IT Brief UK

Fastly has joined digital sustainability coalition DIMPACT, becoming the first edge cloud platform provider to participate in the group. The move brings Fastly into a coalition focused on science-based ways to measure and reduce the environmental impact of digital media delivery. DIMPACT helps companies assess emissions linked to streaming, publishing, and other online media products.

NVIDIA and Hugging Face have added NVIDIA Isaac GR00T 1.7 and the NVIDIA Isaac Teleop framework to the LeRobot open-source robotics library, extending their work on shared tools for robot development. The additions bring two NVIDIA technologies into LeRobot, Hugging Face's library for training, running and sharing robot datasets, models, policies and workflows. Cosmos 3, NVIDIA's world foundation model for physical AI, is also due to be added later.

Vultr and SUSE have launched SUSE AI Factory with NVIDIA on Vultr infrastructure, targeting organisations moving artificial intelligence workloads into production. The offering combines SUSE AI Factory, NVIDIA AI Enterprise software and Vultr's cloud infrastructure in a single validated stack. It is designed to reduce the integration work involved in bringing together AI software, graphics processing units and cloud infrastructure.

Kolsquare has launched a direct connection between its influencer campaign data and AI assistants including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, using the Model Context Protocol standard. The move targets marketers who use generative AI tools for analysis and reporting but have had to export campaign data manually from specialist influencer platforms before they could query it. Through the new connection, users can ask questions in plain English and receive answers drawn from live performance data.

UK fintech Kord has raised GBP £6.4 million in Series A funding, taking its total funding to GBP £9 million. Guinness Ventures led the round, with Beringea, SFC Capital and angel investors also participating. The company will use the funding to expand its team, develop its product and win more customers. Kord sells software for regulated industries that handles client onboarding, identity checks and payment processing.

FPT has published a global study on the difficulties organisations face in scaling artificial intelligence beyond pilot projects, highlighting a gap between AI spending and operational maturity. Conducted by Forrester Consulting on FPT's behalf, the study surveyed 397 business and technology decision-makers and included interviews with senior executives across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan.

Rithum has appointed Kim Miller as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Global Strategy. She joins the commerce software company from Saks Global. Miller will lead Rithum's global marketing and strategy teams as it looks to sharpen its market position and deepen customer engagement. The appointment adds retail, corporate strategy and digital transformation experience to the executive leadership team. She joins after holding senior roles across large retail and consumer businesses.

OnBoard, the board governance software provider, has warned that boardroom adoption of artificial intelligence is significantly outpacing formal policy, with the majority of boards still operating without dedicated AI guidelines. The company's sixth annual Board Effectiveness Survey, which gathered responses from more than 500 board directors and executives, found that 92 per cent of board directors now use AI for board-related work, up from around 69 per cent a year ago.

SNP Group has formed a strategic partnership with Palantir focused on SAP transformations. The companies will develop AI-based software for customers moving or restructuring SAP systems. The first product, Test Data Proposal, will be added to SNP's Kyano platform. The partnership combines SNP's long-standing focus on SAP data migration with Palantir's artificial intelligence and data analysis software.

GreenScale has published 12 sustainability commitments for its data centre campuses. The framework will guide the development and operation of sites in emerging, power-rich markets across Europe. The commitments cover renewable energy, embodied carbon, water use, local communities and supply chains. GreenScale will report publicly against each target as projects move forward.