Category: 3. Business

RWE continues to keep up the pace with the expansion of its solar portfolio. The company has commissioned several solar farms along a motorway (A44n) in North Rhine-Westphalia following around eight months of construction. The total installed capacity amounts to 86.5 megawatts peak (74.6 MWac).

With about 141,000 solar modules, the plants will generate enough electricity to supply the equivalent of 27,700 German households with climate-friendly electricity. The project sites in the Rhenish region lie to the west and east of the motorway between the towns of Bedburg and Jüchen and are on recultivated land at the Garzweiler opencast mine.

Katja Wünschel, CEO RWE Renewables Europe & Australia: “The commissioning of the solar farms alongside the motorway shows that we are consistently driving forward the expansion of our solar portfolio. And we aren’t done there yet. Next year, we will add several thousand solar modules to the project. With wind and solar systems side by side, we are building a renewable energy road on recultivated land along the A44n motorway as a blueprint for further projects in the region.”

Implementation of the solar farm’s second stage with a capacity of 19.9 megawatts peak (15,5 MWac) is planned for next year. More than 30,600 additional solar modules are to be installed on recultivated land in the municipal area of Jüchen. Subject to planning permission, the first half of 2026 could see the start of construction. Commissioning is planned for the end of 2026. Solar projects along motorways not only benefit from faster approval processes but in most cases also enjoy a higher level of public acceptance.

RWE is also currently constructing the Bedburg 3 wind farm with nine turbines and a total capacity of around 60 megawatts close to the A44n solar sites. RWE builds and operates solar and wind projects with a total capacity of 540 megawatts in the Rhenish region.

Dr Lars Kulik, CTO Lignite at RWE Power: “The solar and wind projects on recultivated land along the A44n emphasise that structural change and the expansion of renewables in the Rhenish lignite area are going hand in hand. There is plenty of space in and around our opencast mines that we are also using for renewables projects. In addition, the employees of RWE Power contribute their knowledge and experience to support the construction and subsequent operation of the solar and wind farms. This means we are creating further prospects for our employees here in the region.”

Keeping up the pace for the expansion of solar energy in the Rhenish region

A strip of land alongside the A44n near Bedburg became the site of a photovoltaic plant constructed by RWE last year. In the immediate vicinity, RWE is also trialling the combination of agriculture and green electricity generation at its agrivoltaics demonstration plant. All in all, RWE now operates nine solar projects in the Rhenish region, four with their own integrated battery storage units. Further photovoltaic projects in the region are at the planning stage. One of those is the Manheimer Bucht solar farm, which will be located in the southern part of the Hambach opencast mine in the municipal area of Kerpen. Next year, a total of about 26,500 solar modules will be constructed in an area of about 14.5 hectares, equivalent to about 20 football pitches. Following completion at the end of 2026, this solar farm will have a capacity of 17.2 megawatts peak (14.3 MWac).

A map and pictures for media use are available at the RWE Media Centre (credit: RWE).

Do Kwon, the entrepreneur behind two cryptocurrencies that lost $40bn (£29.8bn) three years ago and caused the sector to crash, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud.

The South Korean, 34, had pleaded guilty to two counts of US charges of conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud.

Kwon, who co-founded Singapore-based Terraform Labs and developed the TerraUSD and Luna currencies, was sentenced at a hearing in New York.

The US district judge Paul Engelmayer called his crimes “a fraud of epic generational scale”.

The judge imposed a longer sentence than the 12 years sought by prosecutors, saying it would be too lenient given the harm he had caused to victims.

“In the history of federal prosecutions very few cases have caused more monetary harm than you did,” he said.

The US government had argued that Kwon’s fraudulent actions and treatment of customers had contributed to the “crypto winter” of 2022, and the failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.

“I don’t argue nor will I ever argue that my conduct was industry standard and market practice,” Kwon said. “If they were, they were bad industry standards and market practices and I as one of the market leaders should be personally responsible. The blame should be pointed at me for everyone’s suffering.

“I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done different and what I can do now to make things right.”

Kwon’s lawyers had argued that he should be sentenced to no more than five years in prison, arguing that his actions were motivated by a desire to prop up Terraform’s TerraUSD stablecoin, not personal gain.

The judge called the request “wildly unreasonable”.

Kwon has been in US custody since his extradition from Montenegro last year, where he was imprisoned for using a fake passport.

As part of his guilty plea, Kwon agreed to forfeit $19.3m and some properties that prosecutors claimed he gained from the fraud.

Prosecutors said they would support Kwon serving the second half of his sentence in South Korea, where he still faces charges, if he abides by the terms of his plea deal.

Prosecutors said they would not seek restitution for the investors who lost a total of $40bn, saying the prospect of determining each of their losses would be too complex.

The judge said that some of Kwon’s investors still believed in him, even after his guilty plea, and that reading some of their letters was like “reading the words of cult followers”.

Engelmayer said he had received letters from 315 victims all over the world, many reporting they had lost their homes, retirement savings, money for medical expenses and college funds to Kwon’s fraud.

A graduate of Stanford University, Kwon returned to South Korea and launched the startup that would become Terraform Labs in 2017 with the co-founder Daniel Shin.

Prosecutors alleged that when TerraUSD slipped below its $1 peg in May 2021, Kwon told investors a computer algorithm known as “Terra Protocol” had restored the coin’s value.

Instead, they said, he arranged for a high-frequency trading company to buy millions of dollars of the token secretly to artificially prop up its price.

Prosecutors said that false claim, and others, drove retail and institutional investors to buy Terraform products and boost the value of Luna – a more traditional token that fluctuated in value but was closely linked to TerraUSD – to $50bn by the spring of 2022.

Kwon is one of several cryptocurrency moguls to face federal charges after a slump in digital token prices in 2022 prompted the collapse of a number of companies.

Bankman-Fried, the founder of the US’s largest crypto exchange, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024.

12 December 2025

• ECB to assess 110 directly supervised banks on the management of geopolitical risk
• Banks to define scenario that would lead to pre-determined outcome of at least 300 basis point depletion in CET1
• Aggregate results to be communicated in summer 2026

The European Central Bank (ECB) will conduct a geopolitical risk reverse stress test on 110 directly supervised banks in 2026. In a reverse stress test, a pre-determined outcome is prescribed and each bank defines the scenario in which that outcome would materialise. This reverse stress test will complement the 2025 European Banking Authority stress test, which assumed a common scenario for all banks and led to differences in their capital depletion. The 2026 thematic stress test will ask banks to assess how geopolitical risk could affect their business model.

Geopolitical risk is a cross-cutting risk driver that can have an impact on banks’ traditional risk categories, as it cuts across credit, market, liquidity, business model, governance and operational risks. It can also affect banks through multiple channels, including financial markets, the real economy and the safety and security of banks’ operations. As a key driver of macroeconomic uncertainty, it remains at the centre of the ECB’s supervisory priorities for 2026-28.

The stress test will provide insights into the geopolitical risk-related scenarios that could materially affect banks, who should identify relevant geopolitical events and quantify their impact. In addition, they will be asked to describe how they would act to reduce that impact, if necessary, with a view to ensuring that they have robust governance and operational resilience frameworks in place.

The exercise will assess the extent to which banks’ stress-testing capabilities take geopolitical risks into account. In this regard, the exercise will aim to foster banks’ own risk management capabilities, particularly in reverse stress testing, and their ability to design relevant and prudent capital and recovery plans.

Specifically, each bank will be asked to identify the most relevant geopolitical risk events that could lead to at least a 300-basis point depletion in its Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital. In addition to reporting on how the geopolitical risk scenario would affect their solvency positions, banks will also be asked to provide information about how it may affect their liquidity and funding conditions.

To keep the exercise cost efficient, the reverse geopolitical risk stress test will be conducted as part of the 2026 banks’ internal capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP). Banks will therefore primarily be able to utilise existing supervisory data collection templates.

In line with previous ECB thematic stress tests conducted to comply with Article 100 of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD), the geopolitical risk reverse stress test is not intended to have any implications for Pillar 2 Guidance (P2G). The outcome will be used to inform and complement the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) in a qualitative way and in line with the broader 2026 ICAAP. Weaknesses revealed by this stress test will feed into the SREP assessment, with a focus on banks’ ability to incorporate geopolitical risks into their risk materiality assessments, their stress-testing framework and capabilities and their risk data aggregation and reporting capabilities.

The main aggregate conclusions of the reverse stress test will be communicated in the summer of 2026.

For media queries, please contact Lina Bennar, tel.: +49 152 06556600.

Notes

• For the ECB, the 2026 thematic stress test also serves the purpose of complying with Article 100 of the CRD.
• Some significant banks directly supervised by the ECB will not be part of the stress test. This may occur if, for example, they are subsidiaries of ECB-supervised significant banks that are already covered in the stress test at a higher level of consolidation. Other reasons for exclusion from the stress test might be that a bank is already included in another stress test being conducted at the same time (e.g. it is part of a comprehensive assessment) or is in the process of merging or restructuring.

The small upside divergences from the past two months led to an upward adjustment in our year-end 2025 forecast from 9.6% to 9.8%. This also means minor upward changes in next year’s inflation path. At this stage, our average inflation forecast for 2026 has inched up from 7.1% to 7.2%, with a year-end value of 4.5%, above the National Bank of Romania’s 3.7% projection.

Risks to this outlook remain two-sided. On the upside, renewed energy price pressures, particularly gas bills from April 2026, could push inflation higher. On the downside, soft demand and moderating wages are likely to dominate the near-term picture, reducing the risk of second-round effects from the current inflationary upswing. Our commodities team also expects oil and natural gas prices to ease in 2026.

Overall, this inflation episode looks far less intense than the surge that followed the Covid pandemic, as key drivers such as fiscal stimulus, commodity shocks and strong wage growth are absent. This should, in principle, allow the National Bank of Romania to begin reducing interest rates even before inflation starts to print meaningfully lower in 2026, shifting its attention more towards the downside pressures in economic activity. Our base case remains for a first rate cut in May 2026, with a total of 100bp in cuts next year.

NJOY training participants

The NEA Data Bank Computer Program Service (CPS) has been conducting training activities for more than 30 years. These courses provide a unique opportunity to bring together code users from around the world, facilitating exchanges on the use of computer programs among users and with the code developers.

The NEA organsied the third NJOY course in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory 1 to 5 December 2025 in Paris, France. The NJOY Nuclear Data Processing System is the most widely-used software package designed to create application-specific data for the majority of nuclear simulation software across the world. The class introduced participants to the Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF) format using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and covered the primary modules of the software. The course gathered 19 participants from 10 countries.

The NEA also held an in-person training course on OpenMC on 24-28 November 2025 at the OECD offices in Paris, led by the core developer of the software from Argonne National Laboratory (United States). The course brought together 14 participants from France, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and South Korea and introduced them to the usage and application of OpenMC, an open-source Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport simulation code. The next OpenMC course will take place online in the second quarter of 2026.

OpenMC course participants 

The course on Analytical Benchmarks: case studies in neutron transport theory on 24-28 November 2025 was taught by Professor Barry Ganapol of the University of Arizona in Paris, France. The main objective of the course was to provide a basis for fundamental concepts of numerical evaluation of analytical solutions to a variety of neutron and neutral particle transport equations. The course brought together 22 participants from Argentina, France, Korea, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and Ukraine.

Participants of the training on Analytical Benchmarks: case studies in neutron transport theory

On 17-21 November, scientists and engineers gathered to the NEA to attend a training on SCALE/ORIGEN Standalone Fuel Depletion, Activation and Source Term Analysis, a computer program widely used for nuclear engineering and research. Some 22 participants from 11 countries benefited from the knowledge and dedication of the code developers team from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

SCALE/ORIGEN course participants

The SERPENT-2 in-person training course for beginners took place on 4-7 November 2025 and attracted nine participants from six countries. This five-day course introduced students to reactor physics applications and equipped them with the necessary skills to independently set up and run their SERPENT models. This highly demanded course will be organised again in the second quarter of 2026.

Participants of the SERPENT-2 training

[London, United Kingdom, December 12, 2025] At the 13th annual Global Telecoms (Glotel) Awards, Huawei earned the BSS/OSS Modernization Excellence Award with Safaricom Kenya, the Delighting the Customer Award with Telkomsel, and Highly Commended of Security Solution of the Year with China Mobile.

Hosted by Telecoms.com — Informa’s telecom industry media title — Glotel recognizes companies that make outstanding contributions to the evolution and transformation of the communications industry. The awards are a testament to Huawei’s and its partners’ innovation and business achievements in the intelligent operations landscape.

AI is becoming the driving force for intelligence in the OSS/BSS (Operations Support System/Business Support System) domain of operators. Safaricom partnered with Huawei to pioneer an AI-powered Idea-to-Cash (I2C) platform based on a CBS (Convergent Billing System). Leveraging generative AI models and asset accumulation in the telecom domain, I2C automates data-driven offer design, instant configuration and hyper-personalized marketing, using natural language commands. I2C has significantly improved the agility of services，shortened Time-to-market (TTM) from months to days, achieved 90% higher configuration accuracy than using manual configuration, conversion rates doubled compared to traditional campaigns, and resulted in significant ARPU growth on I2C-created offers. Moreover, I2C advances digital inclusion, identifies underserved users, and provides tailored solutions like data validity extensions and complimentary bundles.

In Indonesia’s competitive market, with 356 million mobile network connections and 125% mobile penetration, Telkomsel partnered with Huawei on AI-Augmented Digital Twins project. Leveraging Spatio-Temporal Digital Twin and LLM capabilities, Telkomsel enabled real-time OSS/BSS orchestration with Self-X functions for dynamic NPS (Net-Promoter-Score) monitoring, creating the industry’s first digital NPS measurement to integrate Network, Service, and Product NPS. The initiative delivered a 15% NPS uplift, 22% data usage increase through enhanced QoE (Quality-of-Experience), and 1.5% ARPU (Average-Revenue-Per-User) growth, driving significant revenue gains, demonstrating a pioneering new means of experience monetization.

Huawei and China Mobile built an intelligent operation and control capability for AI+BOSS, covering pre-event prevention, in-event control, and post-event auditing. We also developed and deployed a comprehensive “AI + Data Security” protection solution to enhance the overall data lifecycle security protection capabilities across the entire network, achieving data that is perceivable, controllable, visible, and traceable. Through this solution, China Mobile has achieved significant achievement in pre-event with sensitive-data classification and identification accuracy exceeds 99%, in-event with risk analysis completed within 30 seconds for normal operations and 12 seconds for high-risk operations, and in post-event with auditing efficiency improved by 95%.

With the rapid development of AI, intelligence operations have been integrated in the whole process of operators’ value chain, Huawei Services & Software is committed to working with global operators to actively embrace the new opportunities brought by intelligence. We aim to enhance business automation and deliver an exceptional user experience across more value scenarios along the user journey, jointly creating a path toward fully intelligent operations and unlocking new growth.

100% AI-generated campaign showcasing the power of agentic commerce to transform business operations

PARIS & BOSTON – December 12, 2025 – Mirakl, the leading provider of eCommerce software solutions, today announced the launch of its first-ever advertising campaign, ‘Santa Quits’, a groundbreaking 60-second holiday film that is 100% AI-generated. Created in collaboration with AiCandy, Australia’s first fully AI-powered creative production company, the campaign marks Mirakl’s bold entry into brand advertising while demonstrating the transformative potential of AI in both commerce and creativity.

The campaign can be viewed here.

The campaign arrives at a pivotal moment as the eCommerce industry stands on the brink of its next major evolution: agentic commerce, where AI agents autonomously handle product discovery, comparison, and purchasing on behalf of consumers and businesses.

The lighthearted narrative carries a powerful business message: even the most established operations need modern infrastructure to meet today’s impossible expectations. Just as Santa couldn’t manage Christmas alone, businesses need AI-powered platforms to scale operations, optimize complex workflows, and deliver seamless customer experiences.

The choice to create an entirely AI-generated campaign reflects Mirakl’s commitment to innovation and its position at the intersection of AI and commerce. The campaign spotlights Mirakl Nexus, the company’s infrastructure designed to power agentic commerce.

“This campaign represents a milestone for Mirakl, not just as our first advertising effort, but as a statement about who we are as a company,” said Hugo Weber, Vice-President of Mirakl. “We chose to create a 100% AI-generated film because we don’t just talk about innovation, we embody it. Just as we help the world’s leading enterprises harness AI to transform their commerce operations, we’ve used AI to reimagine how we tell our own story. It’s bold and it reflects the same pioneering spirit we bring to solving our customers’ most complex challenges.“

Santa Quits’ will run globally across digital and social channels throughout the 2025 holiday season. The campaign features three core activations: LinkedIn sponsored video targeting enterprise decision-makers, programmatic media placements on leading technology publications (with a business, tech and retail focus), and YouTube pre-roll ads appearing alongside agentic commerce and AI automation content.The 60-second film was strategically timed for release in the final days before Christmas, reinforcing the narrative that Mirakl’s platform helps solve seemingly impossible challenges with moments to spare.

Models used : Veo, Kling, Runway, Sora, Seedance, Suno and Topaz

Executive Producers: Hugo Weber & Romain Séchan (Mirakl)

Creative & AI Production: AiCandy, Australia

AiCandy, Head of Creative: Marcus Tesoriero

AiCandy, Head of Production: Kent Boswell

AiCandy, AI Film Director: Dr Machakil

Sound Designer: Matt Perrott (Mighty Sound)

Colourist: Keiran Lee

Media Agency: SPN part of Cosmo5

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About Mirakl

Mirakl is the leading provider of eCommerce software solutions. Mirakl’s suite of solutions provides enterprises with a transformative way to drive significant growth and efficiency in their online business.

Since 2012, Mirakl has been pioneering the platform economy, empowering retail and B2B enterprises with the most advanced, secure and scalable technology to digitize and expand product assortment through marketplace and dropship, improve efficiency in supplier catalog management and payments, personalize shopping experiences, and boost profits through retail media.

Mirakl is trusted by Airbus, Best Buy, Decathlon, Macy’s, Ulta and 450+ industry-leading businesses worldwide. For more information: www.mirakl.com.

Media Contact

Press@mirakl.com

MANILA, Philippines — Asian shares rose on Friday, tracking Wall Street’s climb to records despite a sell-off for Oracle as worries persisted about a potential bubble in artificial-intelligence technology.

U.S. futures fell while oil prices advanced.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index climbed 1.2% to 50,768.12, rebounding from the previous session’s losses.

Investors remain cautious ahead of next week’s policy meeting of the Bank of Japan, where it is expected to raise interest rates, but technology shares helped lead broad gains.

Softbank Group’s 6% jump in early trading slipped to a 1% gain by midday.

In Chinese markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.4% to 25,881.66 while the Shanghai Composite index picked up 0.2% to 3,882.40.

An annual planning meeting, the annual Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing on Wednesday to Thursday, setting China’s priorities for 2026. According to state media reports, those include working to reverse a decline in investment and to boost consumer spending. However, no major policy shifts were reported.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.3% to 8,700.80.

In Seoul, South Korea’s Kospi rose nearly 0.7 to 4,138.64.

Taiwan’s Taiex index added 0.2% while India’s BSE Sensex rose 0.4%.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 inched up 0.2% to 6,901.00 and eked past its prior all-time closing high, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial leaped 1.3% to 48,704.01, to top its own record set last month. The Nasdaq composite lagged behind and slipped 0.3% to 23,593.86 because of weakness in AI stocks.

It’s the latest return to records for the market following what had appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Some of the most recent included concerns about what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates and whether all the dollars flowing into AI chips and data centers will produce profits and productivity as prolific as proponents are promising.

The Fed on Wednesday cut its main interest rate for the third time this year and indicated another cut may be ahead in 2026. Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can boost the economy and send prices for investments higher, even if they potentially make inflation worse.

But a return to records for the U.S. stock market does not mean all worries are gone.

Oracle dropped 10.8% and had briefly been on track earlier in the day for its worst loss since 2001, when the dot-com bubble was still deflating. Doubts remain about whether all the spending that Oracle is doing on AI technology will be worth it.

Such doubts are weighing on the AI industry broadly, even as many billions of dollars continue to flow in.

Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the poster child of the AI boom and is raking in close to $20 billion each month, fell 1.5% Thursday. It was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 because of its massive size.

In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 52 cents to $58.12 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard added 49 cents to $61.77 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 155.70 Japanese yen from 155.58. The euro slid to $1.1737 from 1.1739.

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AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.