Tech teams crew as much as bid for Pentagon contracts

Right this moment’s agenda: Russian nuclear vegetation abroad; Syria’s Isis detainee camps; central banks and uncertainty; accidents at Amazon UK; and Man Fingers allegations

Good morning. We start with an unique story on Palantir and Anduril, that are in talks with rivals to kind a consortium that can collectively bid for US authorities work in an effort to disrupt the nation’s oligopoly of “prime” contractors.

Who’s collaborating? Palantir and Anduril, two of the most important US defence know-how corporations, have approached tech rivals resembling Elon Musk’s SpaceX, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, autonomous-ship builder Saronic and synthetic intelligence knowledge group Scale AI to grow to be a part of the consortium, in line with a number of individuals with information of the matter.

The consortium will convey collectively the heft of a few of Silicon Valley’s most precious corporations and can leverage their merchandise to offer a extra environment friendly approach of supplying the US authorities with cutting-edge defence and weapons capabilities, in line with an individual concerned with the talks.

What’s driving the transfer? Extra tech corporations are looking for to seize a much bigger slice of the US authorities’s enormous $850bn defence finances from conventional prime contractors resembling Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing.

Defence tech start-ups have attracted document quantities of funding this 12 months, as buyers guess they are going to be among the many winners of upper federal spending on nationwide safety from the incoming Trump administration.

Wars in Ukraine and the Center East and geopolitical tensions between the US and China have heightened the federal government’s reliance on tech corporations creating superior AI merchandise that can be utilized for navy functions, and inspired buyers to the sector. Learn the total report.

Right here’s what else we’re conserving tabs on immediately:

• Financial knowledge: The UK and Spain launch third-quarter GDP figures.

• Mozambique: The nation’s high courtroom is ready to present a verdict on the nation’s disputed election in October.

• Albania: Opposition events demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation are set to dam roads in protest.

5 extra high tales

1. Russia is constructing greater than 10 nuclear models overseas because it appears to be like to faucet into rising vitality demand pushed by synthetic intelligence and creating markets, in line with an envoy of President Vladimir Putin. The plans come as Moscow seeks to spice up its world affect by increasing its nuclear fleet. Listed here are the nations the place Russia is developing new vegetation.

2. Syria’s interim authorities is able to take management of Isis detainee camps being run by US-backed Kurdish militants, stated Turkey’s high diplomat Hakan Fidan, the primary overseas minister to satisfy Hayat Tahrir al-Sham chief Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Fidan throughout his go to to Damascus additionally stated he believed US president-elect Donald Trump would again Turkey over Kurdish forces.

3. Eire’s high central banker has stated rate-setters are dealing with extra uncertainty now than in the course of the early phases of the coronavirus pandemic because the agenda and actions of Donald Trump are all however not possible to learn. Learn the total interview with Gabriel Makhlouf.

• Fed flip-flops: The US Federal Reserve’s extremely reactive coverage strategy of current years has amplified monetary volatility, writes Mohamed El-Erian.

• The Economics Present🎧: European Central Financial institution president Christine Lagarde tells Martin Wolf what Europe must do to shut the hole with the US.

4. Dozens of Amazon staff within the UK have suffered severe accidents over current years, together with being blinded or requiring amputations, in line with new knowledge that’s resulting in renewed calls on the ecommerce big to enhance the therapy of susceptible workers. The tech group reported 119 severe accidents from work-related accidents between 2019 and 2024.

• UK employment: Extra youthful persons are neither working nor on the lookout for a job, opting out of the labour market utterly.

5. Unique: Deloitte needs to slash spending on workers journey and bills within the UK by greater than 50 per cent because it seeks to take care of associate income beneath what it referred to as “challenging market conditions”. The associated fee chopping is an indication of the UK consulting sector’s continued struggles as a protracted slowdown in mergers and acquisitions exercise hits demand for advisory work.

The Large Learn

Within the Italian metropolis of Trieste, a community-based strategy to psychological sickness has professional­duced startling res­ults at a comparatively low value. The mannequin contrasts starkly with others that make a lot larger use of psychiatric institutionalisation. The ultimate instalment of the FT’s collection on psychological well being takes a have a look at the decades-long debate in regards to the greatest method to take care of individuals liv­ing with psychological in poor health­ness.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• FT Investigation: Terra Firma founder Man Fingers has been accused of raging at workers and making sexually inappropriate feedback.

• Luxurious scale-back: A softening available in the market is a harbinger of issues to come back in equities and the actual economic system, writes Rana Foroohar.

• Disinformation storm: Firms want new playbooks for coping with on-line falsehoods as AI intensifies the dangers, writes Anjli Raval.

Chart of the day

On the stage of rhetoric, the UK’s Labour authorities is emphasising the precedence of financial development. It’s proper to take action. But it surely wants to grasp that development will depend on the confidence of enterprise in that development, writes Martin Wolf.

Take a break from the information

As the primary public steam railway celebrates its bicentenary subsequent 12 months, writer Simon Bradley has put collectively an fulfilling and extremely readable survey of 200 years of British prepare historical past.