Category: 3. Business

A police force has issued a warning to cryptocurrency holders after a victim lost £2.1 million in Bitcoin to a “sophisticated scam”.

North Wales Police said a person posing as a senior UK officer tricked the victim into entering their password on a fake site by using a false story about a security breach.

The case highlights a “disturbing new trend”, the force said, with scammers “crafting sophisticated social engineering schemes to trick even the most diligent holders”.

It has urged people to remain vigilant and trust their instincts, and has issued guidance to help prevent similar attacks.

Police said those targeted may have been identified through a data breach “making this a highly targeted and advanced scam”.

It involved the victim being told a “fabricated story” that police had arrested an individual whose phone contained the victim’s personal identification documents.

Exploiting “fear” and “urgency”, they urged the victim to “secure their assets” by logging in via a fake website link – and, believing it was legitimate, the victim entered their password.

This gave them access to rebuild the victim’s wallet and steal £2.1 million within a “matter of moments”.

The force said it was working to trace the funds but warned the case “serves as a reminder that scammers are constantly evolving their tactics”.

It also issued the following advice:

• Police will never call you unexpectedly about your crypto or ask you to use your cold storage device – this is a big red flag.
• If unsure, hang up and call 101 to check if the contact was real.
• Never share or enter your password anywhere except directly on your cold storage device during setup or recovery.
• No legitimate company or police officer will ever ask for your seed phrase.

Impact of telerehabilitation on physical function

Immobilization after major surgery and during hospitalization can substantially decrease muscle strength and function. Physical training has been shown to improve strength and functional performance in patients recovering from hip fractures [23]. This study demonstrated that telerehabilitation programs, specifically tele-resistance exercises, can significantly enhance physical function in elderly patients following hip fracture surgery. At 12 weeks postintervention, the improvements were particularly notable compared with those achieved with traditional exercise booklets. This is the first study to implement such a program for fragility hip fractures in Thailand, contributing important evidence from a low-resource context.

Advantages of real-time video conferencing

The intervention employed real-time video conferencing through the LINE application to deliver exercises and provide immediate feedback from physiotherapists. This method differs from other telerehabilitation approaches, which typically use prerecorded videos or less interactive platforms [15]. The ability to offer real-time feedback allowed for personalized adjustments, likely contributing to the observed improvements in physical function. Additionally, participants could use smartphones or tablets with a standard application, making this telerehabilitation approach more accessible and cost-effective than systems relying on complex technology.

Challenges with traditional rehabilitation

Rehabilitation after surgery primarily aims to restore mobility. In the standard approach, older adults with hip fractures and their caregivers typically receive training on home exercise programs upon discharge, supplemented by an exercise booklet. However, clinical observations have shown that some patients struggle to follow and progress with these exercises, leading to delayed mobility recovery. Furthermore, mobility issues often prevent patients from receiving outpatient therapy, as they rely on caregiver assistance and face transportation challenges. These barriers can exacerbate inequities in healthcare access, particularly for those in remote or underserved areas. The trial addressed these limitations by introducing a more structured and accessible alternative the 12-week tele-resistance exercise program which allowed patients to receive rehabilitation remotely. This approach not only enhances accessibility but also potentially reduces inequities in healthcare access, aligning with the sustainable development goals [24].

Safety considerations in telerehabilitation

Safety is paramount in remote exercise programs. Therefore, 100 patients who were considered unsafe for telerehabilitation were excluded from the study. There were 31 participants with extreme ages and 69 conditions that could prohibit active exercise were excluded from the study. A meta-analysis reported that physiotherapist-led, exercise-based telerehabilitation is noninferior to face-to-face rehabilitation and superior to no intervention for older adults with musculoskeletal conditions [25]. Systematic reviews have also indicated that progressive resistance exercises following hip fracture surgery improve mobility, activities of daily living, balance, lower-limb strength, and performance in various tasks [26, 27]. Therefore, tele-resistance exercise was selected as the intervention. Tele-resistance exercise showed an adherence rate of 70%, demonstrating its superior effectiveness compared to using exercise booklets demonstrating its effectiveness compared to exercise booklets.

Primary outcome: improvements in SPPB scores

The Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) served as the primary outcome measure, evaluating balance, gait speed, and lower limb strength. At 12 weeks, the intervention group demonstrated a median improvement of 3.5 points—exceeding the threshold for substantial clinical relevance in older adults [15, 28]. This result aligns with previous meta-analyses supporting the efficacy of home-based digital interventions in enhancing physical function among elderly populations [15].

The use of real-time telerehabilitation, which provided personalized instruction and immediate feedback, likely contributed to these superior outcomes. Unlike conventional home programs that rely on static materials, the interactive nature of this approach allowed for progressive, individualized resistance training. This supports existing evidence indicating that supervised exercise produces greater functional gains than unsupervised programs in older adults [29].

Analysis of individual SPPB components revealed significant improvements across all domains within the intervention group. Notably, the chair stand test, which reflects lower limb strength, showed marked improvement as early as six weeks—a finding consistent with Vikberg et al., who reported similar early responses to resistance training. [30] Gait speed improved progressively in both groups, but significantly more in the intervention group by week 12. This is consistent with literature suggesting that resistance, multimodal, and coordination-focused training effectively enhance gait performance in older individuals [31, 32]. The early gains observed may have encouraged greater voluntary activity, thereby reinforcing ongoing improvements.

In contrast, while balance scores increased gradually over time, there was no significant between-group difference. Given that postural control involves multiple physiological systems, a multicomponent approach incorporating proprioceptive, aerobic, and neuromuscular training may be necessary to elicit more pronounced improvements in this domain [33].

Overall, the findings indicate that real-time tele-resistance exercise was effective in improving overall physical performance, particularly in total SPPB scores and gait speed, when compared to traditional unsupervised home rehabilitation.

Secondary outcomes

2-Minute walk test (2MWT)

The 2MWT revealed that both groups improved significantly from baseline at 6 and 12 weeks. Notably, the intervention group showed greater improvement at 6 weeks, though this difference did not remain statistically significant at 12 weeks. Despite this, the absolute gain in walking distance remained higher in the intervention group at both follow-up points. The mean increase of 21.4 m surpassed the minimal detectable change in older adults, suggesting clinically meaningful improvement in ambulatory capacity [19].

This finding aligns with evidence linking 2MWT performance to aerobic capacity during rehabilitation after hip fracture. [34] However, variability in the 12-week results may reflect natural recovery trajectories or increasing physical activity in the control group. Some studies have also suggested that endurance gains in this context may stem primarily from increased muscle strength [35, 36].

Knee extension strength

Contrary to expectations, no significant between-group differences were observed in knee extension strength on the fractured side. This contrasts with prior research showing strength improvements with resistance training. The limited impact may be due to the low intensity and volume of resistance used (0.5–1 kg), which may be insufficient for inducing measurable hypertrophy or strength gains, particularly in frail or sarcopenic populations [37].

Additionally, the control group had lower baseline strength, which may have motivated more self-directed exercise. Once participants regained mobility, reduced adherence may have further attenuated strength gains. While adherence to tele-resistance training was approximately 70%, no data were available for adherence to unsupervised exercises. The reduction in supervised sessions from twice weekly to once weekly after week 6 may have also affected training consistency and outcomes [38].

Anxiety scores and sociocultural factors

Improvements in anxiety were observed in both groups, though no significant between-group differences emerged. This contrasts with findings from Wu et al., who reported reduced anxiety with telerehabilitation [39]. Nevertheless, our findings are consistent with studies showing that physical activity can positively influence anxiety in older adults [40].

In the Thai context, strong familial caregiving support may have contributed to generally low baseline anxiety and steady improvements over time. Cultural values emphasizing elder care may mitigate psychological distress associated with physical decline, especially when combined with functional recovery. Additionally, greater mobility limitations and comorbidities in the control group may have been associated with higher fear of falling, which can influence anxiety scores [41, 42].

Safety and adverse events

Importantly, our study did not report any adverse effects or deaths related to the tele-resistance exercise program. One fall occurred in the intervention group; however, it was unrelated to the exercise program and did not result in serious complications. This study underscores the effectiveness of home-based digital health interventions involving communication, feedback, education, and telerehabilitation, which enhance functional outcomes among older patients recovering from hip fractures postsurgery [15].

Limitations

Several limitations must be acknowledged in this study. First, a significant number of patients were excluded due to safety concerns about remote exercise. Since this study was conducted in a tertiary, university-based medical school, the participants may have had more severe health conditions and a higher prevalence of comorbidities compared to those in community-based hospitals. Consequently, the findings may not be applicable to patients in such settings. Second, the relatively small sample size limits the generalizability of the results. This small sample size was partly due to recruitment challenges toward the end of 2022. During this period, many caregivers who were proficient in using smart devices and the LINE video call application had to resume on-site work, reducing their availability to support patients in the telerehabilitation program. Then some of the participants were institutionalized during this time, further limiting the pool of eligible participants. Increasing the sample size in future research could enhance the robustness of the findings. Additionally, the current study employed a conventional approach that included an exercise booklet and a home exercise program provided prior to discharge. This approach resulted in reduced therapist interaction for the control group, which may have negatively influenced their physical outcomes. Moreover, the participants in the control group were older and utilized gait aids more frequently compared to those in the intervention group. Previous research has established that older age and reduced walking abilities were associated with diminished functional recovery following hip fractures [6, 43]. Therefore, it is possible that the control group experienced poorer recovery outcomes than the intervention group. Finally, investigating the long-term effects of telerehabilitation is crucial for evaluating the sustainability of the observed benefits.

Aviva and Tesco Insurance & Money Services have announced the launch of a new partnership.

The new life insurance offering gives Tesco shoppers and Clubcard members access to simple, affordable and trusted life cover, helping customers protect what matters most whilst also benefitting from Tesco’s customer rewards.

The partnership brings together Tesco’s strong brand and customer centric focus with Aviva’s underwriting expertise and long-standing reputation in life insurance, and significant combined insight will help shape engagement with customers to reward them in a helpful way.

The life insurance proposition will reach Tesco customers through its online and social presence as well as in hundreds of stores across the UK. 

Customers will be able to take out cover via a simple digital quote and apply service at tescoinsurance.com.

Aviva’s Life Insurance Plan for Tesco customers brings a host of standout features, including:

• 5-star rating from Defaqto
• Cover starting from just £5 per month
• A fully mobile-optimised digital journey for ease and convenience.

Tesco customers also have the reassurance that over 98.8% of life insurance claims were paid across Aviva’s life insurance product range in 2024, totalling over £862m.¹

In addition to financial protection, Tesco customers taking out the Life Insurance Plan can also access a suite of complementary services, designed to support their health and wellbeing.

The wellbeing services are non-contractual benefits. Aviva can change or withdraw them at any time. Terms and conditions and residency restrictions apply.

Ban Mahsoub, Partnerships Director at Tesco Insurance and Money Services, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Aviva to expand our offering into protection insurance for millions of Tesco customers and help meet the needs of families across the UK.

“Tesco’s trusted brand backed by Aviva’s expertise is bringing high-quality cover and real peace of mind for those who want to protect their loved ones. 

“Life insurance is one of the most important ways people can plan for the future, and we want to make it easier and more accessible.”

Daren Boys, Protection Distribution Director at Aviva, said: “This new partnership is an exciting opportunity for our two brands to leverage our digital and data capabilities to bring life insurance to the forefront for Tesco customers across the UK.

“By combining Tesco’s reach with Aviva’s extensive expertise in protection, we’re creating wider market awareness and greater access to insurance, to help more families feel financially resilient.

“The partnership adds to our growing distribution footprint and supports our ambition to grow the market across intermediary, direct and partnership channels.”

For more information or to get a quote, visit tescoinsurance.com/lifeinsurance.

-ends-

References:

^1. _{The figures show the combined life insurance and terminal illness claims paid in 2024 and former AIG Life policy claims paid since the acquisition completion on 9 April 2024. AIG Life rebranded to Aviva Protection UK Limited in February 2025.}

About Tesco Insurance

Our goal is to make insurance more rewarding and better value for people who shop at Tesco. We’ve been insuring customers for over 20 years and today we help more than 2 million customers protect what matters. Our colleagues serve our customers seven days a week from our main centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and we are also available through online and mobile banking 24/7.

Enquiries:

Aviva

Fiona Murphy-Alexander: fiona.murphy-alexander@aviva.com: 07384 451 332

Melissa Loughran: melissa.loughran@aviva.com: 07800 691 947

Tesco

Charlotte Sommerville: charlotte.l.somerville@tescoims.com

With its orchards of low-growing fruit trees and a harbor dotted with yachts, Bitterfeld has an air of pastoral charm. But this former East German town, about 140 kilometers (86 miles) southwest of Berlin, also has a less bucolic side.

A shallow lake called the Silbersee is a reminder of a disused lignite mine that once provided fuel, while a tangle of pipes from one of Germany’s oldest chemical facilities has long added an industrial twist to the skyline.

Recently, this town of two tales has taken on a third persona, quietly emerging as a hub for the EU’s drive to source rare earths on home turf.

Vital to the manufacture of permanent magnets that show up in consumer electronics, renewables, and defense technologies, these chemical elements are largely sourced in China. As a result, Europe is dependent on exports — something it would like to change. Enter Bitterfeld.  

Struggling despite strategic potential 

The idea is to recycle rare earth elements from end-of-life electronic devices. In May 2024, the family-run German tech group Heraeus opened its facility, a grey rectangular building shielded by a high barbed-wire fence, for that purpose.

At its launch, the site was presented as “the largest rare earth magnet recycling plant in Europe.”

Initially,  it aimed to produce around 600 tons of rare earth magnetic powder per year, with plans to double this figure to 1,200 tons in the near future. But that’s not quite how things have panned out.

A year after the launch, Heraeus says the facility is struggling to break even, despite the field’s potential strategic importance.

“I cannot disclose the exact number, but we are nowhere near full capacity,” David Christian Bender, co-head of Heraeus Remloy, told DW, adding that European recycling “cannot compete” with rare earth metal deliveries from China.

The holy grail of the high-tech economy 

Four industrial sectors in Germany are particularly dependent on rare earth imports: the automotive industry, mechanical and plant engineering, energy, and defense. One of the key minerals they need is neodymium.

Found in countless smart devices, from electric motors and wind turbines to MRI scanners and smartphone speakers, this silvery-white metal is the holy grail of the high-tech economy. The element, primarily in the form of neodymium-iron-boron magnets, is also crucial for military applications.

“These magnets are used in precision-guided weapons, radar and sonar systems, satellite communications, and the acoustic signature reduction on military vehicles,“ Stefan Steinicke from the Federation of German Industries (BDI) told DW.

Although Europe possesses some reserves, it does not currently mine neodymium. In fact, the continent imports 100% of its heavy rare earth elements (REEs), such as terbium, and 85% of its light rare earth elements, including neodymium, from China. The country also produces 90% of the world’s magnets.

“When it comes to electric motors, robotics and drones, import dependency is not only high, but system-critical,” Steinicke said.

Short-term import stoppages lead to production delays, supply bottlenecks, and price hikes. Longer-term disruptions could result in project cancellations in key tech sectors and cause strategic uncertainty among investors.

In April this year, China severely restrictedits exports of several heavy rare earth metals and rare earth magnets, leading to a drastic shortfall in Europe. In some parts of Germany, production lines came to a standstill.

A cleaner shortcut 

In 2024, the EU introduced its Critical Raw Materials Act. By 2030, Europe aims to mine at least 10% of the raw materials it requires, process 40%, and recycle 25%. Dependence on any single non-EU country is to be reduced to a maximum of 65%.

Experts welcome the targets but regard them as ambitious, saying the EU needs to move faster, make greater investments and be more creative with its policy tools.

The mining-to-magnet production chain is long and costly. “A green mine is an oxymoron. It always involves environmental degradation and pollution,” said Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, a Brussels-based non-profit focused on electronic waste.

Short-loop recycling, in turn, uses vacuum melting, skipping the dirtiest, most energy-hungry steps found in the longer recycling loop. It is, therefore, held up as a cleaner alternative to mining. 

Aside from Heraeus Remloy, several other European companies are racing to lead in REE-recycling. But finding customers willing to pay extra to support European producers remains difficult.

Jan Giese, a senior manager at TRADIUM, a German metal products distributor says the challenges are due to “relatively high prices for interesting scrap material,“ higher European production costs, “lower recycling capacities and resulting poorer economies of scale.“

According to TRADIUM, the price of neodymium oxide has been gradually declining, albeit with certain volatility, since March 2022, reaching one of its low points around mid-2024. This further adds to recyclers’ profitability struggles.

So far, less than 1% of the rare earths consumed in the EU are recycled, Rüya Perincek, press officer at the EU Commission, told DW. And though Brussels has approved several projects to help tap private funding, it is not likely to tip the scales in any big way.

Early next year, the EU is planning to launch a special platform connecting buyers and suppliers of strategic raw materials to diversify sourcing. 

No silver bullet 

“Recycling quotas could be part of a solution,” Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Germany’s conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary bloc, told DW.

Highlighting the need for “a coherent political effort that combines a mosaic of measures,” he did not rule out a tax credit for magnets manufactured domestically or made from reclaimed components. Such steps, however, should be taken “in close coordination within the EU,” he added.

Nearly 50% of all e-waste in the European Union remains uncollected, and less than 40% is recycled. The Commission plans to revise the WEEE Directive, an EU regulation on electronic waste management, to better align collection, treatment, and market incentives.

According to Leroy, Brussels needs to introduce dedicated waste codes for permanent magnets so they can be traced and recycled before going missing or being exported.

Together with its partners, the WEEE Forum has also created an online Urban Mine Platform highlighting the volume of precious materials in EU waste — equivalent to roughly the weight of three million African elephants.

Bender, co-head of Heraeus Remloy, hopes to see a swift introduction of measures to boost the recycling of rare earth elements. He is calling for mandatory quotas and financial or tax incentives for using recycled European magnets, especially in the car industry.

“The situation is very challenging… If nothing is done right now, I can’t see any change happening by 2030,” he added — despite the goals set in Brussels. 

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

This article was produced as part of the Thematic Networks of PULSE, a European initiative that supports transnational journalistic collaborations.

Squire Patton Boggs has acted for Andrew Preston on the Management Buyout (MBO) of HireGenics UK to form Clarity Outsourcing Group.

Clarity is a dynamic UK and European outsourcing company focused on helping businesses take control of their workforce, achieving better outcomes through smarter, compliant, and more sustainable staffing models, whether in a single location or operating across multiple countries. The company works across a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, public services, logistics, and professional industries, offering services such as neutral vendor MSP and bank workforce models, compliance audits, and supplier performance management. Andrew Preston continues as CEO of the newly named group.

The team advising Andrew Preston was led by Corporate partners Julian Ciecierski-Burns and Paul Mann.

“We are delighted to support Andrew, whom we have known as a highly experienced leader in managed services operations, in the MBO of Clarity, a transaction which will lead to a new phase of investment and growth,” commented Julian Ciecierski-Burns.

CEO Andrew Preston said, “Our company has been successfully delivering transparent, scalable, and people-centric workforce solutions across a wide range of sectors for some time. We will now be able to drive forward further strategic expansion, implementing future-ready outsourcing models that improve compliance, deliver more innovation, and align better with long-term client success. What a pleasure it was working again with the team at Squire Patton Boggs in delivering this transaction; their professional team immediately understood our business and its goals and provided trusted commercial and solutions-focused guidance at every stage.”

By implementing a combination of AWS services—including Amazon Bedrock for accessing powerful foundation models, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) with AWS Fargate for scalable application container execution, and Amazon Aurora as a highly available database—the company can focus on driving its core innovations without having to manage the underlying infrastructure.
The scalability and reliability of the AWS Cloud are crucial for the platform’s availability and performance. For Leapter’s customers, this translates into a high-performing, always-available platform capable of processing complex logic visualizations in real-time without delays. The dependability of AWS infrastructure provides Leapter’s customers with the confidence that their business-critical development processes are built on a stable foundation.

The “Glass Box Problem”

AI assistants can handle a wide variety of tasks, from summarizing documents to creating images and videos, or analyzing and representing business data. They can also help software developers write program code to develop new products or services. But how can developers using these code generation tools ensure that the resulting application code is error-free and secure? This fundamental challenge is precisely what Leapter, a German startup, is addressing. Leapter recently successfully closed a pre-seed funding round of 2 million euros, led by bm-t beteiligungsmanagement thüringen GmbH with participation from SIVentures.
The company, which builds its platform on AWS, has developed a solution that visualizes AI-generated code, making it transparent and comprehensible – effectively transforming the proverbial “black box” into what they call a “glass box.”

The trust problem with AI systems

For businesses, errors in generated source code can have severe consequences—especially when business-critical applications are affected. “We’ve reached a point where AI is transforming nearly every industry. However, for the teams developing these AI applications, it often functions like a black box,” explains Oliver Welte, co-founder of Leapter. “While developers can see what goes in and what comes out, they can’t see how the AI arrives at its conclusions, such as the generated code. This lack of transparency creates significant challenges, particularly when AI systems occasionally ‘hallucinate’—generating code that appears plausible but is incorrect.”
Consider an insurance company whose AI creates code for calculating annual insurance premiums. A subtle logic error—for instance, if the AI misinterprets a rule like “customers with more than 5 years of contract duration receive a discount” as ‘years > 5’ instead of ‘years >= 5’—could have serious consequences: thousands of customers in their fifth contract year would be wrongly excluded from discounts, potentially leading to massive customer dissatisfaction and costly legal consequences.

The real problem isn’t that AI might make mistakes, but that it’s too difficult for humans to reliably find these errors in the code jungle. Therefore, it’s crucial that developers and domain experts can easily understand and validate the business logic generated as code by AI to take full responsibility for the application.

Only then can it be ensured that the app functions correctly and can be safely used by users. So it’s not about AI making mistakes – all systems do that. Rather, it’s about developers needing to understand exactly what happens in AI systems, why errors occur, and how to fix them.

How lack of transparency slows innovation

Think about our favorite apps – the ones we use for shopping, finances, communication, or work. Each was developed by teams that conceived their functions and wrote thousands or even millions of lines of code. Today, these teams increasingly use AI to develop applications faster. But there’s a catch: if the team doesn’t understand what the AI-generated code does or how it works, they’ll hardly trust it enough to use it in the final product.

“It’s like having a brilliant but enigmatic colleague who hands over completed work without explaining their approach,” says Robert Werner, Leapter’s second co-founder, who brings over a decade of experience from industry giants like Pivotal and VMware. “While you appreciate the help, you’ll likely spend considerable time trying to understand the work before you have enough confidence to use it.”

This trust gap affects entire organizations developing AI-supported applications. Product managers can only verify with great effort whether the development meets customer needs. The verification process costs time and ties up valuable company resources, negating the positive effects of AI usage. And in regulated industries like healthcare or finance, this lack of transparency can make AI-supported development nearly impossible. “Without transparency, teams end up spending more time reviewing and understanding AI-generated code than they would have spent writing it themselves,” Werner explains.

Solutions for more transparency in AI usage

Instead of just producing raw code, Leapter’s platform generates visualizations that show exactly what the code does and why. “We call them ‘executable models’,” explains Welte. “They’re visualized workflows that show how data flows through a system, where decisions are made, and how different components interact.”

These models serve as a common language for all software development stakeholders:

• For developers: Understanding the logic behind AI-generated code without time-consuming reverse engineering
• For business teams: Verifying system behavior without technical expertise
• For organizations: Ensuring governance and compliance through transparent, verifiable AI systems

A practical example: A team develops a recommendation system using AI. With Leapter’s platform, they can precisely visualize how the AI-generated code processes user preferences, analyzes product attributes, and generates recommendations. If the recommendations appear inappropriate, the decision path can be traced back to identify where the logic needs adjustment.

AWS is also actively addressing the challenge of AI transparency. With Amazon Bedrock Guardrails, AWS offers a solution that makes AI applications safer and more traceable. Amazon Bedrock Guardrails can detect up to 88 percent of potentially harmful content and filter out over 75 percent of hallucinations in AI responses. Through the use of “Automated Reasoning” – which, as the first and only AI protection feature, uses mathematical methods – factual errors can be prevented and the correctness of answers can be verifiably proven.

The use of different tools and technologies can help companies make AI systems more understandable, controllable, and thus more trustworthy.

For consumers, this means that the applications we use daily can be developed more efficiently and with fewer errors. New features are delivered faster, errors are detected earlier, and the end product more accurately matches actual user needs. For companies and their employees, this results in real efficiency advantages through the use of AI.

European Innovation and Digital Sovereignty in the AI Era

In a time when AI is significantly driving digital transformation, Europe is increasingly establishing itself as a center for trustworthy AI innovation.

“Building our platform on AWS was the logical choice for us,” explains Werner. “The AWS infrastructure not only provides the performance capabilities we need for our visualization and analysis platform – the strong commitment to European digital sovereignty also aligns with our values. As a European company, we develop innovative technologies that make AI-supported code development transparent and traceable. AWS’s consistent alignment with European standards enables us to drive this innovation forward and help companies better understand and control their AI-supported development processes. This way, our customers benefit from cutting-edge cloud infrastructure while maintaining full transparency over their AI-supported development processes.”

Faster development with maintained trustworthiness

Early users of the Leapter platform report significant benefits:

• Reduced verification tn time: Teams need up to 60 percent less time to review AI-generated code
• Improved cross-team collaboration: Business and technical stakeholders can cooperate more effectively through a shared visual language
• Faster market entry: Through optimization of the AI verification process, products move more quickly from conception to market launch
• “The best technology is invisible to users but completely transparent to developers,” explains Werner. “That’s exactly our goal – making AI an understandable, trustworthy component of software development.”

The future of human-AI collaboration

As AI becomes more deeply integrated into our daily lives, transparency becomes increasingly important. “We are convinced that the future belongs to teams where humans and AI work together, each playing to their respective strengths,” says Welte. “AI can generate drafts and handle repetitive tasks at incredible speed. Humans bring judgment, creativity, and ethical considerations.”

Trust is essential for this way of working – and trust requires transparency. By providing tools that make transparent what AI-generated code does and how it works, companies like Leapter are creating a foundation for the next generation of AI-supported developed applications. For consumers, this means that the products and services we rely on can continue to benefit from AI’s capabilities – while ensuring human control that ensures they truly meet our needs.

Leapter is currently in a private beta phase with initial design partners. For more information about their visual-first development platform, visit www.Leapter.com.

To learn more about how companies can increase their productivity, create differentiated experiences, and innovate faster with AWS, click here.

Seoyong Choi
[email protected]
Global PR Strategy & Planning · Hyundai Motor Company

Disclaimer: Hyundai Motor Group believes the information contained herein to be accurate at the time of release. However, the company may upload new or updated information if required and assumes that it is not liable for the accuracy of any information interpreted and used by the reader.

About the Royal College of Art

Founded in 1837, the Royal College of Art is the world’s leading university of art and design. Specialising in teaching and research, the RCA offers degrees of MA, MPhil, MRes and PhD across the disciplines of architecture, arts & humanities, design and communication. Based in the heart of London, the RCA provides 2,500 students with unrivalled opportunities to deliver art and design projects that transform the world. Its approach is founded on the premise that art, design, creative thinking, science, engineering and technology must all collaborate to solve today’s global challenges. For more information about the Royal College of Art, please see: www.rca.ac.uk

About the Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC)

The Intelligent Mobility Design Centre leads design research at the intersection of people, mobility and technology within a complex and changing urban and global environment. The IMDC provides a platform which brings together designers, artists, scientists and engineers to question and reimagine the way we move goods and people. The Centre incorporates the Intelligent Mobility MA programme, bringing together researchers and students to cultivate excellent research and design outputs and pioneer new teaching in a subject area traditionally focused on design skills, rather than research focused. For more information about the IMDC, please see: www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-centres/intelligent-mobility-design-centre

About Hyundai Motor Group

Hyundai Motor Group is a global enterprise that has created a value chain based on mobility, steel and construction, as well as logistics, finance, IT and service. With about 250,000 employees worldwide, the Group’s mobility brands include Hyundai, Kia and Genesis. Armed with creative thinking, cooperative communication and the will to take on any challenges, we strive to create a better future for all.

More information about Hyundai Motor and its products can be found at:

http://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com or Newsroom: Media Hub by Hyundai , Kia Global Media Center (kianewscenter.com) , Genesis Global Newsroom

(Bloomberg) — Wall Street’s selloff in tech heavyweights dragged down global markets on Wednesday, as investors cashed in gains from the leaders of the post-April rally.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 dropped 0.1% after closing within a whisker of an all-time high on Tuesday. Technology stocks fell as much as 0.9% before paring the loss. Investors took shelter in defensive sectors, with real estate and utility stocks among the biggest gainers. Asian stocks retreated 0.7%.

In the US, contracts for the Nasdaq 100 retreated 0.3% after the gauge suffered its second-worst drop since April. US Treasuries dropped across the curve, with the 10-year yield rising two basis points to 4.32%. The dollar was little changed.

Investors pared back positions in big tech amid growing concern that the rally since April has advanced too far and too quickly. That momentum will get a further test this week as focus turns to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to speak on Friday with traders firming up bets on a September cut in interest rates.

“As valuations get pushed to a historical high, traders and hedge funds tend to pull back,” said Anna Wu, cross-asset strategist at VanEck in Sydney. “Today’s fall is pre-Jackson Hole caution and profit-taking.”

In the UK, money markets kept wagers on Bank of England interest-rate cuts broadly steady, seeing around a 40% change of a quarter-point cut this year after inflation climbed for a second month in July. The pound rose 0.1%.

Meanwhile, traders are positioning ahead of Powell’s remarks, with Treasury markets treating a quarter-point rate cut next month as a near certainty and pricing in at least one more before year-end.

Investors are waiting to hear whether Powell will validate current market expectations or counter them by stressing that fresh economic data arriving before the next policy meeting could alter the outlook. They’re also scanning for hints about how the Fed foresees the pace of rate cuts extending into next year.

“If we get an indication that they are more inclined to cutting interest rates, that will be more supportive again,” HSBC Head of APAC Equity Strategy Herald van der Linde said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

What Bloomberg Strategists Say…

“The selloff for Nvidia ahead its earnings next week is the biggest factor for global tech investors. Given that Nvidia is coming off a huge rally since April it looks like being a headwind for stocks in the days ahead.”

—Mark Cranfield, MLIV

Corporate News:

Swedish startup Mindler AB has acquired Ieso Digital Health UK for an undisclosed sum as it seeks to build out its footprint in the online therapy market. Xiaomi Corp. intends to sell its first electric vehicle in Europe by 2027, declaring plans to take on Tesla Inc. and BYD Co. globally after gaining traction with its year-old Chinese EV business. SBB, the firm at the center of Sweden’s property crisis two years ago, reported better-than-expected rental income in the second quarter thanks to growth in its residential segment. Temasek Holdings Pte is mulling one of its biggest overhauls in years, potentially reorganizing the firm into three investment vehicles in a bid to boost returns and efficiencies, according to people familiar with the matter. Shares of Chinese pop toy maker Pop Mart International Group Ltd. rose to a record after founder and Chief Executive Officer Wang Ning said the company could easily surpass its annual sales projection and announced plans to launch a new mini Labubu. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

The Stoxx Europe 600 was little changed as of 9:06 a.m. London time S&P 500 futures fell 0.2% Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.3% Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.7% The MSCI Emerging Markets Index fell 0.8% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1645 The Japanese yen was little changed at 147.57 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1803 per dollar The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.3505 Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin was little changed at $113,476.51 Ether rose 0.9% to $4,195.8 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 4.32% Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.75% Britain’s 10-year yield was little changed at 4.74% Commodities

Brent crude rose 1% to $66.46 a barrel Spot gold rose 0.2% to $3,323.28 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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