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Klarna announces Rep Her initiative addressing gender-based disparities in women’s sports merchandise accessibility

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In partnership with Sports Innovation Lab, key findings from a groundbreaking, data-led report identify a $4 billion untapped U.S. women’s sports merchandise market for retailers, with 79% of women’s sports fans indicating they would buy more merchandise if more options were available to them; To further address the cause, Klarna and women-owned media and commerce company TOGETHXR have released limited edition merchandise with proceeds benefiting the Women’s Sports Foundation

NEW YORK, June 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Klarna, the AI-powered global payments network and shopping assistant, today announced, Rep Her, a multifaceted, research-backed initiative to raise awareness around gender-based gaps in women’s sports merchandise availability. In partnership with fan intelligence company Sports Innovation Lab, Klarna has released a first-of-its-kind report titled Rep Her: Revealing the Unmet Demand for Women’s Sports Merchandise. The Rep Her report values the rapidly growing women’s sports merchandise market at an estimated $4 billion annually, proving the sector’s drastically unmet consumer demand, and measures gender-based imbalances between men’s and women’s sports fan communities. To further address consumer appetite, Klarna has teamed up with female Olympian-founded, trailblazing media and commerce company TOGETHXR and 2x World Cup Champion, NWSL Champion, ESPN Analyst and TOGETHXR consultant Ali Krieger to launch limited edition merchandise and has also launched a new innovative shopping experience within its app and website.

Key findings from Klarna and Sports Innovation Lab’s report include that fans are:

Hungry for Options: 79% of surveyed respondents reported they would purchase more women’s sports merchandise if there were more options available to them, while 28% reported they could not find a style they likedDemanding Inventory: More than 60% of fans who searched for and intended to buy women’s sports merchandise did not make a purchase because it was not in stockSeeking Out Retailers: 32% of women’s sports fans cannot find a retailer that carries merchandise related to their favorite teams and athletesSearching for More Styles: Buyers of women’s sports merchandise are 60% more likely to have trouble finding a style than buyers of men’s sports merchandiseExpressing Fandom Through Merch: 67% of women’s sports fans have purchased sports merchandise despite only 49% having ever purchased a ticket to a live sporting eventLimited Compared to Men’s Sports: For every nine pieces of men’s sports merchandise available, women’s sports has one (The 30-team NBA has 9x more merchandise options than the 12-team WNBA, and the 29-team MLS has 6x more merchandise options than the 14-team NWSL)Vast Supporters: Most women’s sports fans identify as fans of multiple sports and leagues – top leagues include the WNBA (60%), NWSL (51%), NCAA Women’s Basketball (49%), NCAA Women’s Volleyball (39%) and the USWNT (37%)

“Consumer appetite for league, team, and athlete merchandise is vastly exceeding supply,” said Angela Ruggiero, Co-Founder of Sports Innovation Lab. “There is a golden opportunity for retailers to capitalize on a surging market that is telling us if you create something authentic to the community, they will buy it.” 

Klarna, TOGETHXR and Krieger have tapped designers Sophia Chang and Mellany Sanchez to create t-shirts and tote bags featuring the phrase “A movement, not a moment,” celebrating their passion for women’s sports and allowing fans to Rep Her with pride. This merchandise not only symbolizes the growing influence of women’s sports, but also empowers fans to showcase their dedication. Available for purchase on both Klarna.com and TOGETHXR.com, a percentage of all proceeds from the collection will go to Billie Jean King’s Women’s Sports Foundation, emphasizing that the interest in women’s sports is a formidable force that’s here to stay.

Additionally, to help women’s sports fans find merchandise to represent their favorite teams with ease, Klarna has curated an innovative women’s sports destination on Klarna.com and in its app, offering a seamless way to discover, shop and purchase women’s sports merchandise utilizing its interest-free pay in 4 payment option.

“As a brand that breaks the status quo and is a big supporter of women’s sports through our three-year partnership with Angel City Football Club, we saw there was a lack of merchandise available for women’s sports fans yet demand for it so we want to do our part to find a solve and contribute to fueling women’s sports fandom to continue to help propel the industry forward,” said Klarna’s Head of B2C Marketing in North America and the United Kingdom, Megan Gokey. “We are energized by the growing attention surrounding women’s sports and are proud to launch this initiative with Sports Innovation Lab and TOGETHXR to raise awareness around the merchandise gap, ultimately helping to make merchandise more accessible to millions of fans and create a space for women’s sports fans to shop smarter and ‘fan’ harder.”

“As a female athlete myself, it’s incredibly important to see efforts like these that highlight and address gender disparities in sports, like the gap in women’s sports merchandise. This initiative is a pivotal step in recognizing the value of women’s sports and ensuring that fans have the merchandise they want,” shared TOGETHXR consultant Ali Krieger. “Klarna has pushed the boundaries when it comes to creating a smart way to shop and pay, and this initiative directly speaks to the brand’s impactful efforts to push the women’s sports movement forward.”

This report is the fourth annual installment in Sports Innovation Lab’s internationally acclaimed The Fan Project series, which has become the global sports industry’s north star guidance on the commercialization of women’s sports since launching in 2021.

To view the full Rep Her report, please visit HERE. Additionally, Sports Innovation Lab is hosting a live webinar on July 11 to provide a report read-through and data deep dive, which can be accessed by registering HERE.

About Klarna

Since 2005 Klarna has been on a mission to accelerate commerce with consumer needs at the heart of it. With over 150 million global active users and 2 million transactions per day, Klarna’s fair, sustainable and AI-powered payment and shopping solutions are revolutionizing the way people shop and pay online and in-store, empowering consumers to shop smarter with greater confidence and convenience. More than 500,000 global retailers integrate Klarna’s innovative technology and marketing solutions to drive growth and loyalty, including H&M, Saks, Sephora, Macy’s, Ikea, Expedia Group, Nike and Airbnb. For more information, visit Klarna.com.

About TOGETHXR

TOGETHXR is a media and commerce company founded by Jessica Robertson alongside four of the world’s top professional athletes, Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird. With a focus on rich storytelling rooted in lifestyle and youth culture, TOGETHXR is an unapologetic platform where representation and gender equality are both expected and required. TOGETHXR highlights a diverse and inclusive community of game-changers, culture shapers, thought-leaders, and barrier breakers – finding and telling the stories of women who are doing the same. As one of the most compelling platforms for women in sport and culture, TOGETHXR’s in-house production studio has created a slate of scripted and unscripted premium content, including Surf Girls: Kaikaina, More Than A Name, FENOM, Summer of Gold, and more, which are in discussions to be adapted for film, TV, and digital media. In 2023, TOGETHXR was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and won Media Company of the Year in the DigiDay Media Awards.

About Sports Innovation Lab

Sports Innovation Lab is a data company that enables brands and sports properties to build more effective sponsorships, improve targeted advertising, and enhance fan experiences. Known for its pioneering research on fan behavior and the commercialization of the women’s sports market, Sports Innovation Lab’s flagship Sports Data Cloud offering built on proprietary observational, transactional, and deterministic fan data is evolving how organizations use data to understand their customers and acquire more of them – starting with sports & entertainment. Learn how global brands including the NFL, Nike, NHL, Ally Financial, WNBA, and NASCAR use Sports Innovation Lab’s data, audiences, and strategic advisory to drive revenue by visiting sportsilab.com or following on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

Media contacts:
Klarna – Kimberly Gibbs
kimberly.gibbs@klarna.com
(614) 967-5032

Sports Innovation Lab – Anthony Baldini
anthony@athletestrategies.com
(408) 506-5975

TOGETHXR – Togethxr@laruepr.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

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SOURCE Klarna Bank AB (publ)

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Ineffable Intelligence Selects Google Cloud To Power Its Superintelligence Mission

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Following a rigorous evaluation of the infrastructure market and a historic $1.1 billion seed round, Ineffable Intelligence enters agreement with Google Cloud to develop the world’s first “superlearner”

LONDON, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Google Cloud Summit London ’26 — Google Cloud and Ineffable Intelligence today announced a strategic partnership in which Google will provide the specialized infrastructure for Ineffable’s new frontier AI lab. Under the agreement, Ineffable Intelligence, the London-based startup founded by AlphaGo visionary David Silver, has selected Google Cloud as its preferred cloud partner, utilizing Google’s world-class AI-optimized technology to advance the next frontier of artificial intelligence: systems that learn continuously from their own experience.

The partnership follows Ineffable Intelligence’s historic $1.1 billion seed round, the largest of its kind in European history. Ineffable Intelligence will utilize Google Cloud’s high-performance computing capabilities to accelerate its mission of developing a “superlearner.” This partnership will also see Ineffable Intelligence deploy one of the largest clusters of A5X, powered by NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 GPUs on Google Cloud, delivering massive computational scale.

Experience-based learning places fundamentally different demands on computing infrastructure than training on static datasets. Rather than learning from static datasets, these systems generate, evaluate, and learn from vast amounts of experience in real time, requiring enormous computational scale, high-performance networking, and tightly integrated training and inference systems. Google Cloud’s infrastructure will provide the foundation for this next generation of AI development.

Powering frontier AI with Google Cloud’s AI stack

While the industry has seen a surge in simple GPU-renting agreements, Ineffable Intelligence chose Google Cloud for its integrated AI Hypercomputer architecture. Unlike a standard “box of chips” approach, Google Cloud provides a systems-level optimization that combines performance-engineered GPUs with high-efficiency AI networking and storage.

“Training frontier models requires more than just raw compute; it requires a sophisticated orchestration of hardware and software,” said David Silver, CEO and Founder of Ineffable Intelligence. “We evaluated the space and chose Google Cloud as the best fit for our reinforcement learning infrastructure. We aren’t just looking for processors; we are building a resilient and scalable environment to make ‘first contact’ with superintelligence, AI that transcends human limitations in science, mathematics, and technology.”

Europe’s new frontier in AI

The collaboration signals a shift in the global AI landscape, positioning Ineffable Intelligence as a cornerstone of Europe’s growing AI ecosystem. By basing operations in London and leveraging Google Cloud’s secure infrastructure, Ineffable is poised to attract the continent’s premier engineering talent to solve the world’s most complex technical challenges.

“We are honored that the Ineffable Intelligence team has chosen Google Cloud to power its mission,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Ineffable is leveraging our full-stack AI Hypercomputer, from Jupiter networking to our optimized storage, to ensure its researchers can focus on breakthroughs, not bottlenecks. This partnership reflects how leading AI innovators are choosing Google Cloud to move faster and focus on revolutionary research and real-world impact.”

About Ineffable Intelligence
Ineffable Intelligence is the frontier AI company on a mission to make first contact with superintelligence. Founded by David Silver in London, it aims to create a superlearner that discovers all knowledge from its own experience, from elementary motor skills through to profound intellectual breakthroughs. This superlearning capability – the ability to endlessly discover knowledge and skills, without relying on human data – will be driven by the world’s most powerful reinforcement learning algorithms. The superlearner is expected to rediscover and then transcend the greatest inventions in human history, such as language, science, mathematics and technology – a scientific breakthrough of comparable magnitude to Darwin.

About Google Cloud
Google Cloud offers a powerful, optimized AI stack — including AI infrastructure, leading models like Gemini, data management capabilities, multicloud security solutions, developer tools and platform, as well as agents and applications — that enables organizations to transform their business for the Agentic Era. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ineffable-intelligence-selects-google-cloud-to-power-its-superintelligence-mission-302801139.html

SOURCE Google Cloud

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Univers Unveils Next Generation Platform for Physical AI at VivaTech 2026

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One Univers. One Intelligence Fabric. One Platform for the Physical World.

PARIS, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — At VivaTech 2026, Univers unveiled the next generation of its industry-leading platform suite: a Platform for Physical AI that enables enterprises to transform energy, infrastructure and industrial operations into a source of enduring competitive advantage.

As Europe seeks to strengthen industrial competitiveness, energy resilience and technological leadership, organizations face a growing challenge: applying AI reliably across the physical systems that power economies. While generative AI is transforming information work, the next frontier is enabling assets, facilities, energy systems and operations to sense, decide and act in real time.

Built on years of experience managing complex physical infrastructure, the Univers Platform for Physical AI brings together AI, energy and operational intelligence through a unified Intelligence Fabric. The platform continuously learns from operational outcomes, creating what Univers calls Compounding Intelligence—a growing intelligence advantage that enables organizations to deploy generative, agentic and autonomous AI in mission-critical environments with confidence.

Today, Univers connects over 400 million devices and manages more than 1,000 GW of energy assets and globally, orchestrating complex operational workflows across energy, building, transportation, logistics and industrial sectors.

“Europe’s next competitive advantage will be built not only on AI, but on the ability to apply AI to the physical world,” said Valerio Dilda, Senior Vice President, Europe, Univers. “The organizations that move first to build compounding intelligence across their operations will create a lasting advantage in productivity, resilience and innovation. Our Platform for Physical AI provides the foundation to make that possible.”

With four Centers of Excellence focused on Solar, Wind, Mobility and Energy and Resources across Europe alone, Univers helps enterprises unlock greater value from existing infrastructure while accelerating the transition from digital intelligence to autonomous operations.

About Univers

Univers operates one of the world’s largest real-time intelligence platforms for physical infrastructure, managing more than 1,000 GW of energy assets and connecting over 400 million devices globally. Through its Platform for Physical AI, Univers helps organizations orchestrate complex energy, infrastructure and operational systems with intelligence that continuously learns and improves over time.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/univers-unveils-next-generation-platform-for-physical-ai-at-vivatech-2026-302798852.html

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DXC Expands Relationship with Norske Skog to Modernize Network and Technology Operations

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Multi-year partnership delivers a modern, secure network solution while broadening DXC’s role across Norske Skog’s technology environment

OSLO, Norway, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC), a leading enterprise technology and innovation partner today announced an expansion of its long-standing relationship with Norske Skog, a leading producer of publication paper and recycled containerboard in Norway. DXC will design, implement and operate a new software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN)—a modern, software-driven network that securely connects sites and —over the next four years, while also serving as its primary technology partner and trusted advisor across its broader technology estate.

Norske Skog’s network is the critical backbone connecting the company’s physical locations including offices and mills. Because the infrastructure plays a central role in ensuring availability and security, reliable service delivery is paramount. In selecting DXC to support the transformation of its network services, Norske Skog sought a more robust and responsive solution to improve service quality. DXC’s new network solution is designed to deliver stronger security, improved performance, greater scalability, and simplified management across Norske Skog’s locations.

“We are pleased to expand our long-standing partnership with DXC Technology as we modernize our network infrastructure. With a new software-defined wide area network, we will benefit from secure, scalable connectivity across our sites, improving performance and supporting our continued digital development. We also value DXC as a trusted advisor across our broader technology landscape.” Says Børge Teigland, CIO Norske Skog

“Expanding our relationship with Norske Skog reflects the trust we’ve built over time and DXC’s ability to deliver in critical environments,” said Espen Olsen, Managing Director DXC Norway. “By modernizing Norske Skog’s network infrastructure and taking on a broader role across their technology operations, we’re helping build a stronger, more secure foundation that supports the business today and as it evolves.”

DXC Technology is a long-standing partner to Norske Skog with more than 20 years of experience delivering end-to-end business and IT services. Today, DXC manages a significant part of Norske Skog’s IT estate, reflecting a deep and strategic partnership built on trust, reliability, and consistent delivery. As a trusted advisor, DXC continues to support Norske Skog across infrastructure, applications, and operational services, helping to modernize and optimize its technology landscape.

About DXC Technology
DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) is a leading enterprise technology and innovation partner delivering software, services, and solutions to global enterprises and public sector organizations — helping them harness AI to drive outcomes at a time of exponential change with speed. With deep expertise in Managed Infrastructure Services, Application Modernization, and Industry-Specific Software Solutions, DXC modernizes, secures, and operates some of the world’s most complex technology estates. Learn more on dxc.com.

About Norske Skog
Norske Skog is a producer of packaging paper and publication paper across four mills in Europe. Packaging paper includes testliner and fluting and publication paper includes newsprint and magazine paper. The annual production capacity of packaging paper is 0.8 million tonnes, and the annual production capacity of publication paper is 1.2 million tonnes. Packaging paper and publication paper are sold through sales offices and agents. Norske Skog has approximately 1 650 employees and the parent company, Norske Skog ASA, a public limited liability company, is incorporated in Norway and has its head office in Oslo. The company is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange with the ticker NSKOG.

MEDIA CONTACT: Ashley Houk-Temple, Media Relations, ashley.houktemple@dxc.com 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/dxc-expands-relationship-with-norske-skog-to-modernize-network-and-technology-operations-302800869.html

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