Category: 3. Business

NEW YORK — Major retail chains and tech companies are offering new or updated artificial intelligence tools in time for the holiday shopping season, hoping to give consumers an easier gift-buying experience and themselves an augmented share of online spending.

Although AI-powered purchases are in early stages, the shopping assistants and agents rolled out by the likes of Walmart, Amazon and Google can do more than the chatbots of holidays past. The latest versions were designed to provide personalized product recommendations, track prices and to place some orders through unscripted “conversations” with customers.

Those features are on top of shopping updates from AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. In one of the season’s most talked-about launches, Google this month introduced an AI agent that can be instructed to call local stores to ask if a desired product is in stock.

San Francisco software company Salesforce estimated that AI would influence $73 billion, or 22%, of all global sales in one way or another from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through Monday after the holiday, according to Caila Schwartz, Salesforce’s director of consumer insights.

The figure, which stood at $60 billion a year ago, encompasses everything from a ChatGPT query to AI-supplied gift suggestions on a retailer’s website, Schwartz said.

Despite the advancements, AI’s impact on holiday shopping will be “relatively limited” this year since not every shopping site has useful tools and not every shopper is willing to try them, said Brad Jashinsky, a senior retail industry analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner.

“The more retailers that launch these tools, the better they get, and the more that consumers get comfortable and start to seek them out,” Jashinsky said. “But customer behavior takes a long time to change.”

Here are three ways the technology is poised to influence holiday shopping habits in 2025:

AI’s potential to simplify the search for the perfect present is most apparent so far in tools that promise to give shoppers faster and more detailed results than a web browser with a lot fewer clicks.

OpenAI upgraded ChatGPT with a shopping research feature that provides personalized buyers’ guides. The information comes from product pages, reviews. prices and a user’s previous interactions with the chatbot. The tool works best for complicated products like electronics and appliances, or for “detail-heavy” items like beauty or sporting goods, OpenAI said.

Then there’s Rufus, the shopping assistant that Amazon rolled out last year. It now remembers information customers previously fed it, like having four children that all like board games, for example. A user’s browsing and purchase history and reviews are used to personalize recommendations.

Google upgraded its AI Mode search tool to provide answers to detailed questions composed in natural language. For example, users can tell the agent they want to buy a casual sweater to wear with skirt or jeans in New York in January that goes with a skirt or jeans,

Responses are pulled from Google’s 50 billion product listings. The tool can also produce charts with side-by-side comparisons of prices, features, reviews and other factors. Previously, shoppers had to use keywords, filters and product links to find the information they needed.

“This is an expansionary moment, I think, for all of technology and for commerce,” Lilian Rincon, vice president of product, consumer shopping at Google, recently told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, Sparky, offers occasion-based recommendations and synthesizes reviews. An AI-powered gift finder on Target’s app exclusively for the holidays responds to prompts such as the age and special hobbies of the recipient.

Tools for tracking online prices have been around for years, including CamelCamelCamel, a third-party service for Amazon prices, as well as Paypal’s Honey browser extension for monitoring thousands of online shops.

This holiday season, shoppers have new options.

Amazon launched a 90-day pricing history tracker this month for virtually everything it sells. Shoppers also now can set up alerts to receive notifications when prices on specific items fall within their budgets.

Google, which for years had a basic price tracker, launched a more advanced version that lets users refine their requests with details like a garment’s size and color. Microsoft’s Copilot also launched a price tracker this year.

Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, said he thinks the new pricing tools will add more pressure on retailers to make sure their prices are competitive.

“A lot of consumers that weren’t even looking for price alerts are going to discover price alerts for the first time,” Goldberg predicted.

Amazon, OpenAI and Google are racing to create tools that would allow for seamless AI-powered shopping by taking consumers from browsing to buying within the same program instead of having to go to a retailer’s website to complete a purchase.

OpenAI launched a new instant checkout feature that lets users buy products suggested by ChatGPT without leaving the app. Users can order merchandise from Etsy sellers and from some brands that use Shopify, including Glossier, Skims and Spanx.

OpenAI and Walmart announced a similar deal in October, saying the partnership would allow ChatGPT members to use the instant checkout feature to shop for nearly everything available on Walmart’s website except for fresh food. For now, however, the feature only supports buying one item at a time.

A different deal Target struck with OpenAI lets shoppers put multiple items in a cart on ChatGPT, including fresh food products. But when customers are ready to pay for their orders, they are directed away from the chatbot to the Target app.

New tools from Amazon and Google will give shoppers a taste of having autonomous AI assistants do the buying for them. While the services still are limited, “agentic AI” is intended to be more independent and advanced than the generative AI chatbots that excel at research and writing, experts say.

Amazon is now letting Rufus automatically purchase items for customers who click an “auto buy” button while setting up price alerts. Once a product’s price drops to the desired level, customers receive notice of their completed orders and have a limited window to cancel, the company said.

The e-commerce giant also started allowing shoppers to use Rufus searches for brand-name products on the Amazon app as a gateway to other retailers. If Amazon doesn’t carry a desired item in its store, a “Shop Direct” button will take them to the website of a place that does.

Google’s AI Mode price tracker also includes a “buy for me” option that automatically makes a customer’s purchase through Google Pay when the price is right. The feature is available for products sold by Wayfair, Chewy, Quince and some Shopify merchants, and Google expects to keep adding more stores, the company said. sellers.

Google also expanded its web browser with an automated AI call feature that phones local businesses on behalf of customers looking for information or specific products. Google’s program discloses to the store that it’s an AI caller, and stores can choose not to participate, the company said.

Google said it’s applying the feature initially to specific product categories: toys, health and beauty, and electronics. Target and Walmart declined to comment on whether this type of service would be part of their future plans.

Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) is included in our list of the 12 oversold global stocks to invest in.

On November 26, 2025, Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) saw Morgan Stanley’s Sanjit Singh reiterate a “Buy” rating and reduce the price target to $82. The company reported 13% YoY revenue growth in Q1 to $670.6 million. Singh noted that this growth, though slightly below expectations due to several deals with deferred start dates, does not reflect deteriorating demand. Meanwhile, the company’s continued operational strength was highlighted by the analyst, including 18% ARR growth, 17% net-new ARR expansion, maintained FY26 operating margin guidance, and a $10 million boost to free cash flow guidance. These positives drove the analyst’s bullish stance.

Meanwhile, Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) reported fiscal Q1 2026 results on November 25, which marked resilient demand for its hybrid multicloud platform. This was evident from the quarter’s bookings, which came in slightly ahead of expectations. Furthermore, free cash flow remained strong at $174.5 million, up from $151.9 million in Q1 2025. While management noted some revenue shifting from Q1 to future quarters, they emphasized that total revenue over time remains the same.

Looking ahead, Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX)’s management remains optimistic, thanks to continued partner momentum driven by expanded collaborations with Dell and Microsoft. Building on this perceived momentum, the company raised its free cash flow outlook for the year. Non-GAAP net income per share (diluted) of $0.41 was recorded for the quarter, which represents a YoY increase of $0.05.

Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) is focused on delivering a unified hybrid multicloud software platform that enables over 29,000 customers worldwide to run applications and manage data seamlessly.

While we acknowledge the potential of NTNX as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 10 Best Small-Cap Biotech Stocks to Buy According to Analysts and 11 Overlooked Tech Stocks to Invest In.

Disclosure: None.

NEW YORK (AP) — Major retail chains and tech companies are offering new or updated artificial intelligence tools in time for the holiday shopping season, hoping to give consumers an easier gift-buying experience and themselves an augmented share of online spending.

Although AI-powered purchases are in early stages, the shopping assistants and agents rolled out by the likes of Walmart, Amazon and Google can do more than the chatbots of holidays past. The latest versions were designed to provide personalized product recommendations, track prices and to place some orders through unscripted “conversations” with customers.

Those features are on top of shopping updates from AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. In one of the season’s most talked-about launches, Google this month introduced an AI agent that can be instructed to call local stores to ask if a desired product is in stock.

San Francisco software company Salesforce estimated that AI would influence $73 billion, or 22%, of all global sales in one way or another from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through Monday after the holiday, according to Caila Schwartz, Salesforce’s director of consumer insights.

The figure, which stood at $60 billion a year ago, encompasses everything from a ChatGPT query to AI-supplied gift suggestions on a retailer’s website, Schwartz said.

Despite the advancements, AI’s impact on holiday shopping will be “relatively limited” this year since not every shopping site has useful tools and not every shopper is willing to try them, said Brad Jashinsky, a senior retail industry analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner.

“The more retailers that launch these tools, the better they get, and the more that consumers get comfortable and start to seek them out,” Jashinsky said. “But customer behavior takes a long time to change.”

Here are three ways the technology is poised to influence holiday shopping habits in 2025:

Bypassing the search bar

AI’s potential to simplify the search for the perfect present is most apparent so far in tools that promise to give shoppers faster and more detailed results than a web browser with a lot fewer clicks.

OpenAI upgraded ChatGPT with a shopping research feature that provides personalized buyers’ guides. The information comes from product pages, reviews. prices and a user’s previous interactions with the chatbot. The tool works best for complicated products like electronics and appliances, or for “detail-heavy” items like beauty or sporting goods, OpenAI said.

Then there’s Rufus, the shopping assistant that Amazon rolled out last year. It now remembers information customers previously fed it, like having four children that all like board games, for example. A user’s browsing and purchase history and reviews are used to personalize recommendations.

Google upgraded its AI Mode search tool to provide answers to detailed questions composed in natural language. For example, users can tell the agent they want to buy a casual sweater to wear with skirt or jeans in New York in January that goes with a skirt or jeans,

Responses are pulled from Google’s 50 billion product listings. The tool can also produce charts with side-by-side comparisons of prices, features, reviews and other factors. Previously, shoppers had to use keywords, filters and product links to find the information they needed.

“This is an expansionary moment, I think, for all of technology and for commerce,” Lilian Rincon, vice president of product, consumer shopping at Google, recently told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, Sparky, offers occasion-based recommendations and synthesizes reviews. An AI-powered gift finder on Target’s app exclusively for the holidays responds to prompts such as the age and special hobbies of the recipient.

New pricing tools and alerts

Tools for tracking online prices have been around for years, including CamelCamelCamel, a third-party service for Amazon prices, as well as Paypal’s Honey browser extension for monitoring thousands of online shops.

This holiday season, shoppers have new options.

Amazon launched a 90-day pricing history tracker this month for virtually everything it sells. Shoppers also now can set up alerts to receive notifications when prices on specific items fall within their budgets.

Google, which for years had a basic price tracker, launched a more advanced version that lets users refine their requests with details like a garment’s size and color. Microsoft’s Copilot also launched a price tracker this year.

Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, said he thinks the new pricing tools will add more pressure on retailers to make sure their prices are competitive.

“A lot of consumers that weren’t even looking for price alerts are going to discover price alerts for the first time,” Goldberg predicted.

New ways to buy

Amazon, OpenAI and Google are racing to create tools that would allow for seamless AI-powered shopping by taking consumers from browsing to buying within the same program instead of having to go to a retailer’s website to complete a purchase.

OpenAI launched a new instant checkout feature that lets users buy products suggested by ChatGPT without leaving the app. Users can order merchandise from Etsy sellers and from some brands that use Shopify, including Glossier, Skims and Spanx.

OpenAI and Walmart announced a similar deal in October, saying the partnership would allow ChatGPT members to use the instant checkout feature to shop for nearly everything available on Walmart’s website except for fresh food. For now, however, the feature only supports buying one item at a time.

A different deal Target struck with OpenAI lets shoppers put multiple items in a cart on ChatGPT, including fresh food products. But when customers are ready to pay for their orders, they are directed away from the chatbot to the Target app.

New tools from Amazon and Google will give shoppers a taste of having autonomous AI assistants do the buying for them. While the services still are limited, “agentic AI” is intended to be more independent and advanced than the generative AI chatbots that excel at research and writing, experts say.

Amazon is now letting Rufus automatically purchase items for customers who click an “auto buy” button while setting up price alerts. Once a product’s price drops to the desired level, customers receive notice of their completed orders and have a limited window to cancel, the company said.

The e-commerce giant also started allowing shoppers to use Rufus searches for brand-name products on the Amazon app as a gateway to other retailers. If Amazon doesn’t carry a desired item in its store, a “Shop Direct” button will take them to the website of a place that does.

Google’s AI Mode price tracker also includes a “buy for me” option that automatically makes a customer’s purchase through Google Pay when the price is right. The feature is available for products sold by Wayfair, Chewy, Quince and some Shopify merchants, and Google expects to keep adding more stores, the company said. sellers.

Google also expanded its web browser with an automated AI call feature that phones local businesses on behalf of customers looking for information or specific products. Google’s program discloses to the store that it’s an AI caller, and stores can choose not to participate, the company said.

Google said it’s applying the feature initially to specific product categories: toys, health and beauty, and electronics. Target and Walmart declined to comment on whether this type of service would be part of their future plans.

Anne D’innocenzio, The Associated Press

The alarm hasn’t yet reached the general public, but tension is beginning to build in the corridors of the aerospace industry, in microchip laboratories, and in government offices. For months, an element almost invisible to the world—yttrium—has become the silent center of a new global dispute. Supplies are thinning, prices are skyrocketing, deliveries are stalling. And while China and the United States have promised a truce over rare earth minerals, the wheels of advanced technology are beginning to slow.

Although a late-October meeting in South Korea between Chinese president Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump raised hopes for a détente, the Chinese export restrictions introduced last April remain substantially in place. Beijing granted a one-year reprieve on the mandatory government licensing system for shipments of rare earths and products containing related materials (including those made abroad with at least 0.1 percent Chinese resources), in exchange for a similar suspension of the White House’s latest restrictions on technology supply chains.

A Crucial Element in a Market Under Pressure

But other measures introduced before the latest escalation remain in place. The result is a tightening of the international supply chain that threatens to slow advanced technological production, raise costs, and challenge entire industrial sectors. Yttrium plays a crucial role in the functioning of contemporary technologies. Without yttrium, the production of aircraft engines, high-efficiency turbines, advanced energy systems, and semiconductors would immediately slow down.

Yttrium’s value lies in its ability to impart thermal and mechanical strength to materials subjected to extreme temperatures. Jet engines blades, for example, must withstand prolonged overheating and intense vibration; yttrium is what allows them to maintain structural integrity and efficiency. The same is true for industrial chip manufacturing, where yttrium-based coatings protect machinery from chemical wear and ensure precision in plasma etching. Its indispensable nature has made it a key element of modern technology and the military.

China’s Role

The problem is that, as with several other resources, China controls almost the entire global yttrium supply chain. Not only does it produce most of it, but it also has the know-how and infrastructure to refine and separate it from other rare earth minerals, a complex and technologically advanced process. According to US data, the United States imports 100 percent of its yttrium needs, 93 percent of which comes directly from China. Such stark dependence creates enormous geopolitical vulnerability.

When Beijing decided to introduce export restrictions as a response to US tariffs, the entire international supply structure began to falter. Companies reported delays, difficulties in obtaining licenses, and uncertainty about delivery times. In the rare earths trade, lack of predictability is often more damaging than reduced volumes: An industry accustomed to just-in-time deliveries can be thrown into crisis by even a few weeks of delay.

The effects were immediate. In Europe, yttrium oxide prices have soared, reaching a 4,400 percent increase since the beginning of the year. Aerospace companies, which rely heavily on this material, have expressed alarm and demanded urgent measures from the US government to expand domestic production. The semiconductor industry is no less concerned: Some companies have called the situation a “serious” threat, predicting impacts on costs, efficiency, and production timelines. Gas-fired power plants, which use yttrium in the protective coatings of turbines, are also monitoring Chinese developments with increasing attention, although they maintain that they have not yet experienced disruptions.

Chinese artificial intelligence start-ups Moonshot AI and MiniMax have emerged as China’s strongest contenders to rival US frontier labs in 2025 – even as DeepSeek has stolen the spotlight as the poster child for the country’s AI ambitions.

Moonshot AI, founded by 33-year-old Yang Zhilin, has sharply raised its profile in China’s AI ecosystem with the launch earlier this month of Kimi K2 Thinking, an upgraded reasoning model.

The system outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 – two of the world’s most advanced closed-source AI models – on several benchmarks.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures described the release as “a turning point in AI”, noting that a Chinese open-source model had taken the top spot. Nathan Lambert of the Allen Institute for AI also praised Kimi K2 Thinking for narrowing the gap between open-source models and the world’s leading closed-source systems.

MiniMax, led by founder Yan Junjie, has also roared back onto the global AI map with the launch of its M2 model, which last month climbed to the top of a prominent leaderboard for open models.

MiniMax M2 achieved a record score for an open model on Artificial Analysis’s overall intelligence index, placing it ahead of Google DeepMind’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and just behind the latest US models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

The rise of these two start-ups underlines China’s potential to challenge the US in building fundamental AI models. As tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding and ByteDance race ahead with their own large language models and AI infrastructure, a new cohort of nimble Chinese start-ups is also making steady progress to stay competitive in the global AI race. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

One AI industry executive, who requested anonymity to speak freely about start-ups in the sector, said China’s deep talent pool was a key reason companies like Moonshot and MiniMax could punch above their weight, despite having far fewer high-end chips and less funding than many of their US peers.

Kimi is an advanced chatbot developed by Moonshot AI, a Chinese technology company backed by Alibaba. Photo: Shutterstock alt=Kimi is an advanced chatbot developed by Moonshot AI, a Chinese technology company backed by Alibaba. Photo: Shutterstock>

Moonshot AI, for example, continues to train models with significantly fewer high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) than its US rivals, but remains confident about its trajectory.

In a Reddit discussion in early November, an account believed to belong to Yang was asked when the company would roll out its next-generation foundational model, K3, given OpenAI’s massive data centre ambitions. Yang replied: “Before Sam’s trillion-dollar data centre is built.”

The founder of MiniMax, Yan, a former computer vision specialist at SenseTime, is betting on multimodal models that can handle text, images and video. The company is widely seen as one of the first in China to apply mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture at scale – an approach later adopted and popularised by DeepSeek.

The latest open-source models from Moonshot AI and MiniMax have now overtaken DeepSeek’s offerings in Artificial Analysis’ rankings, drawing growing interest from investors. MiniMax, which raised US$300 million in a strategic round in July at a valuation of more than US$4 billion, has filed for a Hong Kong listing to raise up to HK$5 billion.

Moonshot AI has also secured fresh backing, raising about US$600 million in a funding round last month led by Beijing-based venture capital firm IDG Capital and Tencent Holdings, according to start-up database ITJuzi.com.

Even so, analysts warn that these start-ups will face intense competition from deep-pocketed Big Tech players. Wang Sheng, an investor at InnoAngel Fund, said it is difficult for AI start-ups to thrive when they are head-to-head with large technology companies in the same race.

“[AI start-ups] have to either jump the gun or position themselves differently,” Wang said. “Otherwise it will be difficult for them to win the same game.”

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Story Continues

Core Scientific (CORZ) has drawn attention recently, with shares moving higher over the past week. Investors are taking note of the company’s ongoing performance and looking for signals in its recent market activity.

See our latest analysis for Core Scientific.

Core Scientific’s momentum is building again after a sharp pullback last month. The share price has jumped 14.7% over just the last week as investors grow more optimistic. However, it is worth noting that while the 90-day share price return stands at a healthy 17.7%, the total shareholder return over the past year is still negative. This suggests there is both recovery and risk in the story.

If you’re interested in spotting other shifts in the market, now’s the time to expand your discovery and explore fast growing stocks with high insider ownership

With shares still trading at a notable discount to analyst price targets and recent volatility in mind, the key question now is whether Core Scientific offers genuine value here or if the market is already anticipating the company’s future growth.

Core Scientific’s last close of $16.89 sits notably below the most popular narrative’s fair value estimate of $27.65, suggesting sizable room for upside if narrative assumptions play out. This wide gap has market watchers asking what could drive such a re-rating and whether projected catalysts can push shares closer to the narrative’s target.

Core Scientific secured a major HPC contract with CoreWeave, with a total revenue potential of $8.7 billion over a 12-year term, significantly boosting future revenue compared to their current levels. The company is expanding HPC infrastructure capacity by reallocating resources from Bitcoin mining, adding new sites, and extending existing ones, expecting to drive future revenue growth as data center needs rise.

Read the complete narrative.

Want to see what’s fueling this bold valuation? The narrative’s math factors in a potential transformation from mining to data center powerhouse. But which surprising growth bets, margin forecasts, and future profit multiples generate such a premium fair value? Dive in and discover the driving forces analysts are banking on. These numbers could change how you view Core Scientific’s potential.

Result: Fair Value of $27.65 (UNDERVALUED)

Have a read of the narrative in full and understand what’s behind the forecasts.

However, setbacks in executing their high performance compute expansion or a slowdown in client demand could quickly challenge Core Scientific’s path to recovery and growth.

Find out about the key risks to this Core Scientific narrative.

If you would rather draw your own conclusions or dig deeper into the numbers, it only takes a few minutes to shape your own story and perspective. Do it your way.

A great starting point for your Core Scientific research is our analysis highlighting 1 key reward and 2 important warning signs that could impact your investment decision.

Solid investment wins can come from smart moves you nearly missed. Make sure you are seeing the strongest opportunities by using Simply Wall Street’s unique screeners:

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include CORZ.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com

Executive Summary

Local power, global reach. France’s quantum sector moved into November with strong push toward global collaborations and a clear push toward industrial deployment. Policy momentum centered on a Franco-German forum in Paris and Massy, where QUTAC, Le Lab Quantique, Quandela, CEA, and Fraunhofer — backed by both embassies — gathered more than 60 leaders from government, research, and industry. The discussions reflected a coordinated effort to shape Europe’s quantum roadmap and strengthen cross-border standards and applications.

French quantum companies remained highly visible in global markets. Quandela and NVIDIA reported a 20,000× acceleration in spin–photon simulations using CUDA-Q, supporting the broader shift toward photonic links for distributed quantum systems. Pasqal dominated business headlines with a series of international moves: deploying Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer with Aramco; announcing a $52 million expansion in South Korea backed by national and municipal partners; and forming a strategic partnership with LG Electronics, including an equity investment. Pasqal also became the first QPU offered on OVHcloud’s new Quantum Platform, a milestone for European Quantum-as-a-Service infrastructure.

Activity continued across France’s hardware, semiconductor, and hybrid-HPC stack. SEALSQ and Quobly launched a collaboration linking secure semiconductor architectures to scalable quantum systems. Quobly and QPerfect released a GPU-accelerated version of the QLEO emulator at SC25. Alice & Bob gained recognition as part of Sifted’s Future 50, and deepened technical ties with NVIDIA through NVQLink. The company also advanced hybrid workflows with the STFC Hartree Centre by integrating cat-qubit systems with SLURM, the dominant HPC scheduling tool.

Education and diplomacy rounded out the month. Université Paris Cité hosted a quantum-programming session for students and early-career researchers, while FSQS 2025 produced new France–Singapore agreements across algorithms, energy-efficient hardware, and photonics.

Policy

Building Today the Quantum Future of Europe For and With the Industry 

A group of Franco-German willing players made of the Quantum Technology and Application Consortium QUTAC, Le lab Quantique, Quandela, CEA and Fraunhofer, with the support from the French embassy in Germany and the German embassy in France, took part in the French German Dialogue of Quantum Technology Players took place in Paris and Massy (France). This event brought together more than 60 selected experts, managers and decision-makers from innovation, corporates, research and public authorities from France and Germany.

Business

Quandela and NVIDIA Accelerate Quantum Spin-Photon Simulation by 20,000x with CUDA-Q

As quantum processors scale, they will need to be connected through photonic links. Photons are the only practical carriers of quantum information beyond the local chip: they are fast, can travel long distances, and preserve coherence even at room temperature. This vision of distributed quantum computing makes it essential to accurately model the gates and protocols that rely on photons to connect distant qubits.

Saudi Arabia Deploys Its First Quantum Computer with Aramco–Pasqal Partnership

Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, in partnership with Pasqal, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, have achieved a major breakthrough for the Middle East’s technology landscape with the successful deployment of Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer— and the region’s first quantum computer dedicated to industrial applications.

Pasqal invests $52M to boost quantum computing in Korea

The investment by the French company is part of a major strategic expansion in South Korea, marked by a series of partnerships and support from the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Korean government. French quantum computing firm Pasqal will invest USD 52 million in South Korea, creating more than 50 highly skilled jobs, bringing its industry-leading neutral atom Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) to the country, to advance research and development of quantum algorithms and industry-ready applications. 

Pasqal and LG Electronics Forge Strategic Partnership to Advance Quantum Innovation and Industrial Applications

Pasqal, Europe’s leading neutral atom quantum computing company, today announces a strategic partnership with LG Electronics, the global leader in appliances and consumer electronics. The collaboration is underpinned by an equity investment from LG Electronics in Pasqal and marks a significant step toward advancing quantum computing to real-world industrial applications.

Aramco and Pasqal make history with Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer

Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, in partnership with Pasqal, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, have achieved a major breakthrough for the Middle East’s technology landscape with the successful deployment of Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer — and the region’s first quantum computer dedicated to industrial applications. The deployment of Pasqal’s quantum computer powered by neutral-atom technology at Aramco’s data center, in Dhahran, marks a pivotal step in building regional expertise and accelerating the development of quantum applications across the energy, materials, and industrial sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East.

Pasqal becomes first QPU available on OVHcloud’s Quantum Platform

At Choose France – France Edition, OVHcloud, a global player and the European Cloud leader, announces the launch of its Quantum Platform, the first European Quantum-as-a-Service solution (QaaS). It will provide access to at least eight of the most advanced quantum computers, including the Pasqal Orion Beta QPU, available now. By facilitating access to quantum technologies, OVHcloud is now enabling organisations to prepare for the most complex technological challenges.

SEALSQ and Quobly Announce Collaboration to Advance Secure and Scalable Quantum Technologies

SEALSQ Corp. (NASDAQ: LAES), (“SEALSQ” or “Company”), a global provider of post-quantum semiconductor technologies and hardware-anchored security solutions, and Quobly, a pioneer in silicon-based quantum microelectronics, today announced a collaboration to explore the convergence of secure semiconductor architectures and scalable quantum systems.

Quobly and QPerfect Release GPU-Accelerated Version of QLEO

Quobly, a pioneer in quantum microelectronics, and QPerfect, the emulation and control specialist for neutral atom systems, today jointly announced a major upgrade to their quantum emulator, QLEO (Quobly Logical Emulator Online). The launch takes place during the Supercomputing Conference (SC25), underscoring the global collaboration and European excellence driving the future of hybrid quantum computing.

Alice & Bob Recognized in Sifted’s ‘Future 50’ List

 Alice & Bob, a global leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, today announced its inclusion in Sifted’s ‘Future 50,’ a ranking of Europe’s top-performing emerging startups. Backed by the Financial Times, Sifted provides news and analysis on Europe’s startup community for founders, investors and startup operators driving innovation.

Nvidia and Alice & Bob unveil NVQLink to tighten GPU–quantum integration

Nvidia introduced NVQLink at its GTC Washington event, pitching the open system architecture as the missing low-latency bridge between quantum processors and GPU supercomputers. Paris- and Boston-based Alice & Bob said it is collaborating on the rollout, aligning its cat-qubit hardware and software with the new interconnect for real-time decoding, calibration and control.

Research

Alice & Bob and STFC Hartree Centre Integrate Cat-Qubit Quantum Computers into Standard HPC Workflow and Job Scheduling Software SLURM

 Alice & Bob, a global leader in the race for fault-tolerant quantum computing, today announced the software integration of their future QPUs with high-performance computing (HPC) environments via SLURM, the world’s most widely used workload management system, present in 60% of the world’s top supercomputers.

Education and Events

Quantum programming session organised by the Graduate School Quantum Technologies

The Graduate School Quantum Technologies of Université Paris Cité organised a one-day introductory session on quantum programming, led by Vivien Londe, a quantum computing specialist. Attendees included interns from the Graduate School’s two masters programs, PhD students from the Institut de Recherche en Informatique Fondamentale (IRIF) and the Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques (MPQ) laboratory, and IRIF post-docs.

FSQS 2025 Expands France-Singapore Quantum Collaboration

France and Singapore’s quantum ecosystems signed three new research agreements at the second French–Singaporean Quantum Symposium (FSQS 2025) in Paris, strengthening collaboration in quantum computing (hardware and algorithms), energy-efficient quantum technologies and quantum photonics. Connections formed at the inaugural FSQS 2024 continued into 2025, contributing to some of the partnerships announced at this year’s symposium. FSQS 2025 convened leading researchers and industry partners to deepen bilateral research and move quantum discoveries closer to real-world applications.

The IEA’s flagship World Energy Outlook (WEO) is the most authoritative source of global energy analysis and projections. Updated annually to reflect the latest energy data, technology and market trends, and government policies, it explores a range of possible energy futures and their implications for energy security, access and emissions.

The WEO covers the whole energy system, using a scenario-based approach to highlight the central choices, consequences and contingencies that lie ahead. It includes exploratory scenarios that flow from different assumptions about existing policies, as well as normative pathways that achieve energy and emissions goals in full. The multi-scenario approach illustrates how the course of the energy system might be affected by changing key variables, including the energy policies adopted by governments around the world.

This year’s edition comes amid major shifts in global energy policies and markets, and acute geopolitical strains. Governments are reaching different conclusions about the best ways to tackle concerns about energy security, affordability and sustainability. As always, the World Energy Outlook provides unrivalled insights into the consequences of different energy policy and investment choices. An important theme in this year’s WEO is security of supply of critical minerals.