Industry news

Britain's creative industries on Wednesday welcomed a government U-turn on proposals that would have allowed AI firms to use copyrighted material without prior permission.

Technology secretary Liz Kendall said the government had abandoned its earlier "preferred option" of permitting AI developers to train models on copyrighted works unless rights holders explicitly opted out.

"We have listened," Kendall said in a statement.

"We have engaged extensively with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions, academics and AI adopters, and that engagement has shaped our approach. This is why we can confirm today that the government no longer has a preferred option."

The UK government has announced more funding for AI, quantum and supercomputing, and initiatives to boost tech sovereignty and support domestic scale-ups.

The government is stepping up its ambitions for advanced computing as a cornerstone of its technology and economic strategy, combining targeted infrastructure investment with broader funding commitments aimed at keeping innovation, and high-growth companies, here in the UK.

A clear signal of that intent came yesterday with the launch of “Sunrise,” a new AI supercomputer developed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Backed by £45 million in public funding, the system is designed to accelerate fusion energy research - an area which could prove critical to long-term energy security and decarbonisation.

Read the full article on Computing here.

The UK government has unveiled a new package of measures aimed at both supporting hundreds of women into tech jobs and inspiring thousands of schoolgirls to pursue digital careers. Led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) through the new £187m TechFirst programme launched in June 2025 (see here), the initiatives form part of broader efforts to address gender imbalance across the technology sector. These are focused on getting more women entering, progressing, staying, and leading in the industry.

The centrepiece of the announcements is the £4m TechFirst Women's Programme. To be launched later this year, the scheme will provide women with coaching and interview prep support, and work with SMEs across the country to identify at least 300, minimum 6-month placements, in tech roles for local women.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Nine months after the launch of Reinvention Services, Accenture has announced details of the organisational design for the new entity. The wide-ranging changes unveiled will see a material realignment of the firm's operations and the revised structure which will go live on 31 March.

Led by Manish Sharma, Accenture's Chief Strategy and Services Officer, Reinvention Services was established with the aim of boosting Accenture's bookings through unifying the management of the firm's horizontal lines of business to enable the creation of more leading solutions faster and embed data and AI more easily into its solutions and delivery. It will now comprise seven external-facing Reinvention Partner entities, three internal transformation-centric Reinvention Engines, and a Client Success unit. Leaders have been appointed for each facet of the new organisation.

Read the full article here.

Cognizant has launched a new multi-tenant cloud offering. Underpinned by the Dell AI Factory and Nvidia's AI infrastructure and software platform, Cognizant AI Factory aims to unify the management of the AI lifecycle from ideation to day-to-day operations in a single environment. The offering harnesses Cognizant's proprietary Fractional GPU technology to enable secure, isolated GPU "slices" that allow multiple business units — or even multiple clients — to run AI workloads concurrently in a unified environment.

Cognizant AI Factory is intended to give clients full control over where their AI runs, how it scales and how it's governed. 

Read the full article on TechMarketView here

TT DATA and Ericsson have signed a multi-year partnership aimed at improving enterprise adoption of private 5G and edge AI, a deal that reflects growing market demand for production-ready connectivity.

Under the new agreement, NTT DATA will act as one of Ericsson's primary global system integration partners, delivering private 5G as a fully managed service. NTT DATA's edge AI agents will run directly on Ericsson's enterprise edge platforms, supporting real-time, autonomous decision-making at the point of data generation.

The partnership targets four key verticals, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, energy and mining, and smart cities, with several repeatable use cases designed to help enterprises move beyond pilots and into scalable production deployments.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Contact centre giant Teleperformance has had to navigate a challenging twelve months or so with its share price down c.50% on where it was a year ago. FY25 results out yesterday tell a story of resilience rather than momentum with group revenue coming in at €10.2bn, up 1.3% in constant currency (reported revenue marginally down 0.7% as a strengthening euro took a bite out of reported figures).

Core Services which represent some 85% of the business, grew a more creditable 2.7% yoy, with EMEA and Asia-Pacific outperforming at 3.8%, off the back of growth in data services for AI, sales, care and back-office solutions. The Americas also returned to growth, albeit modestly.

Ofgem has launched a wide-ranging review to reform grid connection processes in response to a surge in datacentre demand, proposing stricter entry requirements and new models to accelerate electricity capacity delivery.

Energy regulator Ofgem has launched a major consultation on reforming electricity demand connections, warning that a surge in datacentre applications has pushed the grid queue to unprecedented levels.

In a Call for Input published last week, the regulator said the pipeline of projects awaiting connection to the electricity network had tripled in just seven months, from 41GW in November 2024 to 125GW by June 2025.

Read the full article on Computing here.

Kyndryl endured an incredibly painful start to the week with shares falling sharply after the company said it is delaying a number of regulatory filings, including its 10-Q.

The infrastructure services specialist, which has seen its share price drop c.55% since the start of the week, will conduct an accounting review alongside the release of its fiscal third-quarter results, which missed expectations. Although revenue increased 3% year-over-year to $3.86bn, and adjusted EPS grew c.2%, both of these came in below estimates.

The company said it is reviewing its cash management practices, related disclosures (including the drivers of adjusted free cash flow), and the effectiveness of its internal controls over financial reporting, following voluntary document requests from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Further consolidation in the European BPO market as Paragon Group acquires Parseq, a Yorkshire-based business process services specialist, strengthening its position in the UK's document processing and payment automation markets. Parseq had itself been scaling through M&A having acquired The Tall Group, a secure print, payment, and online solutions provider and merged operations with offshore IT services provider Column Software Solutions in 2023.

The deal brings 350 employees and operations spanning the UK, Bulgaria, and India under Paragon's expanding portfolio, where Parseq represents a strategic addition to Paragon's outsourced services division, processing over £36bn in payments annually and digitising 70m documents for clients including the UK's top ten banks, major utilities, and telecommunications providers.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.