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Westat to Continue Leading the National Comprehensive Center (NCC)

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Westat’s leadership of the NCC provides the U.S. Department of Education with the continuity of support and effective stewardship to support educational agencies as they strive to improve outcomes for all students.

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The U.S. Department of Education has re-awarded Westat leadership of the National Comprehensive Center (NCC). Westat launched the inaugural NCC in 2019; the new award enables Westat to continue in this role through 2029. The NCC addresses national educational needs, amplifies evidence-based services and products likely to improve student learning opportunities and outcomes, and functions as the backbone organization to the Comprehensive Center Network (CCNetwork), which is made up of 14 Regional Comprehensive Centers and 4 newly established Content Centers.

In addition to overseeing the NCC, Westat will continue to lead 2 Regional Comprehensive Centers—Region 4 (formerly Region 5) and Region 9 (formerly Region 14.) These Centers provide intensive, tailored capacity-building services to regional educational agencies (REAs), state educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), tribal educational agencies (TEAs), and schools that improve educational opportunities and outcomes, close achievement gaps, and improve the quality of instruction. The Region 4 Comprehensive Center includes the Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Region 9 partners with leaders of SEAs in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Westat is also a partner in the new Center on Strengthening and Supporting the Educator Workforce, also part of the CCNetwork.

“Westat offers the right combination of skills, knowledge, experience, and diverse perspectives to successfully achieve the NCC’s mission,” notes Deborah Jonas, PhD, Westat Vice President and Practice Director for Education Studies. “We are honored to continue our service as leaders in the Comprehensive Center program, providing support that helps identify and apply evidence-based solutions.”

About Westat (www.westat.com)

Westat is a leader in research, data collection and analysis, technical assistance, evaluation, and communications. Our evidence-based findings help clients in government and the private sector accelerate advancements in health, education, transportation, and social and economic policy. Since 1963, our dedication to improving lives through research and our approach to projects grounded in investigative curiosity, equity, statistical and data rigor, adaptive methods, and advanced technology are why clients find exceptional value in our work.

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Huawei Unveils Xinghe AI CloudCampus SaaS Service Platform in South Africa to Build a Solid Foundation for the Digital Economy

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JOHANNESBURG, July 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — At the Huawei Network Summit 2026 (HNS 2026) in Johannesburg, Huawei unveiled its all-new Xinghe AI CloudCampus SaaS Service Platform for South Africa. Through this platform, South Africa—the economic engine and digital hub of the African continent—will significantly lower the barrier to AI adoption, helping local enterprises bridge the digital divide and driving forward regional intelligent transformation.

Four Key Platform Capabilities Driving Cloud-Managed Network Upgrades for South African Government Agencies and Enterprises

The newly launched Xinghe AI CloudCampus SaaS Service Platform focuses on four core capabilities: flexibility, agility, intelligence, and scalability. Together, these capabilities deliver a centralized, secure, and reliable cloud-managed network infrastructure for South African government agencies and enterprises.

Key highlights of this platform include:

Flexible business models: The platform offers a pure SaaS subscription model, enabling customers to use it with zero CAPEX and pay-as-you-grow flexibility, dramatically lowering upfront investment. Backed by Huawei’s local service team, the platform guarantees data privacy and regulatory compliance while supporting automated periodic updates, ensuring enterprises always stay at the forefront of technology.Agile deployment: Powered by SD-Branch technology, the platform supports bulk branch network configuration and plug-and-play device deployment. Whether opening new stores, branch offices, or temporary sites, enterprises can rapidly roll out networks, boosting business responsiveness by over 80%.AI-powered O&M: Through an embedded AI-assisted O&M copilot, the platform automatically identifies and resolves 80% of common network issues, freeing O&M personnel from tedious routine inspections. This slashes the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) by 70% and cuts O&M costs by 50%.Future-ready scalability: The platform deeply converges Wi-Fi, LAN, WAN, and security capabilities across all scenarios, supporting elastic expansion to accommodate enterprise growth from single sites to global footprints. It also delivers end-to-end industry solutions tailored to sectors like retail and education. These include foot-traffic analytics and smart marketing networks for retail stores, alongside highly reliable online teaching networks for educational institutions, truly bringing to life the vision of “One Platform, All Scenarios, Intelligent Future.”

Looking Ahead: Making AI-Powered Networks Ubiquitous

“In the past, intelligent O&M was a luxury exclusive to large enterprises. Now, we have deeply integrated AI into the cloud management service platform, enabling SMEs to easily access these capabilities as a cloud service. This is more than tech inclusion; it is about making AI network services genuinely accessible, affordable, and actionable,” said Shi Lei, Vice President of the NCE Data Communication Domain, Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line. “Looking ahead, we will continue investing in local operations and working hand-in-hand with South African customers and partners to make intelligent networks the solid foundation of South Africa’s digital economy. Together, we will drive a more inclusive and sustainable digital future.”

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Aolani and Rafay Collaborate on One of the Industry’s First NVIDIA DSX OS Deployments on NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 Infrastructure

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The collaboration demonstrates how next-generation AI infrastructure can be transformed into production-ready AI platforms for enterprise and cloud providers.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and SINGAPORE, July 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Rafay Systems, a leading platform provider for modern infrastructure and AI workloads and a member of NVIDIA Inception, today announced a strategic collaboration with Aolani to deliver one of the industry’s first deployments of NVIDIA DSX OS running on NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 infrastructure, helping demonstrate how next-generation AI infrastructure can move from installation to production-ready AI services.

As organizations continue investing in accelerated computing, the competitive advantage is shifting beyond acquiring GPUs. Success increasingly depends on how quickly providers can operationalize infrastructure, onboard customers, govern multi-tenant environments, and deliver AI services that developers and enterprises can consume immediately.

The collaboration between Aolani and Rafay addresses that challenge by combining Aolani’s next-generation AI infrastructure with Rafay Platform’s orchestration, automation, multi-tenancy, and lifecycle management capabilities to create a production-ready AI platform built on NVIDIA AI infrastructure.

Rather than delivering raw GPU infrastructure alone, the solution enables organizations to provision Kubernetes clusters, virtual machines, AI workspaces, and inference environments through a secure self-service experience while maintaining centralized governance, policy enforcement, and operational visibility.

“Aolani has always been committed to delivering faster time-to-value for our customers,” said Nicholas Chia, CEO of Aolani. “Our customers are at the bleeding edge of AI development, and they need to provision, govern, and scale from day one in an industry that moves at lightning speed. Building the next generation of AI cloud means solving for more than just compute capacity, but also production-grade platforms that enable operational readiness from the get go. That’s why we are so excited about this partnership with Rafay.”

The announcement reflects a broader transition taking place across the AI infrastructure industry. As cloud providers, enterprises, and sovereign AI operators deploy increasingly powerful GPU infrastructure, attention is moving toward the software layer that enables those investments to become secure, scalable, and commercially viable AI platforms.

“AI infrastructure has entered a new phase,” said Haseeb Budhani, CEO and co-founder of Rafay Systems. “The question is no longer how quickly organizations can deploy GPUs. It’s how quickly they can transform that infrastructure into a governed, self-service platform that developers can use and operators can manage at scale. We’re excited to collaborate with Aolani to help demonstrate what’s possible with NVIDIA AI infrastructure and accelerate the path from hardware deployment to production AI services.”

The deployment combines Aolani’s AI cloud infrastructure with the Rafay Platform to simplify infrastructure bring-up, automate lifecycle management, enforce enterprise governance, and provide developers with immediate access to production-ready AI environments. The result is a platform designed to support model development, training, inference, and future AI service delivery without requiring organizations to assemble the operational software stack themselves.

As next-generation AI infrastructure continues to scale globally, Aolani and Rafay are demonstrating how infrastructure providers can move beyond deploying GPU capacity to operating modern AI platforms that accelerate customer adoption, improve infrastructure utilization, and shorten time to value.

About Aolani

Where AI gets built in Asia. Founded in 2023, Aolani’s AI factories enable enterprises, AI natives, and sovereigns to build with confidence, scale ambitiously, and move at hyper-speed in the world’s fastest-growing AI market. Founded in Singapore and backed by compliant and purpose-built neocloud infrastructure, Aolani delivers the performance capabilities for next-generation AI. For more information, visit www.aolanicloud.com and follow @AolaniCloud on LinkedIn.

About Rafay Systems

Rafay Systems is a leading software provider powering the operators building the AI cloud, including neoclouds, telecommunications providers, enterprises, and sovereign AI operators. The Rafay Platform lets these organizations operationalize GPU and compute infrastructure with self-service automation, governance, and multi-tenancy, spanning bare metal provisioning, infrastructure lifecycle management, virtual machines, Kubernetes, GPU PaaS, AI development environments, and Token Factory  for publishing AI models as token-metered inference services. By simplifying orchestration and operations across this stack, Rafay helps operators increase GPU utilization and turn raw infrastructure into monetizable, production-ready AI services, all while maintaining security, consistency, and control. For more information, visit rafay.co.

Media Contact
H/Advisors on behalf of Aolani Cloud
klareco-aolani@h-advisors.global

Angela Shugarts
Rafay Systems
angela@rafay.co 

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Lianlian DigiTech and UnionPay International Partner to Deploy AI-Agent Payments for Global Procurement

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HANGZHOU, China, July 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Lianlian DigiTech and UnionPay International signed a strategic cooperation agreement on July 18 to develop AI-agent payment applications for cross-border commerce. Sun Dali, Co-President of Lianlian DigiTech, attended and signed on behalf of the company.

The partnership combines Lianlian DigiTech’s AI-agent platform with UnionPay International’s global payment network. Initial focus areas include global procurement and AI Token replenishment, with AI-assisted procurement workflows connecting directly to cross-border payment infrastructure. The broader collaboration will also encompass overseas merchant acceptance expansion and joint AI technology R&D.

Launching Deployment Global Procurement

Building on the existing B2B payment business cooperation between Lianlian DigiTech and Union Pay International, the partnership will be further extended into AI-Agent payment Scenarios. The inaugural application introduces a Human-in-the-Loop AI-agent payment solution for global procurement, which will effectively address enterprises’ pain points in cross-border B2B payments.

Cross-border purchasing has long suffered from structural inefficiencies—protracted settlement cycles, exchange-rate volatility, layered compliance demands, and manual reconciliation.

The partners will integrate AI-agent capabilities throughout the procurement workflow—from supplier matching and product selection to payment execution. Under the Human-in-the-Loop model, the AI agent executes procurement tasks autonomously while users retain final approval authority, marrying AI-driven efficiency with human judgment.

The partners will use global procurement as the initial deployment, refining the experience and architecture based on real-world feedback, with a longer-term ambition to drive industry-wide standardization and broader adoption of AI-agent payment solutions across additional business verticals.

Long-Term Technology Collaboration

Beyond expanding AI-agent payment applications internationally, the two companies will collaborate on AI technologies for financial services through ongoing technical exchanges and joint development, advancing innovation and broader industry adoption.

Lianlian DigiTech said the partnership reflects its long-term commitment to integrating AI with cross-border payments. As an AI-native company building global financial infrastructure, it views this collaboration as an important step in bringing AI-agent payment technologies into commercial use, and will continue working with industry partners to provide businesses with more intelligent global payment services.

UnionPay International noted that as AI reshapes financial services, intelligent and digital transformation have become essential to sustainable industry growth. Drawing on its global payment network and seamless B2B digital payment solutions, including Virtual Commercial Card Program, it will work with Lianlian DigiTech to promote standardization and scaled adoption of AI-agent payments, ensuring AI-driven financial innovation supports the real economy.

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