Daily Digest for

A wholly owned subsidiary of ADIA will invest up to $1.5 billion in GLP Pte Ltd, with an initial capital deployment of US$500 million to support growth across logistics, digital infrastructure and renewable energy. The investment builds on prior fund-level collaboration and aims to scale GLP’s platforms amid e-commerce expansion, AI/cloud adoption and the global shift to cleaner energy.

India and Japan reaffirmed their Special Strategic and Global Partnership, set a JPY 5 trillion investment/finance target over five years, agreed JICA loans including JPY 300 billion for the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail, and expanded cooperation across defence, clean energy, S&T, trade and people-to-people ties.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $863 million in a Series B2 round to finish its SPARC fusion demonstration and advance ARC, a planned grid-scale fusion plant in Virginia aiming to put power on the grid in the early 2030s. The round brings CFS’s total capital raised to nearly $3 billion and added international investors including Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Google, and a 12-company Japanese consortium.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and BTG Pactual signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on sustainability and development in Brazil and Latin America, aiming to mobilize up to US$1 billion in joint investments and third-party private capital by the end of 2028. The partnership will pair BTG Pactual’s regional deal sourcing (co-financing, equity, funds) with IFC financial and technical solutions, targeting co-finance and coinvestments including nature-based and Amazon bioeconomy projects.

Rodríguez-Pose, You and Teirlinck (2025) analyze 1,137 EU regions using publication and patent records and Tobit regressions, finding stronger support for extreme parties correlates with lower scientific research and technological innovation. The negative effect is strongest and most consistent for extreme right-wing parties, particularly reducing green technological research, while extreme-left effects are variable.

MIT researchers developed a technique using high-intensity synchrotron X-rays and silicon dioxide buffer layers to enable real-time 3D imaging of corrosion and material failure in reactor-like conditions. The team (MIT NSE/EECS with European Synchrotron and Synchrotron SOLEIL collaborators) published results in Scripta Materiala; the work was funded in part by the MIT Faculty Startup Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Researchers at the University of Bern and ETH Zurich used a high-resolution (2.2 km) 11-year simulation to show that +3°C global warming would increase European supercell thunderstorms—up to 52% north of the Alps, 36% on the southern slopes, and about 11% overall. The peer-reviewed study was published in Science Advances and is part of the scClim project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Google will invest an additional $9 billion in Virginia through 2026 to expand cloud and AI infrastructure, including a new Chesterfield County data center. Separately, under a broader $1 billion commitment Google is providing one year of Google AI Pro plan access and AI training to Virginia college students and launching a Google AI for Education Accelerator with University of Virginia, Brightpoint Community College, and Northern Virginia Community College.

The UK (FCDO/GCIEP) is partnering with the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic to develop a flexible financial model and provide training to enable risk-informed sovereign guarantees for renewable energy investments, running July–December 2025. The work aims to unlock FDI for solar, wind and small hydropower as Kyrgyzstan seeks to raise renewables to at least 10% by 2027 amid >20% electricity imports in 2024.

DG CLIMA (European Commission) published three reports by Ramboll and Ecologic assessing an EU-wide purchasing programme for permanent CDR, recommending strategic purchases and a mixed funding approach (EU budget, Member States, private funding) focused on 2025-2030, and reviewing projects and funding needs up to 2035.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev told Al Arabiya that the Washington initialling marks the conflict’s end pending an Armenian constitutional amendment, pushed the Zangezur ‘Trump Route’ corridor with international security guarantees, detailed reconstruction and return of >50,000 IDPs, and outlined energy deals including ~1.2 bcm gas to Syria, +8 bcm by 2030 and 6 GW renewables target.

Colruyt Group and VDL ETS are deploying 350-bar hydrogen trucks under the EU-cofunded H2Haul R&D project to test hydrogen fuel-cell trucks in daily logistics; one truck has been operational since the end of May and a second will be deployed soon. The vehicles feature a fuel cell developed with OPmobility, 40 kg hydrogen storage across seven 241 L tanks at 350 bar, a 210 kWh battery, ~450 km range, and a max combined weight of 44 tonnes.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) used MyFintech Week 2025 to outline a regulatory roadmap—releasing a Discussion Paper on AI, committing an Exposure Draft on Open Finance by year-end and a Discussion Paper on Asset Tokenisation—while launching/co-hosting ecosystem initiatives including Project Mawar (wholesale CBDC pilot), the Digital Asset Innovation Hub and the MIFC Global Impact Challenge 2025 (submissions open until 18 Aug 2025); BNM also revised GDP to 4%–4.8% and cited inflation 1.5%–2.3% for 2025.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGR) business model documents (August 2025) — including the full-form GGR Contract (Front End Agreement and Standard Terms and Conditions), GGRGFA grant documents — and BSI published interim BECCS and DACCS quantification methodologies to support negotiations.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Geological Survey and Mining Management Center reported major geothermal exploration progress across five high-potential regions (covering ~80% of national potential), measured temperatures up to 245°C, introduced Canada’s MobileMT airborne MT, and plans to expand exploration to 15 sites.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Environment on 27 August 2025 proposed amended cement industry emission standards to add dioxins, 12 heavy metals, HF, HCl and CO, aligning limits with the EU IED and encouraging feedstock composition management.