BlackRock and Microsoft to launch $100bn AI infrastructure fund

BlackRock and Microsoft to launch $100bn AI infrastructure fund

BlackRock is teaming up with Microsoft to launch a fund that aims to invest up to $100 billion in data centres and energy infrastructure needed to support the artificial intelligence boom. The partnership will initially seek to attract $30 billion of private equity capital from investors, asset owners and corporates. They expect the fund to…

The strange rise of Paula Vennells: ‘She just wasn’t very good’

The strange rise of Paula Vennells: ‘She just wasn’t very good’

It is a little-known fact that Paula Vennells suffers from claustrophobia. When I interviewed her for this paper’s Business section a decade ago, she told me it first came on during a trip with the Girl Guides to Speedwell Cavern, a flooded 18th-century lead mine in the Peak District. “Ugh,” she thought. “I can’t do…

Demand for VR in US schools spurs growth for Avantis

Demand for VR in US schools spurs growth for Avantis

Wearing Avantis’s virtual-reality headsets during lessons, pupils can go back in time to a First World War trench or travel into deepest space. Yet overseeing the Gloucester-based company’s biggest and fastest-growing market in the US still requires real-world sales teams visiting schools and talking to teachers across states. Two elements are essential for a British…