China's diamond factories made engagement rings cheap. Now Feng Canjun is moving his 2 million carats a year into AI chip cooling, since diamond moves heat five times faster than copper. sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

British businesses pay nearly five times as much per unit of energy for electricity as for gas, government figures show. The averages were 24.14p per kWh for electricity and 5.17p for gas in the first quarter of 2026. A new 16-country index from the We Mean Business Coalition gives the UK the widest gap between its electrification policies and progress on the ground. It calls the price gap the single biggest blockage. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Broadcom is backing the senior debt in a new $63 billion vehicle that will buy Broadcom AI chips and networking equipment and lease them to Anthropic. Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley are arranging that senior debt. Blackstone alone provides the committed junior layer. Deliveries are expected to start in 2027. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Black Ore, an Austin company that uses AI to prepare tax returns, has launched a per-return version for small and mid-sized accounting firms, built into Intuit ProConnect Tax and Lacerte. An accountant still reviews and signs every return. Elevate, which partners with independent firms, says its preparers are getting back eight to 15 hours a week. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Hyphenate, the New York finance software company formerly called Maximor, has raised a $45 million Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners. Its AI agents run reconciliation, invoicing and collections on top of a company's existing accounting systems. HiBid, one of North America's largest online auction platforms, has cut its month-end close from three weeks to one day with them, the company says. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Colare, a San Francisco hiring start-up, has raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round to test hardware engineers in simulations of the job before they reach an interview. Candidates solve realistic problems in CAD, PCB design and thermal analysis tools, and Colare scores the process as well as the result. The company says one hardware hire takes about 40 hours of senior engineers' time. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

His Majesty can acknowledge the wrongs of slavery. Only the British government can apologise for them, and it has ruled that out. That is the line the King walks from Nassau to Antigua this week. sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Warhound, a defence company conceived by Colossal's Ben Lamm and Anduril's Palmer Luckey, plans to supply the US military with working dogs cloned from proven animals. The dogs will be gene-edited to screen out inherited disease. Warhound has reportedly raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. The first cloned births are expected early next year. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

The PHP project has fixed PHP2Shell, a pair of critical flaws that can let attackers run code on a web server without logging in. The fixed releases are PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. Amazon logged an exploit attempt on 17 October, four days before the fix. About 34.7% of WordPress sites run PHP 8.1 or older, which the PHP project no longer updates. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

The US Treasury has proposed rules that would, for the first time, bar Americans from investing in Chinese biotechnology companies working on biomanufacturing, gene sequencing, bioinformatics and bio-derived compounds. The same proposal would ban US investment in any China-linked company that develops an AI system. Shares traded on exchanges, index funds and fund stakes of $2 million or less would stay exempt. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

The National Bank of Poland says the council that sets the country's interest rates cannot work without its governor, Adam Glapiński. MPs are preparing a vote that would suspend him. A designated member may chair only during a short absence, the bank says. The Sejm plans to vote on sending Glapiński to the State Tribunal in the second half of November. Poland's reference rate has been 3.75% since 5 March. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

EQT is offering €46.50 a share in cash for QIAGEN, the Netherlands-based diagnostics and life sciences company, valuing it at about €10.8 billion including debt. QIAGEN's boards have unanimously recommended the offer. Thermo Fisher's €43 bid lapsed in 2020 with 47.02% of the shares tendered. EQT needs half the shares plus one. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

US Treasury figures released on 16 October put $464.6 billion of US government debt in Canada at the end of August, making it the fifth-largest foreign holder. That leaves Canada about $126 billion behind China, whose holdings have fallen from over $1 trillion in 2021 to $590.7 billion. The Canadian government's own US-dollar reserves are about $63 billion. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Daniel Yergin, S&P Global's vice chairman, and three co-authors warn that costly fertiliser and diesel, strong biofuel demand and a strengthening El Niño could produce a global food crisis. They expect the full effect to reach food markets in 2027. About 29% of world urea trade normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz. In early September diesel cost more than $100 a barrel above crude, against a usual gap of $12 to $20. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Researchers at the National University of Singapore have woven 54 light-emitting fibres into a sleeve to make a full-colour touchscreen that still works after 50 machine washes. The team, led by Assistant Professor Tural Khudiyev, published the work in Nature on 21 October. The 5,184-pixel display runs a calculator, a photo gallery and video. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Dragons' Den investor Touker Suleyman opens the keynote programme at The Business Show London (@TheBusinessShow) at ExCeL on 11 November. Poundland founder Steven Smith speaks that afternoon, and former Dragon Piers Linney covers AI the next day. Holland & Barrett's chief financial officer, Vineta Bajaj, also gives a keynote. Entry is free. sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Bose has bought Skullcandy, the Utah headphone and earbud maker, from the private investment firm Mill Road Capital. Terms were not disclosed. It is Bose's fourth acquisition since November 2024, after McIntosh Group, the Vienna streaming specialist StreamUnlimited and Firelight Technologies, maker of the FMOD game-audio software. Skullcandy keeps its name and its Park City base. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

The European Commission has sent its findings in its anti-dumping case on Chinese robot lawnmowers to the companies involved, the last step before it decides on duties. Husqvarna, which brought the complaint, said on 21 October that it had received them. The Commission must rule by 19 January 2027. European robot mower sales have grown from about 800,000 a year in 2021 to roughly two million. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Cboe now lets investors trade options on 29 of the most-traded US stocks and funds before the opening bell, from 7.30am to 9.25am Eastern. Apple, Nvidia, Tesla and the SPY and QQQ funds are on the list. Options on the 24 single stocks also trade until 4.15pm. Every order in the new sessions needs a limit price. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…

Sam Altman has reportedly told OpenAI staff that the company must decide within a year which of three proposals for pacing AI development it will back. He appeared to favour an international inspection body modelled on the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. He also told staff that OpenAI cannot cede ground to its rivals now. OpenAI has not published the remarks or announced a position. #SovereignMagazine sovereignmagazine.com/articl…