Technology and Innovation Weekly Digest

Welcome to this week’s Technology and Innovation digest where we explore the latest innovations driving sustainability and efficiency across the industry. This week, we’ll look at Amazon's £8 billion investment in UK data centres and PropEco's recent funding to advance climate-conscious property technology. We also cover Great Britain’s record low fossil fuel energy generation, innovative carbon capture methods using basalt in farming, and OpenAI's new human-like AI model that is capable of reasoning.

Aaliyah Pollock- AI, Data and Tech Analyst

Amazon To Invest £8 Billion in Data Centres

Over the next five years, Amazon Web Services plans to invest £8 billion into data centres across the UK. As part of their long-term commitment to supporting growth and productivity, is estimated that the investment will support more than 14,000 full time jobs as well as contributing £14 billion to the UK's total Gross Domestic Product.

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PropEco Secures Funding to Advance Climate-Conscious Property Technology

RICS Tech Partner, PropEco has raised £275,000 in seed funding to expand its AI-powered platform. Founded in 2021, their platform helps property professionals, lenders, and insurers assess long-term risks related to climate change and social trends. Led by Symvan Capital and the University of Strathclyde’s Inspire Entrepreneurs Fund, the funding aims to accelerate product development and international expansion. PropEco's platform provides granular insights on factors like flood risk and air quality, helping users manage risks, comply with regulations, and improve decision-making.

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Fossil Fuel Electricity Generations Hits Lowest Record in Great Britain

Last month, electricity generation from fossil fuels hit a record low in Great Britain. This marks a significant milestone of renewable energy with wind power generating 33% if the nations’ electricity. With lower demand for electricity combined with a rise in renewable energy and electricity imports, fossil fuel generation dropped to 3.6 terawatt-hours in August, the lowest level in over a century.

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Farms Use “magic dust” To Capture Carbon

Farmers are using crushed basalt- a volcanic rock found in quarries- to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a process known as rock weathering. This process accelerates the natural ability of basalt to remove carbon from the atmosphere by solidifying it during rainfall. Undo, a company using weathering technology to reduce CO2, is offering basalt to farmers for free. This is part of a project funded by Microsoft, British Airways and McLaren Racing.

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OpenAI To Releases AI Model That Is Capable of Reasoning

With the ability to solve hard problems maths, coding and science, OpenAI launches an AI product with human-like cognition. According to OpenAI’s research lead, the product, o1, “has been trained using a completely new optimization algorithm and a new training dataset specifically tailored for it.” Different to previous GPT models that were taught to mimic patterns from its own training data, o1 is has been trained to solve problems on its own using a method called reinforcement learning.

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