a new episode of "Advancements with Ted Danson" on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. ET, featuring four segments on construction technology, food packaging recyclability, continuous healthcare, and industrial automation.

Construction industry adopts AI and automation to accelerate megaproject delivery

The episode opens by examining how demand for semiconductor fabrication plants, clean energy projects, and transportation infrastructure is pushing the construction sector to build faster and at greater scale. The segment features Bechtel and shows how artificial intelligence, automation, and project data tools are being deployed to support craft professionals, engineers, and project managers.

Delray Beach, Fla. – September 21, 2026 -- The global rubber process oil (RPO) market is set to expand from $3.30 billion in 2026 to $3.94 billion by 2031, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 3.6%, according to a new report from MarketsandMarkets.

Tire manufacturing drives largest share of oil demand

The tires application segment is projected to register the highest growth at 4.7% CAGR and remains the largest consumer of RPO by value. Manufacturers rely on process oils to balance flexibility, durability, and processing efficiency across passenger, commercial, and specialty tire production. Rising replacement-tire demand and evolving fuel-efficiency standards are reinforcing this consumption base.

Hong Kong – September 21, 2026 -- Yeahka Limited (9923.HK) announced that YeahPay, its international payment arm, has expanded online merchant acquiring to seven markets through infrastructure built on Stripe. Businesses incorporated in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States can now be onboarded directly by YeahPay for online acquiring in their home market.

YeahPay unifies online and in-store payment acceptance for the first time

The company already provides in-store payment acceptance in Hong Kong SAR and Singapore. The latest expansion merges those in-store capabilities with online acquiring on a single integration, drawing on more than a decade of experience building payment acceptance for small and medium merchants across mainland China.

Xuzhou – September 21, 2026 -- XCMG launched the Hanjing, its next-generation new energy heavy truck for long-haul freight, on Sept. 20, positioning the vehicle to compete on range, charging speed and lifecycle operating costs against diesel incumbents.

800-volt architecture cuts charging time to under 20 minutes

The Hanjing's 800-volt architecture supports megawatt-class fast charging, taking the battery from 20% to 80% capacity in under 20 minutes. The truck pairs a low-drag cab with a proprietary integrated electric drive axle and intelligent controls aimed at reducing energy consumption on cross-regional routes.

Shanghai – September 21, 2026 -- Huawei has launched its Fintelligent AI Solution worldwide, targeting the security, scalability, and sustainability barriers that have limited large-scale AI deployment across the global financial industry.

The announcement came at the Global Finance Summit held during HUAWEI CONNECT 2026, where Jason Cao, CEO of Huawei's Digital Finance BU, delivered a keynote titled "Owning Your AI, Advancing Agentic Banking." Cao told financial customers that competition in financial AI is shifting from model capability to enterprise-wide AI system capability, and that institutions must be able to choose, operate, replicate, and evolve their AI independently rather than relying on isolated applications or single vendor models.

Taipei – September 21, 2026 -- Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has unveiled a 3.2 Tbps silicon photonics optical engine capable of moving roughly 400 GB of data per second, doubling the throughput of its previous 1.6T generation.

ITRI mobilizes 20+ partners to commercialize 3.2T optical technology

The technology was showcased at the Innovation Economy Pavilion of the Taiwan Innotech Expo (TIE) 2026, held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1, where the Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs presented 64 technologies from more than 13 research institutes and industry partners. To push the 3.2T engine toward commercial deployment, ITRI has built a supply chain network of more than 20 partners covering chip design, fabrication, testing and packaging, and has worked with international firms to align technical specifications for the standard.

Beijing – September 21, 2026 -- VNET Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: VNET) has completed the transfer of 650,424,192 Class A ordinary shares to two investment vehicles linked to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), giving the buyers a combined 38.1% stake in the Chinese data center operator.

PJ Millennium entities acquire majority-scale stake from prior shareholders

PJ Millennium I Limited and PJ Millennium II Limited purchased the shares from Success Flow International Investment Limited and Choice Faith Group Holdings Limited. Both buyers are wholly owned subsidiaries of PJ Millennium Limited Partnership, whose general partner, Lochpine BG I GP Limited, sits under Lochpine Capital Limited -- a non-controlled, non-consolidated affiliate of CATL (300750.SZ, 03750.HK).

Kunshan – September 21, 2026 -- Arctech has been awarded a Silver Medal in the 2026 EcoVadis Sustainability Rating, placing the solar tracker maker among the top 15% of companies assessed by EcoVadis worldwide.

EcoVadis scores companies across four sustainability pillars

The rating agency evaluates firms on Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement, ranking medal recipients by percentile against all companies assessed globally over the prior 12 months. Arctech's Silver Medal corresponds to the top 15% tier.

Arctech spent RMB 4.3629 million on environmental protection in 2025

That figure, approximately US$651,000, funded initiatives tied to the company's environmental performance improvements. Its self-owned photovoltaic power stations generated more than 34 million kWh of electricity, covering 24% of Arctech's total electricity consumption.