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Laos Phases Out Family Books in Shift to Digital Population System

Laos is replacing Family Books with a digital population management system

Laos is phasing out traditional Family Books as the government accelerates its shift to digital governance.

Under the new policy, authorities will stop issuing hard-copy household registration books. Instead, citizens will use a Certificate of Household Information, generated through a digital system, as the primary document for administrative procedures.

The change is to make it easier to store, access, and manage population data while reducing paperwork and delays in public services, according to a government notice.

Transition Period

Family Books issued in the past remain valid until their expiration date. But people whose household information has already been entered into the digital system must use the new certificate instead when completing official procedures.

Citizens with Digital ID Cards can now use them as official proof of identity for legal transactions and government services, reducing the need for multiple documents.

Only authorised offices can issue the new certificates, including public security departments at central, provincial, and district levels. Authorities are calling on all sectors to recognise the new system and help make the transition smooth.

Building on Digital ID Rollout

The reform builds on Laos’s rollout of digital national ID cards, which expanded nationwide on 17 December 2025 after an initial pilot in Vientiane Capital.

The cards include biometric data and security features such as chips and QR codes, designed to make identity verification faster and more reliable. Officials say the system will support easier access to public services and help connect different government databases.

Together, the changes represent a broader push to move Laos toward fully digital administration, where personal data can be managed more efficiently nationwide.

Breaking the 100M Token Limit: EverMind’s MSA Architecture Achieves Efficient End-to-End Long-Term Memory for LLMs

The research introduces a novel memory architecture called MSA (Memory Sparse Attention). Through a combination of the Memory Sparse Attention mechanism, Document-wise RoPE for extreme context extrapolation, KV Cache Compression with Memory Parallelism, and a Memory Interleave mechanism supporting complex reasoning, MSA achieves a 100-million-token long-term memory framework for LLMs. It delivers industry-leading results on mainstream long-context QA and Needle-In-A-Haystack (NIAH) benchmarks. Remarkably, when scaling the context length from 16K to 100M tokens, the model’s performance degrades by less than 9%, demonstrating extraordinary scalability.

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On March 18, EverMind, a pioneer in AI memory infrastructure, released a landmark research paper, Memory Sparse Attention for Efficient End-to-End Memory Model Scaling to 100M Tokens, introducing a novel architecture that enables large language models to achieve efficient, end-to-end long-term memory at the unprecedented scale of 100 million tokens. The paper is published on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/19103670) and open-sourced on GitHub (https://github.com/EverMind-AI/MSA).

Memory Sparse Attention for Efficient End-to-End Memory Model Scaling to 100M Tokens
Memory Sparse Attention for Efficient End-to-End Memory Model Scaling to 100M Tokens

This approach can be viewed as a memory plug-in for large models, providing a fresh perspective and direction for solving the long-term memory problem. In today’s era of exploding Agent ecosystems, this work stands as a potential milestone in ushering in the new epoch of “Memory-as-a-Service”.

MSA integrates topkselection with sparse attention, achieving strong scalability while remaining differentiable
MSA integrates topkselection with sparse attention, achieving strong scalability while remaining differentiable

1.  The “Impossible Triangle” of LLM Long-Term Memory

In recent years, the capability boundaries of LLMs have continuously expanded. However, when it comes to lifelong, fine-grained memory retention, they still face an insurmountable chasm. Scenarios such as literary analysis requiring the comprehension of extensive novel series, Digital Twins demanding persona consistency across multi-turn dialogues, or Agent systems needing to trace long historical records, all place stringent demands on the model’s effective context length. Yet, mainstream LLMs, constrained by the quadratic complexity of Full Attention mechanisms, have long had their effective context windows limited to around 1 million (1M) tokens — a far cry from the estimated hundreds of millions of tokens comprising a human’s lifelong memory capacity.

Memory Sparse Attention layer
Memory Sparse Attention layer

To break through this bottleneck, academia and industry have explored three main technical paradigms. However, while attempting to solve the problem, each paradigm has fallen into new dilemmas, forming an irreconcilable “Impossible Triangle”:

  • Parameter-Based Memory: This method “burns” knowledge directly into model parameters via continuous training or fine-tuning (e.g., LoRA). While it offers high precision, it suffers from poor scalability, high updating costs, and a high susceptibility to catastrophic forgetting.
  • External Storage-Based Memory: Represented by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), this approach externalizes memory into vector databases. It boasts excellent scalability, but its non-end-to-end, decoupled “retrieve-then-generate” nature makes retrieval precision a performance bottleneck, struggling to achieve deep semantic alignment.
  • Latent State-Based Memory: This paradigm utilizes the model’s internal hidden states (such as KV cache) as working memory. It provides high semantic fidelity but faces a direct conflict between efficiency and capacity. Methods retaining local KV caches offer high precision but limited scalability; whereas linear attention-based methods (like RWKV or DeltaNet) achieve linear complexity but suffer severe precision degradation in ultra-long contexts due to lossy compression.

The following table summarizes the key trade-offs across all three paradigms:

Comparison of Long-Term Memory Methods for LLMs
Comparison of Long-Term Memory Methods for LLMs

Against this backdrop, the MSA paper sets an ambitious goal: to design an end-to-end trainable latent state memory framework that scales to 100M tokens with linear complexity while maintaining high precision. The emergence of MSA aims to directly challenge and shatter the aforementioned “Impossible Triangle,” endowing LLMs with true “lifelong memory.”

2.  Deep Dive into the MSA Architecture: Four Pillars of Innovation

The revolutionary nature of MSA does not stem from a single technological breakthrough, but rather from a cohesive, systemic stack of architectural innovations. These components work in synergy to form the bedrock of its high performance.

2.1  The Core Foundation: Memory Sparse Attention

The core idea of MSA is to introduce a differentiable, content-based sparsification mechanism into the Transformer’s attention layer. Instead of forcing the model to attend to all historical memories during inference, it designs an efficient “Routing” module to dynamically select the most relevant memory subsets for computation.

The MSA layer is wrapped within a standard Pre-Norm Transformer block, replacing the traditional Self-Attention layer. This plug-and-play design ensures seamless integration into existing LLM architectures without disruptive overhauls. The heart of the innovation is an elegant “Dual-Routing” mechanism that selects the best evidence from massive documents without brute-force full computation:

  • Input & Projection: The model receives the external knowledge base and the current query, projecting them into four independent representations: Q (Query), K (Key), V (Value), and a specialized Routing Key (K^R).
  • First-Level Routing (Topic-level Screening): The model performs coarse-grained topic screening across the entire knowledge base using an attention mechanism and token-wise mean pooling. An auxiliary contrastive loss (L_aux) is computed here to enforce routing sparsity and prevent query collapse onto a few popular documents.
  • Second-Level Routing (Token-level Fine-screening): Within the relevant documents identified in the first step, the model conducts finer “content screening” via Pooling and Top-k operations, selecting the most critical sentences or paragraphs at the token level.
  • Final Attention Computation: Only the selected, most essential K and V vectors are loaded into the attention computation. These sparsified memory K/Vs are concatenated with the query’s K/Vs and fed into the final Multi-head Attention layer to generate the output.

The ingenuity of this mechanism lies in internalizing the “retrieval” step of RAG systems into an end-to-end trainable neural network module. Unlike RAG, which relies on external, fixed similarity metrics (like cosine distance), MSA’s router is co-optimized with the generation task during training via a supervised contrastive loss. This fundamentally solves the core pain point of misaligned objectives between RAG’s “retrieval” and “generation,” serving as the key to achieving high precision.

2.2  The Key to Scalability: Document-wise RoPE

To successfully extrapolate from shorter training texts (e.g., 64k tokens) to 100M-level inference texts, handling positional information is a critical challenge. If traditional global positional encoding is used, positional indices will shift drastically when the number of documents during inference far exceeds that during training, leading to severe performance degradation.

MSA proposes a concise and efficient solution: assigning an independent set of Rotary Positional Embeddings (RoPE) to each individual document. This means that regardless of how many documents are in the memory bank, the model’s internal “coordinate system” when reading each document always starts from 0 and remains stable. This design decouples the internal relative position of a document from its absolute position in the global memory, allowing the position-awareness learned during training to generalize losslessly to inference scenarios with massive document banks. Complementing this, Global RoPE is applied to the active query context, with position IDs offset by the number of retrieved documents, ensuring the model perceives the query as a logical continuation of the retrieved background information.

2.3  Engineering Implementation: KV Cache Compression & Memory Parallel

Theoretical feasibility must be translated into reality through engineering. At the 100Mtoken scale, even after compression, the KV cache storage requirement reaches approximately 169 GB — far exceeding the aggregate 160 GB VRAM capacity of a standard 2×A800 node. MSA resolves this physical bottleneck through an ingenious “Memory Parallel” strategy built on two key observations:

  • Tiered Storage: During the routing phase, the model only needs the relatively small Routing Keys (K^R) for quick matching; the massive Content KVs (K and V) are only needed after Top-k selection. Thus, K^R is distributed across GPU VRAM for low-latency retrieval, while K and V are offloaded to CPU DRAM.
  • Asynchronous Fetching: Once the GPU completes routing and determines the Top-k documents, the system asynchronously fetches only the required Content KVs from CPU memory to the GPU for the final generation computation. This “fast search (GPU), slow fetch (CPU)” strategy elegantly shifts the storage bottleneck from limited VRAM to massive CPU memory, enabling 100Mtoken inference on just two A800 GPUs.

2.4  Complex Reasoning Capability: Memory Interleave

For complex questions that require integrating multiple pieces of evidence scattered across different documents (i.e., multi-hop reasoning), a single “retrieve-generate” cycle often falls short. To address this, MSA introduces the Memory Interleave mechanism, which allows the model to perform multiple rounds of “generative retrieval → context expansion” loops:

Three-Stage Inference Process with Memory Interleave
Three-Stage Inference Process with Memory Interleave

In the first round, the model generates the IDs of documents it deems most relevant based on the original query. The system fetches the original text of these documents and appends them to the query, forming a richer “intermediate query.” In the next round, the model generates new document IDs based on this enriched context. This cycle continues until the model determines that the accumulated evidence is sufficient, at which point it switches to generating the final answer.

This iterative reasoning chain simulates the thought process of a human detective: “Discover clue A → Follow the vine to find clue B → Integrate A and B to form a complete evidence chain.” It endows MSA with the ability to dynamically plan its information-gathering path, which is a crucial reason for its outstanding performance on Multi-hop QA tasks. The model autonomously determines how many retrieval rounds are needed per query, rather than relying on a pre-defined fixed number of retrieved documents.

3.  Re-interpreting Experimental Data: Validating MSA’s Value

The paper validates the effectiveness of the MSA architecture from multiple dimensions through exhaustive experiments. We highlight the three most revealing findings.

3.1  Astonishing Scalability and Robustness

On the RULER Needle-In-A-Haystack (NIAH) benchmark, as the context scales from 32K to 1M tokens, MSA’s accuracy only drops from 98.77% to 94.84% — a mere 3.93 percentage-point decline across a 32-fold expansion. In stark contrast, the unmodified Qwen3-4B backbone plummets to 24.69% at 1M tokens, and even the 80B Qwen3-Next model degrades to 80.78% at 1M tokens. In the even more extreme MS MARCO QA test, when expanding the memory scale from 16K to 100M tokens (spanning 4 orders of magnitude), MSA’s performance score only drops from 4.023 to 3.669, a degradation rate of less than 9%. This intuitively proves the architecture’s exceptional robustness against massive irrelevant information (noise) interference.

Results on the "Needle In A Haystack" (NIAH) evaluation across varying context lengths from 32k to 1M tokens.
Results on the “Needle In A Haystack” (NIAH) evaluation across varying context lengths from 32k to 1M tokens.

3.2  The Power of End-to-End Optimization

On the average scores of 9 QA benchmarks, the 4B-parameter MSA model (average score 3.760) significantly outperforms complex RAG systems built on the identical Qwen3-4B foundation, including those with a Reranker. Specifically, MSA achieves average improvements of 16.0%, 11.5%, and 14.8% over standard RAG, RAG with reranking, and HippoRAG2, respectively. More strikingly, on several datasets, its performance even surpasses top-tier RAG systems composed of the SOTA KaLMv2 retriever paired with the massive 235B-parameter Qwen3 model — a system with 58× more parameters. This fully demonstrates the high-precision advantage brought by MSA’s end-to-end optimization.

MSA integrates topkselection with sparse attention, achieving strong scalability while remaining differentiable
MSA integrates topkselection with sparse attention, achieving strong scalability while remaining differentiable

3.3  The Indispensability of Each Component

Ablation studies clearly quantify the contribution of each innovation. Compared to the baseline MSA-S1 model, removing the Memory Interleave mechanism leads to a 5.3% average performance drop, with HotpotQA suffering a 19.2% decline — confirming its essentiality for multi-hop reasoning. Removing the auxiliary routing supervision in Continual Pre-training causes a severe 31.3% average performance degradation (43.1% on HotpotQA), as errors in initial document retrieval compound during subsequent interleaving steps. Removing the Original Text Injection causes the most severe slide of 37.1%, with DuReader experiencing a 46.2% drop, indicating that precise final answers still rely critically on the semantic details of the original text. This proves that MSA is an intricately designed, organic whole where every component is indispensable.

4.  Conclusion: MSA’s Originality and Core Value

In summary, the true value of MSA lies not merely in releasing a powerful long-context model, but in providing the AI memory field with a brand new, fully validated technical infrastructure that simultaneously achieves scalability, precision, and efficiency. It proves that we do not have to make painful compromises between the “low precision” of RAG and the “high cost” of full attention. By cleverly combining the idea of sparsification with the end-to-end learning capabilities of neural networks, building an independent, scalable “Memory Layer” compatible with LLMs is entirely feasible.

This paints an exciting blueprint for the future development of the AI ecosystem: Memory can act as an independent, pluggable service, freely combined with various reasoning cores (LLMs). User data and “memory assets” will no longer be locked into any single model or vendor. From this perspective, MSA is not just an excellent academic paper; it is likely a milestone that inaugurates the new era of Memory-as-a-Service.

5.  Background: EverMind and Shanda Group’s “Discoverative AI” Vision

To fully understand the driving force behind the MSA research, it is necessary to examine it within the macro-strategic context of its creator, EverMind, and its parent company, Shanda Group. EverMind is one of the core teams deeply incubated by Shanda Group’s founder, Tianqiao Chen, in the AI field. Its mission is to conquer the long-term memory challenge of AI, moving towards AI’s Self-Evolving capability.

According to recent interviews with Tianqiao Chen by Bloomberg and TMTPost, Shanda Group’s AI strategy does not focus on the current mainstream “Generative AI,” but aims to build a more pioneering “Discoverative AI” ecosystem. Its ultimate goal is to have AI assist humans in discovering new knowledge and solving fundamental problems like disease and energy, rather than merely imitating and recombining existing information. In this grand vision, two foundational technologies are placed at the core:

  • MiroMind — Reasoning: This team is dedicated to enabling models to proactively seek evidence from the external world and revise hypotheses like scientists, achieving true reasoning reliability and insightful discovery through paths like verifiable reasoning.
  • EverMind — Memory: This team’s mission is to build an infinitely scalable, high-fidelity long-term memory system for AI that is independent of any specific model. Only when AI possesses a stable and reliable memory foundation can it conduct effective, cross-temporal complex reasoning and knowledge creation, ultimately achieving Self-Evolving AI.

Therefore, EverMind and MiroMind jointly constitute the core driving force of Shanda Group’s “Discoverative AI” blueprint, corresponding to the two core pillars of cognitive science: Memory and Reasoning. The MSA architecture introduced in this paper is exactly the core technological achievement of the EverMind team in practicing the “Memory-as-a-Service” concept. Its underlying design and technical route not only represent a breakthrough in the existing long-context bottleneck but also profoundly reflect Shanda Group’s long-term investment and firm determination in building independent, autonomous, and controllable AI infrastructure.

MEDIA FACT SHEET: Beyond Borders: “The Global Language of Sake”

SINGAPORE, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ —

Overview

Beyond Borders: “The Global Language of Sake” is a landmark industry initiative celebrating 60 years of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Japan. Bringing together leading Japanese sake breweries, Singapore-based chefs, distributors and industry stakeholders, the event spotlights sake as a versatile global beverage, transcending traditional Japanese cuisine and integrating seamlessly into Singapore’s diverse culinary landscape.

Beyond Borders - The Global Language of Sake
Beyond Borders – The Global Language of Sake

The initiative also aims to expand the appreciation and application of Japanese sake beyond Japanese dining contexts, supporting the continued growth of sake exports from Japan to Singapore. Japan remains one of Singapore’s key trading partners, and Japanese sake has gained increasing popularity among a broad spectrum of Singaporean consumers. By encouraging chefs, restaurateurs and beverage professionals to explore new culinary pairings and applications, the event seeks to strengthen sake’s presence within Singapore’s dynamic food and beverage scene.

Jointly organised by JETRO Singapore, JFOODO, and the Embassy of Japan in Singapore, and supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF), the event will feature curated sake tastings, chef-led food pairings and an industry panel discussion exploring strategies to broaden sake’s role in Singapore’s evolving dining culture.

Purpose

  • To break the stereotype that sake pairs only with Japanese cuisine
  • To encourage adoption across Singapore restaurants and the wider F&B ecosystem
  • To strengthen Singapore–Japan culinary collaboration
  • To support industry knowledge exchange and trade opportunities

Highlights:

1. Tasting Showcase of 30 Japanese Sake Labels

The tasting will feature 30 to 40 different sake selections, presented by local distributors and industry partners. The sakes span a wide range of styles, from Kijoshu (dessert-style sake) to distinctive barrel-aged expressions, and this tasting offers guests the opportunity to engage directly with producers and gain deeper insight into the craftsmanship behind each sake.

Many showcased labels are recipients of international accolades including IWC (International Wine Challenge), Kura Master and global sustainability awards. Following the tasting, participating sakes will be available for immediate trade purchase, with local wholesalers and distributors in attendance to facilitate business discussions and support the expansion of sake offerings within Singapore’s food and beverage sector.

2. Five chef-curated sake pairing dishes

Five distinguished chefs from Singapore’s dynamic dining scene each present a sake-pairing dish. This cross-cultural pairing segment demonstrates how sake harmonises beyond Japanese cuisine and its compatibility with global flavours.

  • Chef Tamara Chavez – Canchita Peruvian Cuisine & Latinada Festival (Latin American)
  • Chef Edward Chong – Peach Blossoms (contemporary, innovative Cantonese cooking)
  • Chef Wayne Liew – Keng Eng Kee Seafood (Singaporean zi char)
  • Chef Denis Lucchi – Buona Terra (contemporary Italian fine-dining cuisine)
  • Chef Janice Wong – Janice Wong (Contemporary desserts and chocolate creations)

PAIRING MENU

Tamara Chavez

(Canchita Peruvian Cuisine & Latinada Festival)

Ceviche Nikkei

The Ceviche Nikkei brings together cured yellowfin tuna and Hokkaido scallops dressed in a vibrant Japanese-Peruvian leche de tigre, balanced with creamy avocado purée, crunchy canchita corn and crisp plantain chips. The dish delivers layers of bright citrus acidity, delicate sweetness from the seafood, and textural contrast.

This is paired with Nichi Nichi Yamadanishiki Sake, a refined junmai sake from Kyoto brewed using premium Yamadanishiki rice. With its elegant umami character and gentle 11% alcohol profile, the sake complements the natural sweetness of the tuna and scallops while softening the sharp citrus notes of the leche de tigre. Its clean, polished finish refreshes the palate between bites, allowing the dish’s acidity, creaminess and crunch to remain balanced and expressive.

Edward Chong

(Peach Blossoms)

Crispy Scales Fillet of Amadai with Spicy Pineapple Sauce and Assam Curry

The dish is layered with a vibrant Southeast Asian influence with the spicy pineapple sauce adding bright acidity and tropical sweetness, while the assam curry introduces depth, tang and gentle spice.

This dish is paired with Daishichi Junmai Ginjo Kimoto Masakura Sake from Fukushima. Brewed using the traditional kimoto method and polished to 58%, the sake has at 15% alcohol content, offering a polished, precise and elegant profile with refined umami and balanced acidity. Its structured yet clean character enhances the natural sweetness of the amadai while harmonising with the dish’s tangy and spicy elements.

Wayne Liew

(Keng Eng Kee Seafood)

Coffee Pork Featuring Premium Japanese Cuts

An iconic dish that represents the evolving cuisine of Singapore as a multi-racial nation. The sauce is made up of coffee powder, coffee essence, honey and apple jam, allowing the balance of coffee aroma and sweetness. A dish that has travelled around the nations such as Denmark, Spain, America and Korea.

This dish is paired with 16th Kurouemon Champion Sake from Nagano. Brewed with a polishing ratio of 55% and an alcohol content of 15%, this sake is known for its rich umami character and structured depth. Its savoury intensity complements the robust flavours of the coffee-infused sauce, while its balanced profile helps round out the sweetness in the dish.

Denis Lucchi

(Buona Terra)

Wagyu Beef Tripe with Squid, Tomato, Lardo

Wagyu beef tripe and squid are gently stewed in a savoury tomato sauce, creating depth and warmth, before being finished with semi-dried Amela tomatoes, marjoram, sautéed squid and crisp lardo. The combination delivers a balance of umami richness, natural sweetness and aromatic herbs, while the crispy lardo adds a touch of indulgent texture.

This dish is paired with Katafune Honjozo Sake from Niigata. With an alcohol content of 16% and a polishing ratio of 60%, this sake presents a light, fresh and balanced dry profile. Its clean and versatile character cuts through the richness of the tripe and lardo while complementing the natural sweetness of the squid and tomatoes.

Janice Wong

(2am: dessertbar)

Emerald Layers

Delicate matcha crispy tuile layered with a creamy sake-infused pastry cream, balanced with earthy matcha and complemented with sake kasu. Often used in desserts, sake kasu (sake lees) brings fruity, savoury and umami-rich notes, with a gentle fermented aroma that ties the dish together in a balance of bitterness, creaminess and subtle sweetness.

This dish is paired with Noguchi Yamahai Aiyama Muroka Nama Genshu 2019 Junmai Daiginjo, an unfiltered raw sake from Ishikawa. Brewed with Aiyama rice and polished to 50%, this 2019 vintage sake presents a bold, mature profile with firm umami depth and a full-bodied structure at 17% alcohol. Its richness complements the earthy intensity of matcha while balancing the dessert’s bittersweet notes.

3. Industry Panel Discussion

Title:Exploring New Opportunities for Japanese Sake in Singapore’s Vibrant Culinary Scene

Moderated by Debbie Yong, this succinct panel discussion features the opinions of industry professionals:

  • Veronica Phua – Marketing & Industry Expert
  • Paul Liew – Third Generation Owner, Keng Eng Kee Seafood
  • Chef Daniel Chavez – Chef-Owner, Canchita Peruvian Cuisine & Latinada Festival
  • Joel Lim – Chief Sommelier & Wine Director, Buona Terra

4. Onsite Distributors Facilitating Trade Conversations

To kick start industry collaboration, distributors available onsite include:

  • EJRT ASIA(SINGAPORE) PTE., LTD.
  • The Wine Distribution Company
  • Epicurean Nomads Private Limited
  • Inter Rice Asia Pte Ltd
  • Shiki SG Pte. Ltd.

Closing Thoughts

As one of Asia’s most dynamic gastronomic cities, cosmopolitan Singapore is home to diverse global cuisines and a sophisticated consumer base who are increasingly open to premium beverages and are receptive to cross-cultural flavours. Japanese sake, with its long history of brewing artistry and varying styles, is a premium and versatile pairing partner across cuisines. As Singapore and Japan mark 60 years of diplomatic ties, this initiative reinforces culinary diplomacy: using food and beverage as a bridge for deeper cultural and economic exchange.

Full press kit in the link here: bit.ly/BeyondBordersSake

Universal Robots and Scale AI Launch Imitation Learning System to Accelerate AI Model Training, Bridging the ‘Lab-to-Factory’ Gap

SAN JOSÉ, Calif., March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Universal Robots (UR) this week unveiled the UR AI Trainer at GTC 2026. Developed in collaboration with Scale AI, the AI Trainer marks a shift as robots move from pre-programmed applications to fully AI-driven tasks.

“Our customers, ranging from large enterprises to AI research labs, are no longer just asking for AI features,” said Anders Beck, VP of AI Robotics Products at Universal Robots. “They need a way to collect high-fidelity, synchronized robot and vision data to train AI models on the same robots they intend to deploy. Our AI Trainer is the industry’s first direct lab-to-factory solution for AI model training.” 

The new UR AI Trainer, developed by Universal Robots and Scale AI, is the first direct lab-to-factory solution for AI model training.
The new UR AI Trainer, developed by Universal Robots and Scale AI, is the first direct lab-to-factory solution for AI model training.

Enabling AI-ready data capture

AI robotics training is often hindered by fragmented hardware and low-fidelity data capture. Today’s training data is collected on research robots not suited for production environments, and many systems rely only on visual feedback, making delicate or contact-rich tasks difficult. “The AI Trainer directly addresses these barriers,” said Beck.

 “By utilizing our unique Direct Torque Control and force feedback features, we give developers direct influence over how the robot physically interacts with the world, training on the same robust hardware used in over 100,000 industrial deployments.” 

Scale AI partnership enables a flywheel of integrated robotics data 

The UR AI Trainer lets human operators guide UR robots through tasks in a leader-follower setup, capturing high-quality synchronized multimodal data during real-time demonstrations, creating the structured datasets needed to train Vision-Language-Action (VLA). Running on UR’s AI Accelerator platform, the AI Trainer combines collaborative industrial robots with Scale AI software to enable scalable data capture in production environments, supporting continuous optimization of physical AI systems. 

“Universal Robots is a leader in industrial robotics, and its global footprint offers the ideal foundation for data capture and AI deployment,” said Ben Levin, General Manager, Physical AI at Scale AI. “Together, we’ve created an integrated robotics data flywheel, allowing customers to train, deploy, and improve their AI models faster than ever before.”

UR and Scale AI will release a large-scale industrial dataset collected on UR robots later this year. 

Experience AI Trainer at GTC 

Visitors to UR’s GTC booth can guide two UR3e ‘leader’ robots providing haptic input to control two UR7e ‘follower’ robots. The setup enables visitors to perform advanced smartphone packaging with haptic feedback for imitation learning and VLA training, with demonstration data recorded in real time on Scale’s stack and replayable directly on the AI Trainer. 

The process of capturing robot training data for AI models is complemented by an embodied foundation model demo with Generalist AI and a haptics-based training demo with Haply Robotics. Read more on the UR website.

See image collection here.

About

Universal Robots is a global leader in collaborative robotics (cobots), used across a wide range of industries. With over 100,000 cobots sold worldwide, our user-friendly platform is supported by intuitive PolyScope software, award-winning training, comprehensive services, and the world’s largest cobot ecosystem, delivering innovation and choice to our customers. Universal Robots is part of Teradyne Robotics, a division of Teradyne (NASDAQ: TER), a leading supplier of automatic test equipment and advanced robotics technology. 

Scale AI‘s mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world’s most important decisions. We provide high-quality data that powers the world’s AI models, and we help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that create real impact. Through our research and Safety, Evaluations, and Alignment Lab (SEAL), we test models with rigorous benchmarks and novel research to help ensure AI is developed in ways people can trust. Founded in 2016, Scale is headquartered in San Francisco.

 

MegazoneCloud Launches Generative AI Platform for JB Woori Capital to Streamline Core Reporting Processes

  • Reduce Report Preparation Time by 80%… Meets Financial Security and Regulatory Requirements, Including Electronic Financial Supervisory Regulations

SEOUL, South Korea, March 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MegazoneCloud, a leading AI-native digital transformation company (CEO: Doug Yeum), today announced that it has launched a generative AI platform for JB Woori Capital, a South Korea-based credit-specialized financial company under JB Financial Group, to streamline its core reporting processes and improve operational efficiency.

JB Woori Capital has long spent significant time analyzing corporate information and preparing internal reports due to the nature of its business operations. In particular, preparing key documents such as sales approval requests and credit review reports required employees to perform extensive repetitive work, which often slowed decision-making and limited opportunities to expand business activities.

To address these challenges, JB Woori Capital implemented a generative AI-based platform designed to enhance document creation and information analysis, enabling employees to reduce repetitive tasks and focus on higher-value responsibilities.

MegazoneCloud developed the platform using its generative AI consulting service, Megazone AIR Consulting, and its development service, Megazone AIR Build. The platform runs on Amazon Bedrock and integrates Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 along with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology.

Through the platform, JB Woori Capital has automated key parts of its report-writing workflow and achieved measurable productivity gains. The time required to prepare sales approval request documents has dropped by approximately 80 percent, while the time needed to prepare credit review reports has decreased by about 30 percent.

The platform allows employees to select the type of report they need to generate and the relevant internal reference documents. The AI then analyzes the selected materials and generates an initial draft. The initial rollout focused on four types of frequently used sales approval requests and credit review documents that involve significant repetitive work.

Users can refine the generated drafts through conversational prompts—for example, requesting additional content, summaries, or explanations of specific terms. All functions integrate directly with JB Woori Capital’s existing internal business portal, enabling employees to monitor report generation status and access results within their familiar work environment.

The platform also meets key financial-sector security and regulatory requirements, including Korea’s Electronic Financial Supervisory Regulations and Network Segmentation Security Guidelines.

Because financial institutions operate under strict regulatory environments involving network separation and personal data protection, companies must carefully design security architecture that supports data governance, access control, and audit readiness when introducing generative AI.

MegazoneCloud built the platform on a hybrid architecture that keeps sensitive core data stored internally while running AI capabilities in the cloud. The platform also includes multiple security mechanisms, such as VPN-based encrypted communication, user access controls (token and IP), multi-factor authentication (OTP), and an emergency kill switch that enables immediate system shutdown when necessary.

“By significantly reducing the time required for repetitive report-writing tasks, our employees can now focus more on core activities such as corporate analysis and customer engagement,” said Jae-Kwan Lee, Managing Director of the Digital-IT Division at JB Woori Capital. “Not only sales and credit review staff, but also post-management teams have experienced improved efficiency in their daily work. This has strengthened cross-department collaboration and improved overall organizational productivity.”

He added, “Having successfully introduced this platform while complying with the strict security regulations of the financial industry, we plan to expand the use of AI across the organization based on the experience gained through this project.”

James Kong, Chief AI Officer (CAIO) of MegazoneCloud, said, “This project demonstrates that generative AI can deliver tangible business value even in highly regulated financial environments. MegazoneCloud will continue to support customers’ digital innovation by leveraging AI and cloud capabilities tailored for the financial sector.”

Meanwhile, MegazoneCloud carried out the project as part of the Generative AI Partner Innovation Alliance, a generative AI collaboration program led by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Headquartered in Seoul, Korea, MegazoneCloud has built a strong global presence through overseas subsidiaries and local branches across ten countries—including the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore. Each entity works closely with regional customers and partners to accelerate cloud adoption and AI-driven innovation, while expanding MegazoneCloud’s end-to-end delivery capabilities worldwide.

Guided by its vision, “Transform Tomorrow, Together,” MegazoneCloud is dedicated to helping customers build future-ready competitiveness powered by technology, data, and people, continuing to grow alongside its global partners and clients.

International Buyers Account for 62.1%! The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concludes with Resounding Success

HONG KONG, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Battery Show Asia 2026, co-located with Energy Storage Asia and Mobility Tech Asia, successfully wrapped up its three-day event from March 10 to 12 at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong. The event brought together over 200 exhibitors and showcased more than 1,000 cutting-edge technologies and products, solidifying its position as a premier global platform for energy, technology, and innovation.

The event attracted 15,367 professional buyers from 103 countries and regions, with international buyers making up an impressive 62.1% of attendees. Key participants included representatives from government agencies, industry organizations, vehicle manufacturers, energy and storage system integrators, smart grid companies, battery manufacturers, core component suppliers, research institutions, and investment firms, underscoring the event’s global reach and industry significance.

The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concludes with a Groundbreaking Success
The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concludes with a Groundbreaking Success

Global Business Opportunities: 100+ International Buyer Groups and On-Site Deals

The Battery Show Asia 2026 welcomed over 100 professional buyer groups from Europe, North America, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, South America, and various regions of China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and the mainland. These groups engaged in meaningful discussions with exhibitors, fostering efficient connections and driving targeted business collaborations.

International buyers actively expressed procurement intentions and signed contracts during the event, enabling exhibitors to expand their footprint in overseas markets. Notably, European buyers increased by 43%, highlighting strong market potential. Buyer groups from Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, demonstrated robust regional demand, while South American buyers, such as those from Brazil, reached procurement agreements with exhibitors, further enhancing international cooperation opportunities.

This dynamic exchange not only supported Chinese companies in accessing global markets but also provided overseas enterprises with a vital opportunity to strengthen their presence in the Asia-Pacific region, reaffirming the exhibition’s role as a critical bridge in the global industrial chain.

Energy + Technology + Innovation: Thousands of Groundbreaking Products on Display

Leading companies such as CATL, Tianneng, REPT BATTERO, Yunsa Power, WeLion, TotalEnergies, and Lead Intelligent showcased their latest innovations in battery materials, cell manufacturing, battery components, energy storage systems, commercial and industrial storage solutions, and charging equipment.

The exhibition also featured a dedicated application zone, spotlighting cutting-edge technologies in heavy-duty trucks, light-duty vehicles, passenger cars, two-wheelers, eVTOLs, and residential and industrial energy storage systems. These displays demonstrated the diverse applications of battery technology across multiple industries.

Setting New Milestones: Upgraded Highlights of The Battery Show Asia 2026

The event introduced a series of high-profile activities, marking a new chapter for The Battery Show in the Asia-Pacific region:

  • Grand Opening Ceremony: Industry leaders from government, academia, and research institutions gathered to inaugurate the event.
  • Advisory Board Certificate Awarding Ceremony: Recognizing global experts for their contributions to the event as well as to the industry.
  • CCPIT Zhejiang Matchmaking Event: Organized by CCPIT Zhejiang to support Zhejiang enterprises in expanding overseas.
  • New Energy Summit 2026: Future Energy Solutions – Building a Sustainable Future: Hosted by the Centre of Advanced Power and Autonomous Systems, Hong Kong Productivity Council, exploring sustainable energy directions.
  • Women Leaders in Energy Awards: Celebrating the achievements of women in the energy sector.
  • Closed-Door Roundtable Meeting: Industry leaders convened to explore future development trends.

These activities underscored the exhibition’s international influence and professional caliber, while setting new benchmarks for The Battery Show’s Asia-Pacific strategy.

Igniting Innovation: 150 Conference Sessions Explore the Industry’s Future

The event featured 150 high-quality speeches and discussions, with over 130 global industry leaders and technical experts sharing insights on policy trends, industry development, technological innovation, and market dynamics.

Key topics included advanced battery technologies, battery safety and recycling, solid-state batteries, energy storage applications, multi-sector battery innovations, electric vehicle technologies, hydrogen energy practices, Southeast Asian market opportunities, market reports, and investment trends. These forums provided attendees with a comprehensive, multidimensional perspective, fostering the exchange of global technologies and practices.

Looking Ahead: The Battery Show Asia 2027

The Battery Show Asia 2027 is scheduled to take place from July 14 to 16, 2027, at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong. Industry professionals are warmly invited to join and witness the future of battery and energy innovation.

For Partnership & Inquiries
Hubert Guan
Event Director
Hubert.Guan@informa.com

International Buyers Account for 62.1%! The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concludes with Resounding Success

HONG KONG, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Battery Show Asia 2026, co-located with Energy Storage Asia and Mobility Tech Asia, successfully wrapped up its three-day event from March 10 to 12 at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong. The event brought together over 200 exhibitors and showcased more than 1,000 cutting-edge technologies and products, solidifying its position as a premier global platform for energy, technology, and innovation.

The event attracted 15,367 professional buyers from 103 countries and regions, with international buyers making up an impressive 62.1% of attendees. Key participants included representatives from government agencies, industry organizations, vehicle manufacturers, energy and storage system integrators, smart grid companies, battery manufacturers, core component suppliers, research institutions, and investment firms, underscoring the event’s global reach and industry significance.

The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concluded with a Groundbreaking Success
The Battery Show Asia 2026 Concluded with a Groundbreaking Success

Global Business Opportunities: 100+ International Buyer Groups and On-Site Deals

The Battery Show Asia 2026 welcomed over 100 professional buyer groups from Europe, North America, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, South America, and various regions of China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and the mainland. These groups engaged in meaningful discussions with exhibitors, fostering efficient connections and driving targeted business collaborations.

International buyers actively expressed procurement intentions and signed contracts during the event, enabling exhibitors to expand their footprint in overseas markets. Notably, European buyers increased by 43%, highlighting strong market potential. Buyer groups from Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, demonstrated robust regional demand, while South American buyers, such as those from Brazil, reached procurement agreements with exhibitors, further enhancing international cooperation opportunities.

This dynamic exchange not only supported Chinese companies in accessing global markets but also provided overseas enterprises with a vital opportunity to strengthen their presence in the Asia-Pacific region, reaffirming the exhibition’s role as a critical bridge in the global industrial chain.

Energy + Technology + Innovation: Thousands of Groundbreaking Products on Display

Leading companies such as CATL, Tianneng, REPT BATTERO, Yunsa Power, WeLion, TotalEnergies, and Lead Intelligent showcased their latest innovations in battery materials, cell manufacturing, battery components, energy storage systems, commercial and industrial storage solutions, and charging equipment.

The exhibition also featured a dedicated application zone, spotlighting cutting-edge technologies in heavy-duty trucks, light-duty vehicles, passenger cars, two-wheelers, eVTOLs, and residential and industrial energy storage systems. These displays demonstrated the diverse applications of battery technology across multiple industries.

Setting New Milestones: Upgraded Highlights of The Battery Show Asia 2026

The event introduced a series of high-profile activities, marking a new chapter for The Battery Show in the Asia-Pacific region:

  • Grand Opening Ceremony: Industry leaders from government, academia, and research institutions gathered to inaugurate the event.
  • Advisory Board Certificate Awarding Ceremony: Recognizing global experts for their contributions to the event as well as to the industry.
  • CCPIT Zhejiang Matchmaking Event: Organized by CCPIT Zhejiang to support Zhejiang enterprises in expanding overseas.
  • New Energy Summit 2026: Future Energy Solutions – Building a Sustainable Future: Hosted by the Centre of Advanced Power and Autonomous Systems, Hong Kong Productivity Council, exploring sustainable energy directions.
  • Women Leaders in Energy Awards: Celebrating the achievements of women in the energy sector.
  • Closed-Door Roundtable Meeting: Industry leaders convened to explore future development trends.

These activities underscored the exhibition’s international influence and professional caliber, while setting new benchmarks for The Battery Show’s Asia-Pacific strategy.

Igniting Innovation: 150 Conference Sessions Explore the Industry’s Future

The event featured 150 high-quality speeches and discussions, with over 130 global industry leaders and technical experts sharing insights on policy trends, industry development, technological innovation, and market dynamics.

Key topics included advanced battery technologies, battery safety and recycling, solid-state batteries, energy storage applications, multi-sector battery innovations, electric vehicle technologies, hydrogen energy practices, Southeast Asian market opportunities, market reports, and investment trends. These forums provided attendees with a comprehensive, multidimensional perspective, fostering the exchange of global technologies and practices.

Looking Ahead: The Battery Show Asia 2027

The Battery Show Asia 2027 is scheduled to take place from July 14 to 16, 2027, at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong. Industry professionals are warmly invited to join and witness the future of battery and energy innovation.

For Partnership & Inquiries
Hubert Guan
Event Director
Hubert.Guan@informa.com

Can Gio: The Emerging Catalyst in Southern Vietnam’s Tourism Transformation


HCMC, VIETNAM – Media OutReach Newswire – 19 March 2026 – Southern Vietnam consistently stands out as one of the country’s most dynamic gateways for international travelers. Anchored by Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s economic and financial nucleus, this region benefits from year-round tropical weather and a richly diverse marine ecosystem, positioning it as a natural tourism hub.

Can Gio: The Emerging Catalyst in Southern Vietnam’s Tourism Transformation

In 2025, Ho Chi Minh City recorded the highest visitor volume nationwide, welcoming over 53.5 million arrivals, including approximately 8.5 million international tourists. Yet, a persistent paradox remains. Despite its status as the country’s primary entry point, the city largely functions as a transit node rather than a destination where visitors choose to linger. Many travelers stay only briefly before continuing to established coastal destinations such as Vung Tau, Phu Quoc, or Phan Thiet.

Ho Chi Minh City has yet to fully evolve into a tourism ecosystem capable of sustaining extended stays. The limitation is not solely due to the absence of large-scale, destination-defining developments, but also stems from a more fundamental constraint, connectivity infrastructure. For years, the southern region’s interprovincial transport network has developed unevenly, resulting in prolonged travel times and overreliance on a limited number of arterial routes.

That landscape, however, is entering a period of inflection.

A new wave of infrastructure investment – arguably the most extensive in the region’s history – is being deployed, with Can Gio at its epicenter. The convergence of strategic transport corridors is not only reducing travel friction between economic and tourism centers, but also unlocking the long-overlooked potential of Can Gio, gradually reshaping the broader economic and tourism geography of southern Vietnam.

The city’s long-term vision positions Can Gio as a new growth pole, with projected capacity to attract approximately 40 million visitors annually. This ambition contributes to Vietnam’s national target of welcoming 30-35 million international tourists and 160-180 million domestic travelers by 2030.

A 40-Million-Visitor Hub and the Transformation of Southern Tourism

Historically, Can Gio has been recognized as the “green lung” of Ho Chi Minh City, home to a vast mangrove ecosystem and a UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve spanning approximately 75,000 hectares. Under a new development vision, the district is gradually repositioning itself as “Saigon’s seaside”, a large-scale coastal tourism center located just beyond a metropolitan population of over 10 million.

A series of major infrastructure projects is now converging to redefine Can Gio’s accessibility. For the first time, the area will benefit from a multi-layered transport network, effectively dismantling the geographic isolation that has persisted for decades.

On the aviation axis, Can Gio will connect directly to Long Thanh International Airport, designed to handle up to 100 million passengers annually, via Rung Sac Road and the Ben Luc – Long Thanh Expressway.

On the urban rail axis, the Ben Thanh – Can Gio metro line, expected to commence operations in Q3 2028, will reduce travel time from the city center to the coast to just 13 minutes, shorter than a typical coffee break, effectively integrating Can Gio into the daily living, working, and leisure radius of both residents and visitors.

On the road network, the Can Gio Bridge, scheduled for completion in 2029, will replace the existing Binh Khanh ferry and establish seamless connectivity with regional expressways, embedding Can Gio into both domestic and international logistics networks.

Meanwhile, the Can Gio – Vung Tau sea-crossing route, targeted for completion in early 2029, will open a new coastal tourism corridor, enabling Can Gio to capture a share of the more than 18 million annual visitors currently traveling to Vung Tau.

Complementing this infrastructure backbone, the emergence of Vinhomes Green Paradise is widely viewed as a catalytic force, one capable of activating a new “southern economic and tourism super-map.”

Conceived as an ESG mega-urban development, the project is designed not only to deliver integrated hospitality, entertainment, and lifestyle offerings, but also to function as a central gateway and distribution hub for regional tourist flows.

A True ‘Must-play’ Destination

Commenting on the Vinhomes Green Paradise project in Can Gio, Mike Gorman, Senior Project Architect at RTJ II Golf Course Architects, remarked:This is going to be completely unique to Vietnam. It will become something people from around the world travel to experience, a true ‘must-play’ destination.”

Its large-scale, experience-driven ecosystem includes: VinWonders Can Gio, envisioned as one of the region’s leading entertainment complexes; two international-standard 18-hole golf courses; a network of 5–6 star hotels and boutique properties totaling nearly 7,000 rooms; the 7-hectare Song Xanh Theater; a five-star Vinmec hospital in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic (USA); and Vin New Horizon, a senior living urban model. This diversified offering enables year-round operations, catering to a wide spectrum of visitor demographics and preferences.

Vinhomes Green Paradise has been conceptualized to align with evolving tourism trends, urban utility integration, and experiential demand, while leveraging Can Gio’s ecological assets to create distinctive, place-based experiences for both visitors and residents. Among hundreds of global participant, Vinhomes Green Paradise has been selected as the first official participant in the “7 Wonders of Future Cities” campaign organized by New7Wonders. Jean-Paul de la Fuente, Director of New7Wonders and President of the campaign, described the project as a compelling model for the concept of a future city, where progress is measured by quality of living across generations.

From an investment perspective, the formation of this “southern economic and tourism super-map” signals not only expanded headroom for the tourism sector, but also the influx of capital and the prospect of sustained real estate value appreciation.

For context, Singapore welcomed approximately 16.5 million international visitors in 2025, generating around SGD 29 billion (equivalent to USD 22.6 billion) in tourism revenue. Against this benchmark, Can Gio’s target of 40 million annual visitors serves as a foundation for long-term asset value growth, as the area evolves into a leading coastal economic and tourism urban center in Vietnam and the wider region.

Hashtag: #Vinhomes

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.