Redazione RHC : 11 September 2025 13:59

Volkswagen announced on the first day of the IAA Mobility international trade fair in Munich its intention to integrate artificial intelligence into all areas of its business, with the aim of generating significant cost savings. The investment will focus on the development of AI-based vehicles, industrial applications, and the expansion of high-performance IT infrastructure. According to estimates, the large-scale adoption of artificial intelligence could lead to savings of €4 billion by 2035.

The company expects that the use of AI will significantly accelerate the development of new models and bring advanced technologies to market more quickly. “For us, artificial intelligence is the key to greater speed, quality, and competitiveness along the entire value chain, from vehicle development to production,” said CIO Hauke Stars.

The focus on AI comes at a delicate time for Volkswagen, which is undergoing major transformations in two key markets: China and Germany. In Germany, the group is implementing a large-scale cost-cutting program, while in China it is focusing on innovation and the launch of new models to face growing local and international competition.

Confirming its renewal strategy, the automaker announced the launch of a new line of compact electric vehicles scheduled for next year, with the goal of selling several hundred thousand units in this segment in the medium term. Meanwhile, Volkswagen shares rose 1.3% on Tuesday, up 14.3% since the beginning of the year.

One of the reasons driving Volkswagen to invest in AI is the possibility of optimizing complex processes such as supply chain management and large-scale production. With a global network of suppliers and plants, the company could leverage artificial intelligence to predict logistical disruptions, reduce waste, and improve production planning, thus gaining a competitive advantage in an industry where efficiency and speed are crucial.

Furthermore, the integration of AI represents a strategic step to address future mobility challenges.
AI technologies are, in fact, the basis of autonomous driving, the personalization of services, and the onboard and predictive analytics of vehicle data.

By focusing on these innovations, Volkswagen aims not only to contain costs but also to strengthen its position as a leader in the transition to a smarter, safer, and more sustainable mobility ecosystem.

Redazione
The editorial team of Red Hot Cyber consists of a group of individuals and anonymous sources who actively collaborate to provide early information and news on cybersecurity and computing in general.

Lista degli articoli

Oracle is on an all-time roll — and the prophecy written in its stock price is that founder Larry Ellison may become the wealthiest man on the face of the planet.

The company reported its latest earnings results after the bell on Tuesday, including an astounding projection that revenue from its cloud computing will increase 77% to $18 billion this year and could rise as high as $144 billion annually by 2030, thanks in large part to four multibillion-dollar deals with three different customers. By Wednesday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal reported on one of those marquee deals: a five-year, $300 billion agreement to supply cloud computing power to OpenAI.

Picks and Shovels

Oracle said its remaining performance obligations (RPOs), the contracted revenue that has not yet been realized, such as the OpenAI deal that the WSJ reported will begin in 2027, are now sitting at $455 billion. That’s up 359% from just a year ago, inspiring quite literal words of awe from Wall Street analysts during the company’s earnings call: Guggenheim’s John DiFucci said he was “blown away,” while Brad Zelnick of Deutsche Bank said, “We’re all kind of in shock, in a very good way.”

In other words, Oracle has become a favorite supplier of picks and shovels amid the artificial intelligence gold rush. And CEO Safra Catz says that’s because it’s different from cloud computing rivals such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon: “Some of our competitors, they like to own buildings … That’s not really our specialty. Our specialty is the unique technology, the unique networking, the storage — just the whole way we put these systems together.”

More importantly, Oracle’s RPO figure is an indication that the AI industry is preparing to spend big to keep the gold rush from going bust anytime soon:

• In a June filing, OpenAI revealed it was on track to generate just $10 billion in revenue this year, leagues away from the roughly $60 billion it will be paying Oracle under the deal. Meanwhile, sources told the WSJ earlier this year that OpenAI’s Sam Altman recently informed investors the company won’t be profitable until 2029 (and it’s still sorting out its for-profit structure).
• Oracle is similarly putting growth over profit; the company’s debt-to-equity ratio has soared to 427%, with S&P data showing its $21 billion in operating cash flow in the 12 months through August was eclipsed by its $27 billion in capital expenditures. 

Margin Call: The AI moment has not only been very good to picks-and-shovels companies like Oracle but also to financiers on Wall Street funding the massive debt splurge. Not everyone is drooling, though. In a note published Wednesday seen by MarketWatch, D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria flagged that “at best,” Oracle is running its AI cloud compute services “at single-digit operating margins, if not serving compute at a loss in some instances,” a far cry from the 50% margins of its legacy business. All the same, Oracle’s share price leaped 36% by the close of trading Wednesday, and was sufficiently high during much of the trading day that Ellison’s fortune briefly eclipsed that of Elon Musk, according to Bloomberg. Oracle’s was the only single-day gain greater than 25% for a company worth at least half a trillion dollars, according to Dow Jones data. ​​It’s also good for the company’s best single-day stock performance since 1999 … or right before a certain early digital age bubble started to burst.

A joint project from Aston University and the University of Leeds to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) tools research network has won £3.4m from the Research England Development Fund.

The four-year funding will go towards developing a network to assess AI tools available for PhD research and promote responsible AI uptake and innovation by researchers.

The Artificial Intelligence Researcher Development Network Plus (AI.RDN+) is being led by Aston University’s Professor Phil Mizen, professor of sociology and policy at Aston University, and University of Leeds’ Dr Hosam Al-Samarraie, associate professor in digital innovation design, and Professor Arunangsu Chatterjee, dean of digital transformation. The network will also include the eight Midlands Innovation research universities and the 12 members of the Yorkshire Universities consortium.

AI.RDN+ will carry out an extensive consultation with PhD researchers, supervisors, examiners and research-enabling staff, such as professional services staff and technicians, to understand how publicly available AI tools are used and how its challenges are identified and negotiated. Using this information, AI.RDN+ will create a resource base with guidance on what AI tools are available, how they can be used, and identify case studies of best practice.

The network will also create training resources for all stakeholders, co-creating and testing guidance, training, and professional and career development resources with the 20 universities in the Midlands Innovation and Yorkshire Universities consortia.

Professor Mizen said: “The Artificial Intelligence Researcher Development Network Plus will provide detailed knowledge of the uptake and impact of publicly available AI tools across the doctoral ecosystem and use this to co-create much-needed information, resources and professional and skills training opportunities. Our project is a unique opportunity to build knowledge and capture innovation, and to use this to build the resources needed for the ethical and responsible use of AI in doctoral research.”

Professor Chatterjee added: “This award reflects the importance of collaboration across universities to understand and shape the role of AI in research. By working alongside Aston and partners across the Midlands and Yorkshire, we can bring together complementary expertise and perspectives.

“I am particularly pleased to see Dr Hosam Al-Samarraie leading this work for Leeds, bringing both expertise and vision to the partnership. Together, through this network, we can build shared resources and approaches that ensure AI adoption in doctoral research is innovative, ethical and delivers real benefit for researchers and society.”

The eight Midlands Innovation universities are: Aston University, Cranfield University, University of Birmingham, University of Keele, Loughborough University, University of Leicester, University of Nottingham, and University of Warwick.

The 12 Yorkshire Universities are: University of Bradford, University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds Trinity University, Leeds Conservatoire, Leeds Arts University, University of Hull, University of Huddersfield, University of Sheffield, University of York.

AI.RDN+ also has the active support of a range of expert organisations, including Jisc, UK Council for Graduate Education, Vitae, and the National Centre for Universities and Business. It is also supported by two other Research England-funded projects – the Next Generation Research SuperVision Project, on the future of doctoral supervision, and Prosper, researching the professional and career development of post-doctoral researchers.

UKRI Research England shapes research and knowledge exchange in English universities and distributes over £2bn to universities in England every year.