Munich-based defence tech startup Helsing has raised €600mn as geopolitical tensions trigger a flood of capital into AI warfare. The large investment was led by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s VC firm Prima Materia. It brings the company’s total raised to north
Two satellites equipped with European tech have delicately pulled off an artificial solar eclipse — giving scientists unmatched views of the Sun’s scorching corona. The European Space Agency (ESA) developed the probes a
A few months ago, at the SmallSat Symposium, a panel issued a sobering warning to space startups: do not chase defence dollars at the expense of long-term sustainability. Why? Because companies, particularly in the space sector, might be tempted to follow the
Qubits, entanglement, superposition, trapped ions, Schrödinger’s cat. These terms sound strange because the world of quantum mechanics — where things can exist in multiple states at once — is strange. Thankfully, a group of students from TU Delft are bringing these powe
A small town in Finland is about to ditch fossil fuels in its heating network thanks to a sand-filled energy storage tank the size of a house. Finnish startup Polar Night Energy recently turned on the so-called sand battery in the munici
This week on TNW Backstage, we’re heading into the fast lane — and straight into the climate debate. In the final episode of the podcast, we revisit a divisive bet on sustainable motorsport: Extreme E, the all-electric racing series. The events sent SUVs hurtli
A spacecraft developed by European scientists and companies has captured unprecedented new views of the Sun’s south pole. Built by Airbus in the UK, Solar Orbiter was developed as part of a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The probe
Two years ago, German startup Proxima Fusion emerged from stealth with big ambitions to make a little-known stellarator fusion machine a serious contender in the race for commercial fusion energy. Today, the Munich-based company secured Europe’s largest-ever p
Tinny music plays in a dimly lit basement as we watch a teenager pull football shirts off a nearby clothing rack and hold them up to the camera. He describes each item monotonously — the team, season, colour, and condition — before sticking on a numbered label an
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said it is time to “push past” concerns that AI poses a threat to human jobs — contradicting the concerns of some of tech’s biggest players. Speaking at London Tech Week today, Starmer called for industry to embed AI throughout