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Renewed calls for Google to sell Chrome have reignited demands for the company to also divest Android. An executive at Murena, a French smartphone startup, said today that breaking up the businesses is the only way to end Google’s “cycle of domination”. The appeal follows a Friday court filing from the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The filing reaffirmed a proposal for Google to...

With their heavy battery packs, EVs are hardly known for being lightweight. That is, perhaps, until now.  British startup Longbow — founded by former Tesla, Lucid, and Polestar execs — emerged from stealth today with plans for two new ultralight EVs. The company bills the cars as “spiritual successors” to the iconic Lotus Elise and Jaguar E-Type. The first of the pair is Speedster, a...

French satellite operator Eutelsat was thrust into the spotlight last week as a potential replacement for Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine — and potentially, broader Europe.  Eva Berneke, Eutelsat’s CEO, said the company was in advanced discussions with the EU about expanding its internet service in Ukraine. She also said Eutelsat was in “very positive talks” with Italy to provide an encrypted communications service...

Social media platform X was hit by a series of outages yesterday in what its owner Elon Musk has called a “massive cyberattack” stemming from Ukraine. Analysts believe the disruption was caused by botnets — but finding the culprits will be a tall order.   The outages began at around 14:00 CET and lasted for most of the afternoon, trailing off at around 18:00,...

EU governments are in talks with four European satellite firms about providing a back-up service for Starlink in Ukraine, as the region pushes to boost tech sovereignty amid mounting transatlantic tensions.  Starlink has provided a vital communications system to Ukraine’s military since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. It allows the armed forces to coordinate drone strikes, identify targets, and stream battlefield data to...

Edge Impulse, a TNW community member that produces an AI platform for developers, has been acquired by American chip giant Qualcomm for an undisclosed sum.  Qualcomm said it had bought Edge Impulse to boost its machine learning software capabilities, particularly for its Dragonwing line of AI-powered chips.  Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s head of IoT, said the acquisition would strengthen his firm’s “leadership in AI” and...

Elon Musk’s allegiance to Trump is once again stirring up controversy — this time over Starlink. The satellite internet provider, owned by Musk’s firm SpaceX, has become embroiled in a hot debate among Italian politicians, as Rome weighs its strategic alliances amid mounting tensions between Europe and the US. Italy’s right-wing League party is pushing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government to choose Starlink to...

AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or DeepSeek have radically disrupted the way we access and generate information. However, these systems are general — they are jacks of all trades but masters of none.  Increasingly, though, scientists are training AI to solve very specific problems and fast-track everything from creating new drugs to designing fusion reactors. One area where they’re gaining traction is enhanced material...

Interplanetary travel might be about to get a whole lot faster — and hotter.  UK startup Pulsar Fusion today unveiled “Sunbird,” a nuclear fusion-powered rocket concept that could halve the time it takes to travel across our solar system — and, maybe, beyond it.  Machine learning models show the rocket could potentially propel a spacecraft with a mass of about 1,000kg (2,200lb) to Pluto...

Europe’s space launch industry reopened for business today when the Ariane 6 heavy rocket lifted off at 17:24 CET from a spaceport in French Guiana. Originally scheduled for December, the Ariane 6 mission was delayed first to February 26 and subsequently to March 3 due to issues in transporting the satellite to the launchpad. However, just minutes before Monday’s launch, engineers identified an “anomaly” in...

As Elon Musk was saluting Donald Trump in the US Congress yesterday, the South African’s divisive politics were opening new doors to his business rivals in Europe. Musk’s role in the White House had already been linked to Tesla sales and stock tanking. Now, the repercussions appear to have spread to SpaceX. The fallout centres on the company’s Starlink satellite internet service. The network...

Hospitality scaleup Mews, based at TNW City in Amsterdam, has secured $75mn in its third major cash injection of the last year. The round follows a raise of $100M in credit financing in September and a $110mn equity round in March 2024 — when the startup became a unicorn. In total, Mews has bagged over $500mn to date, making it one of the Netherlands’...

Fintech startup Cino, a TNW community member, has secured €3.5mn for its shared payments app that lets friends and family pay together.  Cino is designed for tech-savvy Gen Z’ers, who expect to split bills instantly and effortlessly together without “financial awkwardness,” the company said. Unlike payment request apps like Tikkie — ubiquitous in the Netherlands — Cino splits bills in real-time, so you don’t have...

The obscure world of quantum computing is emerging from the lab and into the public domain — fuelled by Big Tech’s recent progress in quantum processors. In the past few months alone, Google launched a chip called Willow, Microsoft unveiled Majorana, and this week, Amazon revealed Ocelot.  While tech giants are making great strides, these companies are still working in dozens of qubits —...

Opera has previewed a new AI agent feature that promises to complete online tasks on your behalf, based on simple, written prompts.  Want to book a flight but don’t want to spend ages comparing prices? Tell the bot your preferred flight times, seats, and budget and it’ll get to work in the background, letting you carry on with whatever it was you were doing....

British autonomous driving startup Wayve is set to establish a testing and development hub in Germany as it prepares to deploy self-driving vehicles in Europe’s largest automotive market.  Wayve’s new hub will be built near Stuttgart, home to big name car brands including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi. Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, called it the “perfect place” for the company to accelerate...

Germany’s armed forces have commissioned Bremen-based startup Polaris to develop a two-stage, fully reusable hypersonic space plane — and given the team just three years to build it.  Dubbed Aurora, the 28-metre-long aircraft will be part rocket, part plane — designed to take off and land on a runway but also blast through the atmosphere and place payloads up to 1-ton in low-Earth orbit. ...

For decades, European tech insiders have looked across the Atlantic with a mix of admiration and frustration. Casting envious eyes on the deep-pocketed VCs, an enormous consumer market, and a pipeline of elite talent, they often view the US as a promised land for business growth. The sentiment fuels calls for Europe to replicate Silicon Valley’s model. But Vidya Peters, CEO of Dutch unicorn DataSnipper,...

Gene-edited pig livers, synthetic embryos, and 3D-printed tissue implants… the world of organ transplantation is becoming increasingly bizarre as scientists explore high-tech ways to keep people alive.  These experiments are birthing new business opportunities. One company cashing in is University of Oxford spinout OrganOx, which this week secured $142mn in funding to fuel its expansion in the US as it mulls a potential IPO.    ...

Most of us share and store huge amounts of personal data online, from our names and addresses to photos of our loved ones. In many ways, firms like Apple, Google, and Meta are the gatekeepers of this sensitive information. But what happens when the authorities come knocking? It appears that Silicon Valley often rolls over and complies.  Over the last 10 years, Apple, Google,...

German startup Proxima Fusion — whose team includes engineers from MIT, Google, SpaceX, and McLaren — has unveiled a fusion energy reactor design it believes offers the quickest route to commercially viable fusion power. Dubbed Stellaris, the machine is a quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarator with high-temperature superconducting (HTS). This type of reactor uses complex, twisted magnetic fields to confine hot plasma, creating the conditions needed...

As the US and China pursue dominance in the global technology race, concerns are mounting among European founders that the region’s entrenched bureaucracy is impeding its capacity for innovation and growth. The EU is going “overboard on tech regulation,” said Job van der Voort, CEO and founder of Remote, an HR tech company valued at over $3bn. “It’s stifling innovation and it’s a massive...

Two European sports tech startups are heading to the US for an R&D programme run by media giant Comcast. Ireland’s Orreco will cross the Atlantic with a trove of athletic performance software, while Iceland’s Oz Sports will bring an AI-driven camera system. On arrival, the duo will join Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech, a six-month accelerator.  During the programme, the companies will tap into expertise from...

Dutch software firm Bird is moving most of its operations out of the Netherlands and opening new global hubs as it seeks a reprieve from “overregulation” in Europe, said co-founder and CEO Robert Vis. “The AI Act, financing, compensation, taxes, employment law — starting and running a company [in Europe] is hard,” Vis told TNW, adding that there are “too many disparate markets that...

Europe’s biggest food delivery firm Just Eat Takeaway.com is set to be acquired by tech investor Prosus for €4.1bn, in one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of Dutch tech.  Prosus — the investment arm of South African tech firm Naspers — has agreed to buy Just Eat Takeaway’s shares at €20.30 each in an all-cash offer. That’s a 22% premium over the...

Elon Musk’s MAGA politics are fast becoming a mega problem for Tesla. New registrations of Tesla vehicles plummeted across Europe last month amid widespread boycotts against the EV brand. While broader economic forces are at play, Musk’s role in the Trump administration and his open support of far-right politicians appears to be fuelling his company’s precipitous fall from grace — and gifting rival brands...

Europe’s startup scene has entered troubled waters. Long overshadowed by Silicon Valley and now being chased down by China, the continent is urgently looking for boosts. Increasingly, the search is leading to ecosystems.  The ecosystem model creates networks of individuals, organisations, and resources. Their shared expertise and resources can produce a multiplier effect, driving innovation and accelerating growth. A core component of European ecosystems is the...

A British R&D unit that’s been compared to DARPA is funding synthetic muscles, electronic skin, and mechanical hands for a robotics dexterity project. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) today unveiled the 10 teams selected for the programme. Their mission: usher in a new era of dexterity that will transform robotics and human productivity. Members of the group span startups, university labs, public...

Shares in European aerospace and defence companies soared to record highs this week, elevating expectations for the continent’s military tech startups. Britain’s BAE Systems leapt by 9% on Monday, while Germany’s Rheinmetall jumped by 14%. Stocks in Sweden’s Saab, Italy’s Leonardo, and France’s Thales also boomed. By the day’s end, the Stoxx Europe aerospace and defence index had hit an all-time peak. Military tech...

British startup Earthwave and a group of European scientists have used satellite data to map out glacial melt across the globe — and the results are alarming. The team discovered that the European Alps’ glaciers have shrunk the most of all — 39% in just over two decades, compared to a global average of 5%. Earthwave co-founder Livia Jakob said the project was invaluable...

Do you remember your first phone? The thought of mine brings a tear to my eye. It was a beautiful blue Nokia 3310 — and it was borderline indestructible. Best of all, the handset had the greatest mobile feature of all time: Snake. It also offered calls and SMS, but I had little use for those extravagances. I had a pay-as-you-go contract, and money...

British tech mogul Mel Morris has announced the general release of AI research engine Corpora.ai. The system provides a new approach to research. Built to generate comprehensive reports from single prompts, Corpora promises in-depth analysis and accurate outputs. Speed is another big selling point. According to Corpora, the engine can process 2 million documents per second. After receiving a prompt, the AI model scans...

The US continues to hog the global herd of unicorns, dwarfing the EU in both the number and total valuation of billion-dollar startups. However, the Netherlands provides a minor bright spot, according to a new report by PwC.    More than 3,000 companies worldwide have reached unicorn status since 2013, collectively reaching a staggering valuation of $27 trillion, according to the study. The US accounts...

Sustainability tech has been all the buzz in the last few years. Investors are hunting promising ESG businesses, governments are pushing ambitious legislation, and companies are getting on board to adopt new solutions. Sustainability funding is projected to reach unprecedented levels, with BCG Henderson Institute estimating accumulated global investment to achieve net zero to hit $75 trillion by 2050.  And yet, behind the curtain,...

“For the third time, stop tapping!” my primary school teacher screams at me from across the room. I must not have heard her the first two times. I’d been drumming on the desk again, using my fingers for sticks and the floor beneath for a kick drum. While my body was in maths class, my mind was elsewhere.   It was 1970. I was John...

Europe is home to twice as many climate tech startups as the US (30,000 vs. 14,300). However, limited access to VC funding is forcing these early-stage companies to seek capital from outside the continent, according to a new report released at the Munich Security Conference today. Venture financing in Europe averaged just 0.2% of GDP between 2013 and 2023, a fraction of the US...

Mistral CEO and co-founder Arthur Mensch has urged Europe to invest more in AI infrastructure amid fears that the continent is falling behind the US and China in tech development. “It’s important to have European players coming to the game,” Mensch said at the Visionaries Unplugged conference in Paris yesterday. “Europe needs to invest in owning and operating the infrastructure so that the money...

AI took another step into Hollywood today with the launch of a new filmmaking tool from showbiz startup Flawless. The product — named DeepEditor — promises cinematic wizardry for the digital age. For movie makers, the tool offers photorealistic edits without a costly return to set. Flawless has showcased several use cases. One transfers an actor’s performance from one shot to another. Another adds...

A Ukrainian drone tech firm has unveiled an alternative to GPS navigation. Sine.Engineering built the system to counter Russia’s electronic warfare, which has wreaked havoc on GPS signals.  To dodge the interference, Sine invented a satellite-free replacement. The approach is inspired by time-of-flight (ToF) methods, which began tracking aircraft long before the advent of GPS.   Unlike GPS, ToF systems don’t rely on satellites. Instead, they...

European tech leaders Helsing and Mistral have formed a pact to build new military AI systems. The partnership brings together two of Europe’s top startups. Helsing, a defence tech firm based in Germany, was valued at €5bn last year. Founded in 2021, the company develops software for weapons, vehicles, and military strategy. Its systems have been deployed in battlefield simulations, fighter jets, and drones...

Long admired for its progressive policies and open economy, the Netherlands is making an aggressive play to become Europe’s next tech powerhouse. By blending AI with sustainability and a strong ethical framework, the country attracted $2.5bn in tech investments in 2024 alone — a 39% surge from the previous year. With a government-backed push for responsible innovation, the Netherlands is positioning itself as the...

The idea of a humanlike artificial intelligence assistant that you can speak with has been alive in many people’s imaginations since the release of “Her,” Spike Jonze’s 2013 film about a man who falls in love with a Siri-like AI named Samantha. Over the course of the film, the protagonist grapples with the ways in which Samantha, real as she may seem, is not...

Swiss foodies could soon be served an experimental new delicacy: cultivated burgers. The lab-grown cuisine is the brainchild of Dutch scaleup Mosa Meat. Founded in 2013, the company cultivates beef from cells extracted from cows. The blend is then formed into burgers that are indistinguishable from the mince on supermarket shelves. The lucky cattle, meanwhile, amble back to the farm. Mosa calls the product...

The potential of using artificial intelligence in drug discovery and development has sparked both excitement and skepticism among scientists, investors and the general public. “Artificial intelligence is taking over drug development,” claim some companies and researchers. Over the past few years, interest in using AI to design drugs and optimise clinical trials has driven a surge in research and investment. AI-driven platforms like AlphaFold,...

Wearable devices have become a big part of modern health care, helping track a patient’s heart rate, stress levels and brain activity. These devices rely on electrodes, sensors that touch the skin to pick up electrical signals from the body. Creating these electrodes isn’t as easy as it might seem. Human skin is complex. Its properties, such as how well it conducts electricity, can...

As China’s DeepSeek threatens to dismantle Silicon Valley’s AI monopoly, a European alliance has emerged with an alternative to tech’s global order. They call their project OpenEuroLLM. Like DeepSeek, they aim to develop next-generation open-source language models — but their agenda is very different. Their mission: forging European AI that will foster digital leaders and impactful public services across the continent. To support these...

A German startup plans to jumpstart European EVs with an AI-powered brain. Sphere Energy built the system to simulate battery behaviour. The company then predicts a power source’s lifetime in numerous scenarios, from driving styles to temperatures on the road.  According to Sphere, the insights shrink the battery testing cycle by at least a year. Developing a car, meanwhile, could be completed “at least”...

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy — those who understand how AI works — who are most eager to adopt it. Surprisingly, our new research (published in the Journal of Marketing) finds the opposite. People with less knowledge about AI are actually more open to using...

In 1981, American physicist and Nobel Laureate, Richard Feynman, gave a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) near Boston, in which he outlined a revolutionary idea. Feynman suggested that the strange physics of quantum mechanics could be used to perform calculations. The field of quantum computing was born. In the 40-plus years since, it has become an intensive area of research in...

There are a handful of challenges that many developers like to tackle as something of a rite of passage to prove their coding worth. One is creating a compiler. That fundamental building block of many programming languages ​​​​translates the more human-understandable code into something a computer understands. Another and far more ambitious challenge is building an operating system. The scope is almost limitless. You...