Daily Digest for

DHL Global Forwarding will use Sustainable Marine Fuel for around 9,000 TEUs of Henkel’s ocean freight in 2025, reducing emissions by approximately 4,700 metric tons CO2e (well-to-wake). SGS will verify the reductions; the move expands a 2024 pilot and most shipments originate from Europe.

The New Zealand Government finalised the 2024/25-2026/27 Rail Network Investment Programme, allocating $1.360 billion over three years for maintenance, renewals and network operations, announced by Rail Minister Winston Peters. The programme details region-by-region track re-sleepering and re-railing, bridge and culvert renewals, signalling and telecommunications upgrades, and resilience works across New Zealand.

The UK and US agreed the Tech Prosperity Deal to accelerate joint AI, quantum and civil nuclear research and infrastructure as part of the US President’s State Visit; US and UK tech firms announced a combined ~£31 billion in new commitments to UK AI and tech infrastructure. Major corporate commitments include Microsoft’s $30 billion investment (≈£22bn) over 4 years to expand AI cloud and build a >23,000 GPU supercomputer, NVIDIA deploying 120,000 GPUs (including up to 60,000 Grace Blackwell Ultra via Nscale) and Google’s £5 billion over 2 years for UK data centre expansion.

The UK government announced an AI Growth Zone in the North East to create over 5,000 jobs and attract up to £30 billion in private investment, with Blackstone already committing £10 billion to the Blyth site. OpenAI, NVIDIA and Nscale will form Stargate UK to deploy AI infrastructure—initially up to 8,000 GPUs early next year, expandable to ~31,000—and the zone will raise data-centre capacity to 1.1GW within six years.

The New Zealand Government will amend the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to allow use of secondary legislation to designate marine space for offshore renewable projects while pausing new seabed mining permits under the Crown Minerals Act. Energy Minister Simon Watts said the change is intended to provide investment certainty, with the first designated area likely in South Taranaki and an Amendment Paper to be drafted.

Deputy Minister Nomalungelo Gina stated that South Africa will support scaling sustainable fuels—including hydrogen, biofuels and CCUS—highlighting the Biofuel Regulatory Framework (BRF) and the CoalCO₂-X RDI Flagship Programme. The statement called for robust policy and regulatory frameworks, RD&I collaboration, and cross-border supply chains to enable deployment.