Supply Chain

Fremont, Calif. – September 15, 2026 -- DIMAAG-AI, Inc. and Toshiba International Corporation (TIC) have agreed to jointly develop energy storage systems for AI data centers, pairing Toshiba's SCiB lithium titanium oxide (LTO) battery cells with DIMAAG's ZettaWatt Power Platform.

Toshiba's SCiB cells bring a decade-long safety record to the partnership

Toshiba has shipped more than 100 million SCiB cells since 2010, and the batteries are engineered to sustain continuous 10C charge and discharge cycling over a targeted service life exceeding 10 years. Under the agreement, Toshiba will supply the high-power SCiB cells while DIMAAG designs, manufactures and integrates the battery system into its Zenius modules and ZettaWatt architecture.

Los Angeles – September 15, 2026 -- Alibaba.com's Accio AI agent platform completed a 107-task e-commerce benchmark for an estimated $3.69, more than 50% cheaper than OpenAI's Codex at $9.27 and Anthropic's Claude Code at $9.51, according to results the company disclosed at its CoCreate event for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Benchmark shows Accio undercuts general-purpose AI agents by over 50% on cost

The evaluation, run across 107 real-world commerce tasks, found Accio matched the completion quality of the two rival systems while sharply reducing computing spend. Alibaba.com President Kuo Zhang said unaffordable AI is useless for small businesses, framing the company's objective as making commerce AI practical for a one-person operation rather than simply more powerful.

Paris – September 15, 2026 -- Ekinops (Euronext Paris: EKI) and PacketFront Software Solutions AB have formed a partnership to offer European service providers a commercially competitive alternative to incumbent networking stacks, combining Ekinops' optical networking edge hardware with PacketFront's BECS orchestration platform.

Ekinops supplies network edge while PacketFront handles automation

Under the deal, Ekinops will provide the physical network edge infrastructure, while PacketFront's BECS platform delivers orchestration, automation and service management. Ekinops platforms have been certified by PacketFront Software to operate with BECS.

Bluefield – September 15, 2026 -- West Virginia American Water will spend $275,000 to replace 600 feet of aging water main on Thompson Avenue in Bluefield, part of a statewide $129 million infrastructure program for 2026.

Crews will install 2-inch PVC pipe between Walton Avenue and Maryland Avenue

Work is scheduled for completion by the end of October, with final street restoration to follow in fall 2026. Construction crews will operate Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and traffic restrictions will remain in place for the project's duration.

Scott Wyman links the upgrade to system reliability

"Ongoing, proactive investments are critical to help maintain and improve the reliability and resiliency of our systems," said Scott Wyman, President of West Virginia American Water, adding that the Thompson Avenue project will help maintain safe, reliable water service for the Bluefield community.

Whitehouse, Ohio – September 15, 2026 -- Spartan Logistics has acquired Allen Logistics, a warehousing operator in Whitehouse, Ohio, adding 100,000 square feet of capacity and pushing the company's Northwest Ohio footprint to 950,000 square feet. The deal became effective September 1, 2026, and brings Spartan's total warehousing space to 4.5 million square feet across its multi-state network.

Acquisition adds seventh Northwest Ohio warehouse to Spartan's network

The Allen Logistics facility, located at 6245 Industrial Drive in Whitehouse, gives Spartan direct access to Swanton, Napoleon, and Perrysburg, complementing its existing Toledo operations. Chief Executive Officer Steve Harmon said Toledo has been a key market for Spartan for years and that the deal represents a continued investment in the region.

Richardson, Texas – September 15, 2026 -- Solve Networks has launched a global eSIM connectivity service that lets enterprises manage IoT device fleets across more than 200 countries and territories through a single connectivity profile, eliminating the need for separate SIMs and carrier relationships in each market.

Global eSIM replaces fragmented multi-carrier setups for cross-border device fleets

The service targets organizations operating IoT devices across multiple countries, regions, or network operators, where connectivity previously required juggling separate SIMs and separate points of failure for each location. Solve Networks' global eSIM instead assigns one connectivity profile that moves with the device, spanning North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

Boston – September 15, 2026 -- Nanoramic, Inc. has closed the first tranche of its Series 2 equity financing round at a pre-money valuation of $250 million, led by Catalus Capital with participation from GM Ventures and existing Series 1 investors.

Mass production shipments of Neocarbonix drive investor commitment

The capital injection arrives as Nanoramic scales mass production shipments of its Neocarbonix Slurry Precursor (NXSP), a drop-in battery manufacturing material now supplying programs with global battery manufacturers, automotive OEMs, consumer electronics firms, power tool makers, and defense contractors. Shipment volumes have grown over the past six months to meet rising customer demand, according to founder and CEO John Cooley.

The Woodlands, Texas – September 15, 2026 -- Cellipont Bioservices and Xiogenix have published a joint white paper showing that Xiogenix's ARES X20+ automated fill-finish platform maintained formulation volume accuracy of 98.2% at small scale and 103.6% at large scale across an approximately 17-fold increase in process scale.

The paper, titled "Scaling Cell and Gene Therapy Manufacturing with Automated Formulation and Fill-Finish," details Cellipont's evaluation of the platform across small and large-scale cell therapy manufacturing workflows.

Cambridge, Mass. – September 15, 2026 -- MIT Technology Review will cap in-person attendance at its EmTech Future 2026 conference to 500 participants, running September 29 through October 1 on the MIT campus and online under the theme "Convergence."

Event examines intersection of AI, quantum computing, and energy systems

The reimagined flagship conference from MIT Technology Review will use keynotes, interviews, and guided experiences to explore how AI, quantum technologies, and energy infrastructure are beginning to intersect. Agenda tracks include "At the Frontier of Intelligence," covering reasoning and multimodal AI systems, and "At the Quantum Frontier," focused on breakthroughs moving quantum computing from lab to practical deployment.

Rockville, Md. – September 15, 2026 -- The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) named Bandwidth, Google and ServiceNow as finalists for the AFP 2026 Pinnacle Awards, sponsored by Truist for a third consecutive year, with all three finalists having built AI-enabled treasury systems.

Voting closes September 18 ahead of Las Vegas announcement

Community voting to select the Grand Prize winner runs until Sept. 18, 2026. The winner will be revealed during AFP 2026, held November 8-11 in Las Vegas, and Truist will donate $10,000 to The Just One Project on the winner's behalf.