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  • 📈 AI Meets Quantum: AQEMIA’s $100M Revolution

📈 AI Meets Quantum: AQEMIA’s $100M Revolution

UK’s Nscale Lands £122M AI Series A

December 10, 2024

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This is Cliff Equity, the UK’s business newsletter that keeps you informed on what’s important in tech, business and finance in less than 5 minutes

In today’s stories:

  • AI Meets Quantum: AQEMIA’s $100M Revolution

  • UK’s Nscale Lands £122M AI Series A

  • Hershey Trust to Block Sweet Takeover?

The summary: Paris-based AQEMIA is revolutionising drug discovery with AI and quantum-inspired physics, securing $100M in funding, big pharma partnerships, and a new London hub to fast-track life-saving treatments.

The details:

  • Cash infusion for a quantum leap: Parisian techbio trailblazer AQEMIA bags a cool $38M, bringing total funding to $100M. Cathay Innovation leads the charge, joining big names like Eurazeo and Elaia.

  • AI meets atomic wizardry: AQEMIA’s generative AI and quantum-inspired physics are rewriting drug discovery, ditching costly experimental data to design groundbreaking molecular structures.

  • Oncology wins and UK dreams: After wowing with preclinical oncology results and a $140M Sanofi deal, AQEMIA’s next stop? London’s King’s Cross in 2025, tapping the UK’s vibrant biotech scene.

  • Visionaries at the helm: Investors rave about AQEMIA’s transformative approach. With fresh funds, a growing team, and sights set on clinical trials, it’s full steam ahead to global biotech glory.

Why it matters: Drug discovery has long been a slog of time and money, but AQEMIA’s clever mix of AI and quantum physics could fast-track life-saving treatments. With heavy-hitting investors on board and a London outpost in the works, they’re poised to shake up the UK’s biotech scene and beyond. If they pull this off, it’s not just good for patients—it’s a masterclass in innovation meeting ambition.

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The summary: Nscale’s record-breaking funding and trailblazing AI infrastructure are putting the UK at the forefront of sustainable, high-performance tech, proving we can lead the charge in the global AI revolution.

The details:

  • Big bucks for big brains: UK-based AI hyperscaler Nscale secures a whopping £122M in Series A funding, led by Sandton Capital Partners. It’s one of the largest Series A rounds in the UK, setting Nscale on a path to scale AI infrastructure across Europe and North America.

  • Revolutionising AI infrastructure: Nscale’s cutting-edge greenfield data centres, featuring liquid cooling and renewable energy, promise GPU superclusters that are lightning-fast, sustainable, and capable of supporting the entire AI lifecycle.

  • Strategic leaps and bounds: Collaborating with Open Innovation AI in MENA, Nscale plans to deploy 30,000 GPUs over three years while prepping a 2025 public cloud launch to empower global AI developers.

  • Sustainable scale-ups: With a 1.3GW data centre pipeline and ambitious global expansion plans, Nscale’s bespoke, eco-friendly AI infrastructure positions it as a frontrunner in hyperscale innovation.

Why it matters: AI is hungry—Nscale's innovations mean the UK is feeding the beast with some of the most efficient and sustainable tech around. By tackling the monumental challenges of powering generative AI, they’re not just keeping the lights on but redefining what cutting-edge infrastructure looks like. With a 1.3GW pipeline and global ambitions, they’re proving Britain can punch well above its weight in the hyperscale AI race.

The summary: Mondelez could soon be nibbling at Hershey's, creating a confectionery powerhouse, but with cocoa costs soaring and the Hershey Trust playing hard to get, it’s far from a done deal!

The details:

  • Sweet deal brewing? Hershey’s shares soared over 10% on whispers that Mondelez, Cadbury’s parent, might whisk the chocolate maker into a $50bn snack empire.

  • Boardroom drama ahead? Any takeover would face hurdles, with Hershey’s powerful charitable trust famously blocking suitors in the past.

  • Bitter aftertaste? The chocolate industry grapples with pricey cocoa and belt-tightening shoppers. Even Hershey’s CFO has flagged rising costs as a sticky issue.

  • Snack-sized acquisitions spree: Mars recently bagged Pringles maker Kellanova, and analysts predict mergers aplenty in the business-friendly Trump era.

Why it matters: If Mondelez manages to snatch up Hershey, we could be looking at the confectionery equivalent of a power couple—Cadbury, Reese’s, and Toblerone all under one roof. But with the Hershey Trust playing hard to get, this deal may never make it past the boardroom. Meanwhile, with rising cocoa prices and picky customers, chocolate makers are scrambling to find new ways to sweeten their bottom lines.