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FGR accelerates USA expansion & defence sector exposure with strategic acquisition of MITO® Material Solutions

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FGR enters binding agreement to acquire all assets, intellectual property, product lines and manufacturing capabilities of USA-based MITO® Material Solutions, Inc.Strategic acquisition expands FGR’s product portfolio into high-value functionalised graphene technologiesSignificantly strengthens FGR’s exposure to rapidly emerging USA defence and aerospace opportunities involving graphene enhanced technologiesDelivers immediate USA revenues and a substantial growth pipeline with >25 clients in late-stage testing across various sectorsEstablishes a direct-to-market commercial platform in the USACombined with FGR’s existing PureGRAPH® technologies, this acquisition creates one of the broadest and most advanced graphene product portfolios globally

SYDNEY, June 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — First Graphene Limited (ASX: FGR; “First Graphene” or “the Company”) (FRA:M11) (OTCQB:FGPHF) is pleased to announce that it has entered a binding Sale Agreement (“Agreement”) to acquire all product lines, manufacturing equipment and intellectual property of MITO® Material Solutions, Inc (“MITO”).

Importantly, the acquisition will expand First Graphene’s capability to functionalise graphite, graphene and graphene oxide — increasingly important materials used across a broad range of commercial and defence applications to enhance the performance of advanced material additives.

The agreement includes acquiring MITO’s E-GO®, LIGRA™, OMEGA and DELTA product lines, which represent a suite of thermoset, thermoplastic, composite materials, coatings, liquids, resins and nanomaterial additives.

FGR accelerates strategic expansion into the United States

The acquisition represents a strategic step for FGR, significantly broadening the Company’s technology platform beyond high-performance graphene powders and dispersions into advanced

graphene oxide, hybrid graphene additives and functionalised nanomaterial technologies.

Importantly, the acquisition also establishes FGR with a direct operational and commercial platform within the USA, enhancing access to the world’s largest defence and advanced materials market, positioning the Company to pursue new areas for revenue growth, customer penetration and strategic partnerships.

Expanding defence and aerospace opportunities

The acquisition, by creating an operating presence in the USA, enhances FGR’s exposure to emerging USA defence and aerospace opportunities involving graphene enhanced technologies.

Functionalised graphene and graphene oxide technologies are increasingly recognised as critical enabling materials across aerospace and defence applications due to their ability to improve interfacial bonding, mechanical performance, conductivity, durability and multifunctionality.

Recent US Department of Defence and DARPA1 initiatives have increasingly focused on lightweight graphene enhanced composite structures, thermal management systems, advanced energy materials and next-generation survivability materials.

FGR’s acquisition of MITO builds directly on the Company’s materials portfolio with potential defence applications, including perovskite solar technologies for endurance drones through the Company’s partnership with Halocell, mechanically strengthened composites, carbon fibre technologies and advanced conductive and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) shielding additive systems.

Proven products with established US customers

MITO’s products are already deployed by multiple premium USA brands seeking advanced material performance enhancements, including Parlor Skis, Folsom Custom Skis and St. Croix Rods.

Parlor Skis uses MITO’s graphene enhanced E-GO® technology to improve the strength-to-weight ratio, responsiveness and durability of high-performance custom skis. Graphene enhanced composite systems reduce weight while maintaining structural stiffness and vibration damping, key performance attributes in high end ski hardware.

Folsom Custom Skis incorporates MITO’s graphene technologies to improve composite laminate performance, delivering increased durability, enhanced flex control and improved energy transfer characteristics for high-performance ski applications.

St. Croix Rods utilises graphene enhanced additive systems to improve sensitivity, strength and lightweight performance in fishing rods. Graphene enhanced materials assist in improving toughness and responsiveness while reducing overall product weight.

MITO’s customer portfolio validates the commercial applicability of its functionalisation technologies in demanding real-world applications where performance advantages are critical.

These applications can apply directly into large scale industrial and defence opportunities.

Market-ready business on doorstep of a massive market

The take-forward business has already conducted 8 years of R&D and product development to deliver market-deployable materials readily manufactured and sold to existing customers.

Future R&D and manufacturing capabilities will leverage FGR’s existing expertise, minimising the impact of overheads while also providing an opportunity to toll manufacture in North America.

The USA sports market is valued at more than US$1 trillion2, while defence spend by the USA Department of Defence alone has reached USD$1.18 trillion3, presenting immense opportunity for First Graphene to deliver performance enhancing solutions across two high-value markets.

Advantageous success-based terms

Under the Agreement the acquisition will be completed for a cash-stock consideration, predominantly underpinned by a two-tranche allocation of FGR stock on achieving strict MITO product sales targets over a 24-month period.

Commenting on First Graphene’s push into the US, Managing Director and CEO, Michael Bell, said:

“The acquisition of MITO Material Solutions assets represents a transformational push into the USA market for First Graphene, immediately expanding the Company’s product portfolio further into graphene oxide and functionalised graphene technologies – two rapidly emerging segments of the advanced materials market. Combined with our existing PureGRAPH® technologies, this acquisition creates one of the broadest and most advanced graphene product portfolios globally.

MITO has established commercial traction with premium USA customers and built a substantial pipeline of opportunities across sporting goods, industrial composites and advanced materials.

Importantly, this acquisition provides First Graphene with a direct operational and commercial launch platform into the USA, enabling the business to aggressively accelerate revenue growth and customer adoption in the world’s largest advanced materials and defence market. The addition of graphene oxide and functionalisation capabilities significantly strengthens our ability to deliver next-generation performance additives across defence, aerospace, composites, coatings, polymers and energy applications.

The graphene industry is approaching a major commercial inflection point. Customers are increasingly seeking proven suppliers such as First Graphene with scaled manufacturing, differentiated technology and real commercial capability.

With two acquisitions underway, expanding commercial revenues, growing defence exposure and a significantly enhanced technology platform, FGR is building substantial momentum globally.”

Ends

References
1Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

2Global Institute of Sport

3Department of Defense

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SOURCE First Graphene Limited

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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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SOURCE Rafay Systems

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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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SOURCE Lianlian DigiTech

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