Blackstone has announced a significant £10 billion investment to build an AI data centre in Blyth, northeast England. The project will create 4,000 jobs, including 1,200 positions dedicated to the site’s construction. The initiative highlights the growing demand for energy-intensive data centres, a sector that remains resilient for investors like Blackstone, despite challenges in other commercial property markets.
Blyth was previously earmarked as a site for an electric vehicle battery factory, but those plans collapsed after Britishvolt, a UK startup, folded last year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the new project during his visit to New York, emphasising its potential to drive regional economic growth.
In addition to the data centre, Blackstone will invest £110 million in a local fund aimed at improving skills training and upgrading transport infrastructure in the area. Blackstone’s President, Jon Gray, confirmed the investment, signalling the company’s commitment to supporting the local economy.
This new project represents a shift for commercial landlords, as data centres emerge as a rare growth opportunity in the wake of falling demand for other assets like post-pandemic office spaces.
Binance has unveiled a pre-market trading service, allowing users to trade new tokens before they officially list on the spot market. The pre-market option will include select tokens from Binance’s Launchpool, where participants can farm new coins by locking BNB and First Digital USD.
The new feature allows users to trade tokens early, meeting user demand and extending the lifecycle of token projects on Binance. Vishal Sacheendran, head of regional markets at Binance, emphasised that this launch aims to enhance the platform’s ecosystem by offering more utility to its global user base.
The service will come with standard spot trading fees and will conclude four hours before the tokens are officially listed. While available in most regions where Binance operates, some jurisdictions may face restrictions due to regulatory requirements.
Meta AI is fast becoming one of the world’s most widely used assistants, with nearly 500 million monthly active users, according to Mark Zuckerberg. Speaking at Meta Connect 2024, he highlighted its growth, pointing out that major markets like the EU have not yet been tapped.
India remains the largest user base for Meta AI, thanks to WhatsApp’s popularity, which boasts over 500 million users in the country. The AI is rapidly expanding its reach, placing it far ahead of competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has around 200 million weekly users.
Alongside usage updates, Meta revealed new developments, including the Llama 3.2 models, offering enhanced multimodal capabilities. These models will be available in Europe, though they do not rely on European user data, due to regulatory concerns.
The event also introduced celebrity voices and new AI-powered features across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta AI can now create photos, understand user images, provide answers, and even make edits.
Google has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission over Microsoft’s cloud business practices. The tech giant argues that Microsoft uses its dominant position with Windows Server to stifle competition and lock customers into its Azure platform. Specifically, Google claims Microsoft enforces heavy mark-ups on users of rival cloud services and restricts access to essential security updates.
The dispute follows a recent settlement where Microsoft paid €20 million to resolve concerns raised by European cloud providers. However, the agreement excluded key rivals like Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS), fuelling further criticism. Google insists only regulatory action will halt what it sees as Microsoft’s monopolistic approach, urging the EU to step in and ensure fair competition.
Microsoft denies the accusations, stating they have settled similar issues amicably with other European providers. A Microsoft spokesperson expressed confidence that Google would fail to persuade the European Commission, as it had failed with EU businesses.
Google believes immediate intervention is necessary to prevent the cloud market from becoming increasingly restrictive. They warn that Microsoft’s influence over the European cloud sector, which is growing rapidly, could limit options for customers and hurt competitors.
TrueCoin and TrustToken have settled charges with the SEC over an unregistered offering of investment contracts between November 2020 and April 2023. The companies promoted their TrueUSD stablecoin and decentralized finance platform TrueFi as safe investments, which the SEC later deemed misleading.
The SEC complaint, filed on 24 September, stressed the importance of proper company registration for investor protection. Despite this, some within the crypto industry, including former SEC staff, have criticised the agency’s approach, calling its regulatory tactics unclear and excessive. This case adds to the ongoing tension between the SEC and the crypto sector.
Without admitting wrongdoing, both companies agreed to pay a combined fine of $163,766, with TrueCoin facing an additional $340,930 in penalties. The crypto industry has spent over $7 billion in SEC fines since 2013, with penalties rising sharply in recent years.
India is actively engaging with countries in Africa and South America to establish a digital payments system based on its Unified Payments Interface (UPI), with expectations of launching two systems by early 2027. Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), indicated that the organisation is close to finalising an agreement with one of the nations involved in discussions, which encompass over 20 countries.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which oversees UPI, has seen significant growth, with monthly transaction volumes reaching nearly 15 billion in August—a 41% increase year-over-year. Earlier this year, NIPL signed agreements with the central banks of Peru and Namibia to develop real-time payment systems akin to UPI, targeting launches by late 2026 or early 2027. Serious talks have also been held with Rwanda, although Shukla refrained from disclosing specific details about the ongoing discussions.
In addition to developing new payment systems, NIPL is working to integrate UPI with real-time payment solutions from other countries, including Singapore’s PayNow. The organisation has successfully established seven links and is actively pursuing more partnerships. To bolster these efforts, NIPL plans to double its current team of 60 by March 2025, aiming to enhance its operations beyond its existing presence in Singapore and the Middle East.
Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz has confirmed that Turkey will not impose a tax on crypto or stock trading profits this year. The government had considered introducing such a tax but is now focusing on reducing existing tax exemptions instead, giving investors a clearer picture of the country’s financial policies.
The idea of a tax on crypto and stock profits was initially postponed in June after a decline in Turkey’s stock market. The government’s new strategy aims to refine its current tax regulations, concentrating on narrowing tax exemptions rather than implementing new taxes.
The decision offers temporary relief to investors in Turkey’s financial markets, especially those using crypto and stocks to safeguard against inflation. While other nations, including the UK and Japan, evaluate how to tax digital assets, Turkey’s approach leaves room for potential policy shifts in the future.
MoneyGram has acknowledged that its recent multiday outage is due to a cybersecurity issue, and the firm is progressing in restoring its services. The company revealed on X that it had identified the problem affecting certain systems and launched an investigation after users reported disruptions beginning on 20 September.
The Dallas-based financial services company stated that it took immediate protective measures, including taking some systems offline to address the connectivity issues. MoneyGram is collaborating with law enforcement and external cybersecurity experts to mitigate the impact of the breach. In a follow-up post on 24th September, the firm announced that it is successfully restoring some key transactional systems.
Although MoneyGram has assured users that pending transactions will be processed once systems are back online, it has not disclosed details about the nature of the cybersecurity issue, including whether any sensitive data may have been compromised. Additionally, there is no timeline yet for when full service will be resumed.
This incident occurs amid a notable increase in crypto-related ransomware attacks, with reports indicating a significant rise in ransom payments this year. MoneyGram, a major player in money transmission, recently ventured into the crypto space, launching fiat exchange services and partnering with CEX.io to offer fiat-to-stablecoin options.
While South Korean memory giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix experienced a significant sales increase in China during the first half of this year, the report by the Korea Eximbank Overseas Economic Research Institute indicates that South Korea’s reliance on China for critical semiconductor raw materials is also growing. Key materials such as silicon, germanium, gallium, and indium have seen notable increases in demand, with South Korea’s dependence on silicon rising from 68.8% to 75.4% in 2022.
The report emphasises an increasing reliance on rare earth elements, crucial for semiconductor abrasives, and a slight uptick in dependence on tungsten, which is vital for semiconductor wiring. This trend is occurring against the backdrop of export restrictions enacted by the Chinese government on critical minerals such as germanium and gallium, in response to US sanctions. Currently, China dominates the global supply, producing 98% of the world’s gallium and 60% of its germanium, underscoring its pivotal role in the semiconductor supply chain.
Dependence on germanium rose significantly by 17.4 percentage points to 74.3% in 2022, and reliance on gallium and indium also increased by 20.5 percentage points to 46.7%. Despite the Chinese government’s export restrictions, local production among major Chinese firms has remained stable. For example, Samsung’s NAND flash facility in Xi’an has boosted its share of the company’s total NAND capacity from 29% in 2021 to 37% in 2023, with expectations to reach 40% this year.
OpenAI’s official press account on X was hacked by cryptocurrency scammers, promoting a fraudulent blockchain token, ‘$OPENAI.’ The scammers posted a message claiming the fake token would grant users access to future OpenAI beta programs. The post linked to a phishing website designed to steal cryptocurrency wallet credentials from unsuspecting users. Despite the scam being evident, the post and the associated site remained active, with comments disabled to make the hack less noticeable.
This incident is part of a larger pattern, with OpenAI leadership accounts also targeted in similar phishing campaigns earlier this year. In June 2023, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s account was hacked, posting a nearly identical message about the non-existent “$OPENAI” token. Other key OpenAI staff, such as chief scientist Jakub Pachocki and researcher Jason Wei, were also hacked recently, further exposing vulnerabilities.
Cryptocurrency scams targeting high-profile X accounts have become increasingly common. In previous years, accounts belonging to Apple, Elon Musk, and Joe Biden were compromised to promote scams. These fraudulent campaigns often use fake offers or phishing schemes to steal funds from victims by tricking them into sending cryptocurrency to scam wallets.
Cryptocurrency scams have cost United States citizens $5.6 billion in 2023 alone, a significant increase from the previous year. With over 50,000 cases reported in the first half of 2024, losses have already reached $2.5 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission, marking an alarming rise in the threat posed by such scams.
