COLUMBIA, Md., Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — P+Ex, the Center of Excellence for Concrete Preservation and Service Life Extension, is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI), bringing together two leading organizations in structural innovation and durability.

This collaboration merges P+Ex’s expertise in repairing and protecting the built environment with PTI’s global leadership in post-tensioning solutions. Together, they will advance best practices in durability design for new structures and promote structural repair, rehabilitation, and life extension for existing infrastructure.

“We are excited to have PTI join us on the P+Ex journey,” commented Peter Emmons from P+Ex, “and look forward to working together to create progress toward our shared values. Extending the life of our planet is a worthy cause and we are moving in a great direction with organizations such as PTI joining the effort.”

Tim Christle, Executive Vice President of PTI noted, “The P+Ex and PTI affiliation brings together distinct strengths. Together, we are taking another step toward ensuring that post-tensioned concrete structures, emphasize durability, resilience, and sustainability, leveraging the extended service life benefits of PT.”

Through joint initiatives, training programs, and industry outreach, the partnership will champion innovative, sustainable approaches for the design of new post-tensioned structures and the effective repair of existing ones—reducing environmental impact while extending service life.

By aligning their missions, P+Ex and PTI are taking a significant step toward enhancing the sustainability, safety, and performance of critical infrastructure worldwide.

About P+Ex

P+Ex is a non-profit organization created to focus on the sustainability benefits of preserving and extending the life of concrete structures. Its mission is to drive global awareness, education, tools and actions to preserve and extend the service life of concrete structures to ensure a sustainable built environment.  For more information, visit www.pexcoe.org.

About PTI

The Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) is a nonprofit organization for the advancement of post-tensioned, prestressed concrete design and construction. PTI represents a community of businesses and professionals dedicated to expanding quality post-tensioning applications. PTI’s mission is to and advance the post-tensioning industry through education and technical leadership. For more information, visit www.post-tensioning.org. 

The company is recognized for its innovation-driven strategy, strong execution, and global leadership in integrated smart building solutions.

SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan is pleased to announce that Distech Controls has been recognized with the 2025 Global Company of the Year Recognition in the integrated smart building solutions industry for its outstanding achievements in customer-centric innovation, strategic execution, and technological leadership. This recognition highlights the efforts of Distech Controls in delivering intelligent buildings that are smarter, safer and greener.

Frost & Sullivan evaluates companies through a rigorous benchmarking process across two core dimensions: strategy effectiveness and strategy execution. Distech Controls excels in aligning strategic initiatives with market demand while executing them with precision, agility, and scale.

“Eclypse stands apart with its security-first design, high-performance processing power, and status as one of the industry’s first IP-connected controllers. Each Eclypse controller runs on Eclypse Facilities software, enabling precise control of a wide range of equipment. For added scalability, Eclypse controllers seamlessly connect to Atrius Facilities for advanced cloud-based building management support,” said Dennis Marcell Victor, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Guided by a long-term growth strategy focused on customer partnerships, digital innovation, and strategic acquisitions, Distech Controls consistently anticipates and responds to market shifts. Its sustained investment in flexible, open building management systems positions the company to scale effectively across multiple commercial and institutional sectors globally.

Charles Pelletier, Vice-President of Product Management at Distech Controls, comments, “Receiving Frost & Sullivan’s Global Company of the Year award is a testament to our work in advancing the industry and building strong, lasting partnerships with customers. Our focus on innovation, strategic growth, and investment in intelligent buildings enables us to deliver scalable solutions across a variety of sectors worldwide and was recognized in the awards summary. We are honored to be acknowledged for driving long-term value and transformation in the smart building industry.” 

The commitment of Distech Controls to customer experience further strengthens its market position. By streamlining service delivery, leveraging remote management, and offering localized support through a partner-led model, the company aims to ensure long-term value for customers by offering an open first approach both from a technology standpoint and procurement across commercial offices, healthcare, government, and high-growth sectors like data centers and retail refrigeration.

Frost & Sullivan commends Distech Controls for setting a high standard in competitive strategy, execution, and responsiveness. The company’s vision, differentiated product architecture, and customer-first culture are shaping the future of the integrated smart building solutions industry and driving tangible, scalable results globally.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the Company of the Year Recognition to an organization that demonstrates outstanding strategy development and implementation, resulting in measurable improvements in market share, customer satisfaction, and competitive positioning. The award recognizes forward-thinking organizations that are reshaping their industries through innovation and growth excellence.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Recognitions honor companies across regional and global markets that exhibit exceptional achievement and consistent excellence in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer experience, and strategic product development. Each recognition is the result of a rigorous analytical process in which Frost & Sullivan industry experts benchmark performance through comprehensive interviews, deep-dive analysis, and extensive secondary research. The goal is to identify true best-in-class organizations that are driving transformative growth and setting new industry standards. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Ashley Shreve
E: ashley.weinkauf@frost.com 

About Distech Controls           

Distech Controls connects people with intelligent building solutions through our disruptive Building Management Systems (BMS) and refrigeration controls, sensors, and software. For over 30 years, our open technology has made spaces smarter, safer and greener by focusing on end user outcomes. Distech Controls is part of Acuity. Visit us at www.distech-controls.com.

Press Contact 

Émilie Carr
+1 (514) 452 2235
ecarr@distech-controls.com 

SHANGHAI, Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — TARS Robotics, an AI-driven embodied intelligence company, made a historic debut by demonstrating a humanoid robot capable of performing hand embroidery. During a live event, the robot executed the delicate, long-sequence task of threading a needle and stitching a logo with both hands. This feat demands sub-millimeter precision, adaptive force control, and coordinated bimanual manipulation of flexible materials—a combination that has remained an unsolved challenge in embodied intelligence until now. This breakthrough in ultra-fine, flexible manipulation effectively overcomes a major industrial automation barrier, enabling robots to perform similarly complex tasks like intricate wire harness assembly and providing a new pathway for intelligent manufacturing upgrades.

At the event, Dr. Chen Yilun, CEO of TARS, revealed that the key to crossing this technological boundary—long deemed “impossible to automate”—lies in a systematic DATA-AI-PHYSICS trinity solution. TARS’s human-centric SenseHub system captures rich, real-world operational data, which fuels the TARS AWE (AI World Engine) 2.0. This embodied AI model learns generalizable skills for precise physical control, capabilities that are fully realized on TARS’s T- and A-Series robots. Engineered with a “minimal digital-to-physical gap,” these robots translate AI capabilities into stable actions in the physical world.

Dr. Chen added that TARS has thereby established a complete technological closed loop—from real-world data generation and intelligent decision-making to physical execution. This provides a replicable, scalable engineering pathway for embodied intelligence to enter real-world production and daily life, one that aligns with Scaling Law.

Dr. Ding Wenchao, Chief Scientist of TARS, stated: “Leveraging the massive data from SenseHub and guided by the AWE 2.0 model, we have seen a leap forward in task success rates across multiple scenarios. As we continue to scale our data and advance our model architecture, we foresee new breakthroughs in our robots’ intelligence and generalization capabilities, with the ultimate goal of deploying them across every industry and household.”

Since its founding on February 5, 2025, TARS has—in less than a year—successfully deployed its core algorithms in practical applications and achieved continuous performance upgrades for its advanced robotic platforms. The company is driven by its mission to build trusted AI robotics solution and is backed by strong investor support, including a $120 million Angel Round from investors such as Lanchi Ventures and a subsequent $122 million Angel+ Round.

SHENZHEN, China, Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Guosen Securities Co., Ltd., one of China’s leading comprehensive investment banks and securities firms, observes that the country’s capital market is entering a new stage of reform and strategic transformation. According to the company’s latest analysis, Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activity in the A‑share market is accelerating as a key driver of industrial upgrading and innovation. In the first three quarters of 2025, the market recorded 3,470 mergers and acquisitions, a 7.93 percent increase year on year, and 134 major asset restructurings, an 83.56 percent surge from the same period in 2024. Guosen Securities notes that mergers and acquisitions have become an essential mechanism for supporting the real economy, with an increasingly strategic focus on cultivating new productive forces, driving technological advancement, upgrading industries, and enhancing enterprise competitiveness.

Policy Support Opens a New Window for M&A

Guosen Securities emphasized that the development of the M&A market has received strong backing at the national policy level. With regulators and local governments working in tandem, a new policy window for M&A has officially opened. Over the past two years, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has rolled out a series of landmark documents, including the Sixteen Measures to Support the High-Level Development of Technology Enterprises through Capital Markets, the Eight Measures to Deepen Reform of the STAR Market and Promote Technological Innovation and New Productive Forces, and the Opinions on Deepening Reform of the M&A Market for Listed Companies.

These initiatives aim to enhance inclusiveness, adaptability, precision, and efficiency in the capital market’s M&A framework. As Guosen Securities noted, reforming the M&A system has become a central pillar of China’s broader market-oriented reforms, ensuring that listed companies can more effectively leverage capital markets to pursue strategic restructuring.

Rising Activity in the Domestic M&A Market

The numbers tell a compelling story. In the first three quarters of 2025, the A-share market recorded 3,470 M&A transactions, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.93 percent. More strikingly, there were 134 major asset restructuring cases, up 83.56 percent compared with the same period last year.

This surge underscores how M&A has evolved into a routine feature of corporate economic activity in China. It is now widely recognized as a crucial pathway for cultivating industry leaders and enabling enterprises to scale up. As China’s capital market shifts from a traditional “financing function” toward a more sophisticated “resource allocation function,” M&A has emerged as a powerful tool. Companies are increasingly using external expansion to integrate upstream and downstream segments of their industrial chains, thereby optimizing asset allocation, expanding scale, adjusting production capacity, and achieving strategic transformation.

Focus on New Productive Forces

Guosen Securities highlighted that the latest wave of M&A is closely aligned with China’s national strategy of developing new productive forces. In the era of technological revolution and industrial transformation, M&A serves as a core mechanism for strengthening, supplementing, and extending industrial chains. By consolidating resources, enterprises can build more secure and reliable supply chains, enhance integration, and boost overall competitiveness.

Recent M&A targets reveal a clear trend: emerging industries are at the forefront. Transactions in sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and high-end equipment manufacturing have been particularly active. These industries, considered strategic and forward-looking, embody the “new” characteristics policymakers are eager to promote.

The phenomenon reflects the combined influence of policy guidance, industrial upgrading needs, and capital market mechanisms working in concert. In the era of a fresh wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, mergers and acquisitions can knit together the upstream and downstream segments of the supply chain—strengthening weak links, securing critical nodes and extending strategic reach—thereby sharpening vertical integration and building a more resilient, reliable supply-chain architecture that lifts the competitive power of the entire industrial ecosystem.

Cross-Border M&A Gains Momentum

Beyond domestic restructuring, cross-border M&A has become an increasingly important component of China’s outward direct investment. Since September 2024, more than 100 listed companies have launched overseas M&A deals, with transaction values exceeding one trillion yuan.

This trend is fueled by both policy incentives and the pressing need for industrial upgrading. Chinese enterprises are accelerating their push into global industrial hubs, seeking to secure high-value assets and advanced technologies. Sectors such as high-end manufacturing, information technology, and healthcare are emerging as prime targets for cross-border acquisitions.

Overall, M&A activity in China’s capital market is entering a new phase of strong momentum, characterized by a strategic focus on fostering new productive forces, promoting technological innovation, driving industrial upgrading, and enhancing corporate strength and competitiveness. The firm notes that this ongoing wave of international expansion underscores China’s evolving position within the global value chain, reflecting the country’s transition toward higher value‑added, innovation‑driven growth.

It also provides new pathways for building a modern economic system and cultivating endogenous growth drivers. In essence, cross-border M&A is not only about acquiring assets abroad but also about positioning Chinese firms at the cutting edge of global competition.

Guosen Securities stresses that, looking ahead, steady improvement of the regulatory ecosystem will, with the support of capital markets, position M&A as a pivotal instrument for strengthening industrial chain resilience and advancing national strategic objectives. This dynamic is expected to lay a solid foundation for China’s pursuit of high-quality economic growth.

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Sharebox Co., Ltd., a developer of AI-powered multi-sensory extended reality (XR) platforms, said it will accelerate its global expansion strategy from 2026, positioning its proprietary SHAREBOX platform as a scalable solution for immersive education, content, marketing, and public experience projects worldwide.

Founded with the vision of connecting people through interaction, Sharebox designs immersive XR environments that integrate digital technology with physical space. The company’s SHAREBOX platform enables multi-sensory interaction by combining visual projection, sound, scent, wind, and spatial audio to deliver immersive experiences across both indoor and outdoor environments.

Sharebox’s core solutions include P-SHAREBOX, a five-sided projection-mapped XR showroom; LX-SHAREBOX, a multi-sensory XR box incorporating scent, wind, and 3D audio; OL-SHAREBOX, an outdoor interactive landmark solution; LS-HAREBOX, a modular XR media wall; and OA-SHAREBOX, anamorphic XR content optimized for large-format LED displays. These solutions are designed as modular systems that can be adapted to different venues, industries, and regional markets.

As part of its global strategy, Sharebox is strengthening the integration of artificial intelligence into its XR platforms. In 2025, the company expanded its use of generative AI to support content creation, localization, and adaptive interaction, enabling clients to deploy immersive experiences more efficiently across multiple markets.

“Our goal is to provide a global XR platform that can be flexibly deployed and localized while delivering consistent quality and immersion,” said Yeonsik Shin, Chief Executive Officer of Sharebox. “By combining AI with multi-sensory XR technology, we aim to support new forms of engagement in education, branding, and public spaces worldwide.”

Beyond technology development, Sharebox is positioning SHAREBOX as a global experience infrastructure applicable to education, retail, tourism, culture, and corporate marketing. In education, the platform supports immersive learning environments designed to improve participation and retention. In retail and branding, it enables experiential campaigns that connect physical installations with digital and social media channels. For tourism and public spaces, Sharebox’s XR solutions are used to transform landmarks into interactive destinations.

The company is also expanding its city-scale XR media model, linking immersive installations with large outdoor LED displays to extend campaigns across multiple locations within urban environments. This approach allows brands and institutions to deliver cohesive narratives at scale.

Sharebox’s competitiveness is supported by a portfolio of patents related to immersive interaction spaces and proprietary XR authoring tools. The company has been recognized as a technology-innovative enterprise and continues to invest in intellectual property to support long-term growth.

Sharebox said its overseas expansion is supported by an export-focused digital content program operated by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency, as it seeks partnerships and projects in international markets.