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Esports World Cup Welcomes Chess to 2025 Games Lineup with a $1.5 Million Prize Pool

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One of History’s Most Enduring and Popular Games Joins the World’s Largest Gaming and Esports Festival to Bring Competitive Chess to New Audiences

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia and NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Today, the Esports World Cup Foundation (“EWCF”), and Chess.com announced a multi-year partnership that will bring competitive online chess to the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC), the world’s largest esports and gaming festival, set to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next summer. Chess is one of the most popular games on the planet, with more than 600 million players, and Chess.com is the leading website for playing, learning, and enjoying chess with nearly 200 million members. Additionally, Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen will join Chess at the Esports World Cup as a Global Ambassador.

“Bringing Chess, a game that has been played for 1,500 years, to the Esports World Cup is a truly exciting moment.”

As part of the partnership, the Champions Chess Tour (CCT), a fast Chess.com tournament circuit, will become the primary path for the world’s best Chess players to qualify for the EWC championship event. In 2025, there will be two online Tour events, in February and May, boasting a combined $300k prize pool, offering players opportunities to compete on the world’s biggest esports stage.

“Bringing Chess, a game that has been played for 1,500 years, to the Esports World Cup is a truly exciting moment,” said Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation. “It’s the perfect example of how games evolve: from boards to screens, the core competition stays the same. Chess’ rich history, global appeal, and thriving competitive scene make it a perfect fit for our mission to unite the world’s most popular games and their passionate communities under one competitive umbrella. Partnering with the leading online platform for the game, Chess.com, and appointing the legendary Magnus Carlsen, a true GOAT of the sport, as the game’s ambassador, allows us to not only showcase Chess on a massive stage but also to drive innovation and growth within its already vibrant ecosystem. We’re eager to see how our Clubs embrace this new challenge.”

Magnus Carlsen, widely regarded as one of the greatest Chess players in history, joins the Esports World Cup as an ambassador, bringing his unparalleled expertise to the partnership. With his legendary career and ability to captivate audiences, Magnus has elevated Chess from a traditional board game to a modern global online phenomenon, setting it on a path into the esports ecosystem.

As an ambassador, Magnus will help connect Chess with the broader esports community by showcasing the mental strategy and competitive spirit that Chess shares with other top-tier esports titles. Working with the Esports World Cup Foundation, his involvement will help inspire a new generation of players and fans, emphasizing the intellectual depth and excitement of Chess on a global stage.

“I’m thrilled to see Chess join some of the biggest games in the world at the Esports World Cup,” said Magnus Carlsen, Grandmaster. “This partnership is an incredible opportunity to grow the game, by introducing Chess to new audiences and inspiring the next generation of players. Being part of the esports family is an amazing opportunity for Chess to broaden its reach to a massive group of esports fans.”

The top 12 players from the CCT will be invited to the EWC Chess tournament, which will take place between July 31 and August 3, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ), open to both amateur and professional players, will be held in Riyadh and will determine four remaining spots to round out the field of competitors. Players will compete for a share of the $1.5 million prize pool, and valuable Esports World Cup Club Championship points. 

The format of the competition has been designed to bring competitive Chess to a new esports audience. Matches will be played in the rapid 10+0 Chess format, giving games a quick pace while still showcasing the strategic brilliance of the players. Should a match be tied after regulation, there will be a single Armageddon game as a tiebreaker.

Chess joins the 2025 lineup of the world’s most popular gaming titles at the Esports World Cup, bringing together the top clubs, players, and fans under one banner for the largest celebration of gaming as a global sport. The tournament’s unique cross-game competition format across over 20 titles, rewarding Clubs for their performance in each, connects audiences to their favorite games and promotes the growth and innovation of the broader esports and gaming ecosystem.

With origins tracing back over 1,500 years to ancient India, Chess has evolved through centuries into a global intellectual pursuit and one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment.  Chess’ transition to online platforms began in the late 1990s, but its popularity exploded in the 2010s with platforms like Chess.com offering accessible gameplay, lessons, puzzles, and global competitions. This shift was further accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increasing popularity of streaming platforms and influencers, alongside hit cultural phenomena like The Queen’s Gambit, have cemented Chess as a dynamic and widely celebrated digital sport.

The Champions Chess Tour is a premier online Chess competition bringing the world’s top players together in a series of rapid-format tournaments. Launched in 2020, the Tour revolutionized the Chess landscape by offering a fully digital, viewer-friendly experience, complete with live commentary and interactive features. The 2024 Tour will conclude in Oslo, Norway this week as eight finalists battle for the final $500K out of a total season prize pool of $1.7 million.

About The Esports World Cup

The Esports World Cup (EWC) is a premier annual sporting event and global celebration of competitive excellence and esports fandom. The competition features a unique cross-game format that pits the world’s top esports clubs against one another for the largest prize pool in esports history. The inaugural EWC in 2024 featured 1,500 elite athletes and 200 clubs from 100 countries. They competed in 22 tournaments across 21 games for a $60 million prize pool. The eight-week competition and festival drew 500 million views online and saw 2.6 million people attend. Returning to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the summer of 2025, the EWC will bring gaming and esports communities together again to crown the next Esports World Cup Club Champion.
esportsworldcup.com/en 

About Chess.com

Founded in 2007, Chess.com is the world’s largest chess website, with a community of nearly 200 million members worldwide and more than 6 million games played daily. Chess is one of the most popular games globally and with that, Chess.com is committed to growing chess as a positive influence in the world, where every person can enjoy the game, connect with others and be accepted in the community. Chess.com was recognized by Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Companies in 2024, as well as included on TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies in 2023.

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SOURCE Esports World Cup Foundation

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Huawei Cloud Launches Agentic Infrastructure and CodeArts Agent OBT in Thailand, Accelerating Enterprise AI Innovation

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BANGKOK, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Huawei Cloud hosted Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2026, bringing together leaders from government, business, industry partners, and the technology community to exchange views on how cloud and AI can support Thailand’s digital economy. During the event, Huawei Cloud announced “Huawei Cloud Agentic Infrastructure: Now Available for Thailand” and officially launched Huawei Cloud CodeArts Agent Open Beta Testing (OBT) in the country.

Mr. Sunny Shang, President of Huawei Cloud APAC, outlined the company’s commitment to working with customers and partners to build an AI-driven digital future for Thailand. Regarding the government’s direction, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society emphasized the acceleration of digital transformation through national AI policies, public-sector adoption, and stronger public-private collaboration.

The public-sector highlighted how AI can improve government operations and make public services faster and more convenient. NECTEC also presented a Government AI case study covering the development of AI infrastructure and platforms, as well as AI chatbots and intelligent assistants designed to support government officials and improve services for citizens.

Building the Foundation for the Agentic AI Era

Mr. Surasak Wanichwatphibun, CTO of Huawei Cloud Thailand said Huawei Cloud will continue to strengthen its technological capabilities and build a robust computing infrastructure to drive AI innovation across enterprises.

At the center of the announcement is Agentic Infra, a new infrastructure designed specifically for developing and deploying AI agents. It supports efficient token generation, unified scheduling of general-purpose and AI computing resources, continuous learning, and secure and autonomous agent operations.

Mr. Surasak introduced four new features under Agentic Infra:

UnifiedBus-based AI Cluster Service (AICS), which supports highly efficient token generationAgentic Memory Storage Service (AMS), which delivers PB-scale memory storage to address a key bottleneck in agent memory, enabling long-horizon tasks and facilitating continuous learning.AgentSphere, which offers a secure and autonomous runtime environment for AI agentsCCE VolcanoNext, which enables unified scheduling of general-purpose and AI computing resources

CodeArts Agent OBT Launches in Thailand

Another major highlight was the launch of Huawei Cloud CodeArts Agent OBT in Thailand, giving local developers and enterprises an opportunity to experience Huawei Cloud’s coding agent and provide feedback before its wider release.

CodeArts Agent combines IDE functionality, autonomous development capabilities, and coding models. It supports project-level code generation, code completion, R&D knowledge Q&A, and unit test case generation.

The platform also applies Specification-Driven Development (SDD) to help development teams maintain code quality from the requirements stage through to final delivery.

It is worth mentioning that this release also introduces the Agent Team mode, which can automatically form a development team, enabling multiple agents to collaborate concurrently and execute tasks simultaneously.

By reducing repetitive tasks, CodeArts Agent can help developers work more efficiently and allow organizations to bring digital products and services to market faster.

The OBT launch forms part of Huawei Cloud’s efforts to support Thailand’s developer community and make AI-assisted software development more accessible to organizations of different sizes.

Strengthening Security for Enterprise AI

Mr. Surasak also emphasized security, stability, and quality as key priorities for enterprise AI adoption. As cyberattacks become increasingly automated and AI-driven, Huawei Cloud has upgraded its security services in two areas: protecting AI systems and using AI to strengthen cyber defense.

Its model lifecycle security solution covers AI infrastructure, training data, model inference, and agent applications.

For enterprises concerned about data sovereignty and privacy, Huawei Cloud provides dedicated security zones that allow customers to independently manage their encryption keys while preventing platform administrators from accessing customer data. Software-hardware integration and hardware acceleration are also used to maintain encryption performance without compromising service efficiency. Huawei Cloud has also introduced Data Capsule technology, which ensures that data can only be used within authorized environments and automatically becomes invalid if moved outside a designated security zone.

Showcasing AI Use Cases Across Industries

Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2026 also featured AI and cloud use cases from organizations in Thailand. These included the development of AI platforms and intelligent assistants for the public sector, the use of AI coding and large language models in banking, and AI-powered learning and skills development platforms for the HR sector.

Huawei Cloud and its partners also shared how ecosystem collaboration can help solve industry challenges and accelerate AI adoption among enterprises.

About Huawei Cloud Thailand

Huawei Cloud Thailand is a leading cloud service provider committed to accelerating Thailand’s digital transformation under the mission of “In Thailand, For Thailand.” According to the latest report from Gartner, Huawei Cloud is ranked No.3 by revenue in Thailand’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market, solidifying its position as one of the most trusted and fastest-growing international cloud providers in the country.

As the first international public cloud vendor to establish local data centers in Thailand, Huawei Cloud now operates three Availability Zones, ensuring high reliability and low-latency connectivity for local users. Leveraging Huawei’s 30-plus years of expertise in ICT infrastructure, it integrates cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud-Native 2.0, and Big Data technologies to empower over 40 government agencies and thousands of enterprises across the Kingdom. By building a robust digital ecosystem and fostering local talent, Huawei Cloud aims to drive Thailand’s “Digital Economy” forward, bringing cloud and intelligence to every corner of the country for a fully connected, intelligent future.

For more information, please visit Huawei Cloud Thailand online at

https://www.huaweicloud.com/intl/th-th/ or follow us on:

https://www.facebook.com/HuaweiCloudTH

https://www.youtube.com/@HuaweiCloudAPAC

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/huawei-cloud-launches-agentic-infrastructure-and-codearts-agent-obt-in-thailand-accelerating-enterprise-ai-innovation-302833957.html

SOURCE Huawei Cloud Thailand

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Huawei Cloud Launches Agentic Infrastructure and CodeArts Agent OBT in Thailand, Accelerating Enterprise AI Innovation

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BANGKOK, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Huawei Cloud hosted Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2026, bringing together leaders from government, business, industry partners, and the technology community to exchange views on how cloud and AI can support Thailand’s digital economy. During the event, Huawei Cloud announced “Huawei Cloud Agentic Infrastructure: Now Available for Thailand” and officially launched Huawei Cloud CodeArts Agent Open Beta Testing (OBT) in the country.

Mr. Sunny Shang, President of Huawei Cloud APAC, outlined the company’s commitment to working with customers and partners to build an AI-driven digital future for Thailand. Regarding the government’s direction, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society emphasized the acceleration of digital transformation through national AI policies, public-sector adoption, and stronger public-private collaboration.

The public-sector highlighted how AI can improve government operations and make public services faster and more convenient. NECTEC also presented a Government AI case study covering the development of AI infrastructure and platforms, as well as AI chatbots and intelligent assistants designed to support government officials and improve services for citizens.

Building the Foundation for the Agentic AI Era

Mr. Surasak Wanichwatphibun, CTO of Huawei Cloud Thailand said Huawei Cloud will continue to strengthen its technological capabilities and build a robust computing infrastructure to drive AI innovation across enterprises.

At the center of the announcement is Agentic Infra, a new infrastructure designed specifically for developing and deploying AI agents. It supports efficient token generation, unified scheduling of general-purpose and AI computing resources, continuous learning, and secure and autonomous agent operations.

Mr. Surasak introduced four new features under Agentic Infra:

UnifiedBus-based AI Cluster Service (AICS), which supports highly efficient token generationAgentic Memory Storage Service (AMS), which delivers PB-scale memory storage to address a key bottleneck in agent memory, enabling long-horizon tasks and facilitating continuous learning.AgentSphere, which offers a secure and autonomous runtime environment for AI agentsCCE VolcanoNext, which enables unified scheduling of general-purpose and AI computing resources

CodeArts Agent OBT Launches in Thailand

Another major highlight was the launch of Huawei Cloud CodeArts Agent OBT in Thailand, giving local developers and enterprises an opportunity to experience Huawei Cloud’s coding agent and provide feedback before its wider release.

CodeArts Agent combines IDE functionality, autonomous development capabilities, and coding models. It supports project-level code generation, code completion, R&D knowledge Q&A, and unit test case generation.

The platform also applies Specification-Driven Development (SDD) to help development teams maintain code quality from the requirements stage through to final delivery.

It is worth mentioning that this release also introduces the Agent Team mode, which can automatically form a development team, enabling multiple agents to collaborate concurrently and execute tasks simultaneously.

By reducing repetitive tasks, CodeArts Agent can help developers work more efficiently and allow organizations to bring digital products and services to market faster.

The OBT launch forms part of Huawei Cloud’s efforts to support Thailand’s developer community and make AI-assisted software development more accessible to organizations of different sizes.

Strengthening Security for Enterprise AI

Mr. Surasak also emphasized security, stability, and quality as key priorities for enterprise AI adoption. As cyberattacks become increasingly automated and AI-driven, Huawei Cloud has upgraded its security services in two areas: protecting AI systems and using AI to strengthen cyber defense.

Its model lifecycle security solution covers AI infrastructure, training data, model inference, and agent applications.

For enterprises concerned about data sovereignty and privacy, Huawei Cloud provides dedicated security zones that allow customers to independently manage their encryption keys while preventing platform administrators from accessing customer data. Software-hardware integration and hardware acceleration are also used to maintain encryption performance without compromising service efficiency. Huawei Cloud has also introduced Data Capsule technology, which ensures that data can only be used within authorized environments and automatically becomes invalid if moved outside a designated security zone.

Showcasing AI Use Cases Across Industries

Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2026 also featured AI and cloud use cases from organizations in Thailand. These included the development of AI platforms and intelligent assistants for the public sector, the use of AI coding and large language models in banking, and AI-powered learning and skills development platforms for the HR sector.

Huawei Cloud and its partners also shared how ecosystem collaboration can help solve industry challenges and accelerate AI adoption among enterprises.

About Huawei Cloud Thailand

Huawei Cloud Thailand is a leading cloud service provider committed to accelerating Thailand’s digital transformation under the mission of “In Thailand, For Thailand.” According to the latest report from Gartner, Huawei Cloud is ranked No.3 by revenue in Thailand’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market, solidifying its position as one of the most trusted and fastest-growing international cloud providers in the country.

As the first international public cloud vendor to establish local data centers in Thailand, Huawei Cloud now operates three Availability Zones, ensuring high reliability and low-latency connectivity for local users. Leveraging Huawei’s 30-plus years of expertise in ICT infrastructure, it integrates cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud-Native 2.0, and Big Data technologies to empower over 40 government agencies and thousands of enterprises across the Kingdom. By building a robust digital ecosystem and fostering local talent, Huawei Cloud aims to drive Thailand’s “Digital Economy” forward, bringing cloud and intelligence to every corner of the country for a fully connected, intelligent future.

For more information, please visit Huawei Cloud Thailand online at

https://www.huaweicloud.com/intl/th-th/ or follow us on:

https://www.facebook.com/HuaweiCloudTH

https://www.youtube.com/@HuaweiCloudAPAC

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/huawei-cloud-launches-agentic-infrastructure-and-codearts-agent-obt-in-thailand-accelerating-enterprise-ai-innovation-302833957.html

SOURCE Huawei Cloud Thailand

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Loomis Interim Report January – June 2026

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STOCKHOLM, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ —

Continued strong growth and record operating margin (EBITA %)

President and CEO Aritz Larrea comments:

“We delivered another very strong quarter reflecting the continued execution of our strategy and the strength of our diversified model. Revenue reached SEK 7.9 billion with a currency-adjusted growth of 9.1 percent. Both segment USA and segment Europe and Latin America contributed to the performance driven by continued strength in our International and Automated Solutions business lines. Operating income (EBITA) exceeded 1 billion SEK and we increased our EBITA margin by more than 1 percentage point year–over–year to 14.0 percent.

Our financial position remains strong. Supported by robust cash flow generation and a solid balance sheet, we continue to invest in long-term growth opportunities, pursue value-creating acquisitions, and maintain our commitment to delivering attractive returns to shareholders.”

Quarter 2, April – June 2026

Revenue for the quarter was SEK 7,891 million (7,407). The currency-adjusted growth was 9.1 percent (4.8), of which organic growth was 6.7 percent (3.8) and acquisitions contributed 2.5 percent (1.0). Including the exchange rate effect, the total growth was 6.5 percent (-3.0).Operating income (EBITA) 1) for the quarter was SEK 1,102 million (944) and the operating margin (EBITA) increased to 14.0 percent (12.7).Operating income (EBIT) before items affecting comparability for the quarter was SEK 1,062 million (882) and operating margin (EBIT) before items affecting comparability was 13.5 percent (11.9).Income before taxes for the quarter was SEK 869 million (664) and profit for the period was SEK 608 million (478).Basic earnings per share for the quarter were SEK 9.09 (7.01) and diluted earnings per share were SEK 9.06 (6.99).Cash flow from operating activities 2) was SEK 683 million (550) in the quarter. The cash flow from operating activities for the rolling twelve months was 95 percent (105) of operating income (EBITA).Net debt in relation to EBITDA was 1.60 times (1.75) in the quarter.Loomis expanded its presence in Latin America through the acquisition of Transportadora del Interior in Argentina and the announced acquisition of Hermes Transportes Blindados in Peru.

1)  Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Amortization of acquisition-related intangible fixed assets, Acquisition-related costs and revenue and items affecting comparability.
2)  Cash flow from operating activities is exclusive of impact from IFRS 16.

Report presentation today at 10.30 a.m. (CEST)

The report will be presented in a webcast conference today at 10.30 am (CEST) by President and CEO Aritz Larrea and CFO Johan Wilsby.

To follow the webcast, please follow this link.

The presentation materials and a recorded version of the conference will be available on https://www.loomis.com/en/investors/reports-and-presentations/ following the presentation.

For more information, please contact:

Jenny Boström
Head of Sustainability and IR
ir@loomis.com
+46 79 006 45 92

Fredrik Hammarbäck
Media and External Communications Manager
media@loomis.com
+46 76 311 56 29

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

https://news.cision.com/loomis-ab/r/loomis-interim-report-january—june-2026,c4377246

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/51/4377246/4201809.pdf

Loomis Interim Report January – June 2026

https://mb.cision.com/Public/51/4377246/940bbe0a24c483c8.pdf

Loomis Interim Report January – June 2026 – press release

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/loomis-interim-report-january–june-2026-302833961.html

SOURCE Loomis AB

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