NINGBO, China, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — FinVolution Group (NYSE: FINV), a leading fintech company has joined the 2026 IWF World Championships as an official partner, bringing its support for sport to an international stage while complementing its ongoing initiatives to help small businesses and athletes create opportunities beyond competition.

Organized by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), the Championships are taking place in Ningbo, China, from October 27 to November 8. The event has attracted elite weightlifters from around the world and marks the first of 10 Olympic qualifying events for weightlifting on the road to Los Angeles 2028.

Weightlifting demands years of discipline, perseverance and dedication. These qualities also characterize small business owners who work to build their businesses and support their communities. For FinVolution, supporting sport goes hand in hand with efforts to create opportunities for people to grow and thrive.

In 2022, FinVolution partnered with the Chinese National Weightlifting Team to launch an interest-free lending initiative for micro and small business owners. The initiative has supported more than 11,000 small business owners, with interest-free loans totaling over RMB 120 million.

The partnership also brought weightlifting champions into livestreaming activities promoting agricultural products from their hometowns, helping connect athletes with local producers and communities. Through these efforts, FinVolution and the team have explored ways to translate the influence of sport into practical support for communities beyond the arena.

FinVolution also supports small businesses through BravoShops, its SME support program, which provides assistance such as shop improvements, marketing and promotional support, and community engagement activities. By the end of 2025, the program had supported 144 small businesses in China and overseas, reaching approximately 25,000 people. In 2025, the initiative expanded into Indonesia, extending its community engagement into Southeast Asia.

The company is also working to create new opportunities for athletes after their competitive careers. In 2025, FinVolution signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Champion Fund to launch an athlete entrepreneurship support program. The initiative provides funding and skills training for retired athletes pursuing entrepreneurial ventures, helping them apply the discipline and determination developed through sport to a new career path.

Together, these initiatives reflect FinVolution’s commitment to creating lasting value beyond the competition arena. The company will continue to support programs that help athletes pursue new opportunities, small businesses grow and communities build a more sustainable future.

About FinVolution Group

FinVolution Group (NYSE: FINV) is a leading fintech company that connects millions of consumers as well as small-sized enterprises with financial institutions.

Founded in 2007 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017, we have been at the forefront of the pan-Asian credit technology industry, pioneering innovative technologies in credit risk assessment, fraud detection, big data, and artificial intelligence. With a proven track record of robust growth in pan-Asian countries, we have established leading fintech platforms in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Australia.

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SOURCE FinVolution Group

WUXI, China, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Solid-state batteries are at a critical stage of transition from pilot production to large-scale manufacturing. To address key challenges in densification and solid-solid interface contact, Lead Intelligent has developed a horizontal warm isostatic pressing machine that delivers uniform three-dimensional pressure of up to 600 MPa across a wide temperature range from room temperature (RT) to 150°C. The machine achieves temperature control accuracy of ±2°C and pressure control accuracy of ±2%. Integrating automatic loading and unloading with precise, coordinated temperature and pressure control, the machine can increase cell density to over 95%, accelerating the industrialization of solid-state batteries.

As solid-state batteries move toward mass production, two major challenges remain: high impedance caused by insufficient solid-solid interface contact, and the limitations of conventional unidirectional pressing, including uneven density and pronounced edge effects. Based on Pascal’s principle, isostatic pressing applies isotropic pressurization within a sealed chamber to achieve multidimensional material compaction and densification. It is a key processing route for addressing solid-solid interface contact challenges in solid-state batteries.

For the practical requirements of large-scale solid-state battery manufacturing, warm isostatic pressing offers an effective balance between densification performance, production efficiency, and manufacturing cost, making it a highly cost-effective option for mass production. As construction of solid-state battery capacity accelerates, warm isostatic pressing machines are becoming core incremental machines for battery manufacturers’ next-generation solid-state production lines.

Core Technology: Precise Temperature-Pressure Coordination for High-Precision Process Control

Building on its R&D system, Lead Intelligent’s horizontal warm isostatic pressing machine overcomes the “black box” limitations of traditional warm isostatic pressing process by enabling real-time monitoring of temperature and pressure inside the chamber. The machine upgrades from conventional unidirectional pressing to precise temperature-pressure coordination to promote closer contact between electrodes and electrolytes, making it well suited for solid-state battery mass production.

Pressure system: It delivers uniform three-dimensional pressure of up to 600 MPa, with pressure control accuracy ≤±2%. Automatic pressure compensation and emergency depressurization functions keep pressure fluctuations within ±2% during a 30-minute pressure holding period, ensuring process stability and repeatability.

Temperature system: The working temperatures can reach up to 150°C, and can be adjusted within a wide operating range from room temperature (RT) to 150°C, with temperature control accuracy of ±2°C. The initial heating time to 150°C takes no more than three hours, balancing process adaptability with mass production cycle-time requirements.

Chamber specifications: The working chamber inner diameter is ≥400 mm, the effective length is ≥4,000 mm, and the volume is around 500 L. It accommodates batch processing of workpieces in various sizes and meets the capacity requirements of GWh-scale production lines.

Designed for Mass Production: Comprehensive Optimization for Large-Scale Manufacturing

For GWh-scale manufacturing, warm isostatic pressing machines must do more than meet core process specifications. They shall also coordinate with whole line cycle time, logistics systems, and upstream and downstream processes. To meet these requirements, Lead Intelligent has optimized machine structure, automatic operation, and safety systems in parallel.

Horizontal Design for Continuous Production Lines

The horizontal working chamber and automatic loading and unloading design significantly reduce factory height requirements while seamlessly integrating with automatic logistics systems to meet the needs of continuous production and material transfer between upstream and downstream processes, adapting to takt-based operation on large-scale production lines. Electrodes and solid electrolytes can be stacked and assembled before being loaded into the chamber for pressing and densification, simplifying process flow.

Full-process Automation to Minimize Manual Intervention

The machine enables unmanned operation throughout cell pretreatment and material box circulation. It integrates four key functions: cell hot air preheating, cold air drying and cooling, automatic fixture loading and unloading, and material box automatic circulation. The machine covers the entire workflow including loading, pretreatment, isostatic pressing and unloading, minimizing manual intervention and improving production efficiency and process consistency within each batch.

Multi-Layered Safety Controls for Reliable Operation

The machine incorporates a comprehensive multi-layered safety assurance system. At the foundational level, the machine is equipped with dual pressure and temperature monitoring for the chamber, together with pipeline pressure-relief ports to safeguard machine operation. In addition, an innovative triple deformation monitoring system provides real-time monitoring to enhance operational safety and maintain process precision.

As a world-leading provider of intelligent manufacturing solutions for the new energy industry, Lead Intelligent has completed the full-process layout for solid-state battery manufacturing, covering key stages including dry electrode processing, high-precision stacking, warm isostatic pressing, and formation and grading. The company has the capacity for batch delivery of GWh-level solid-state battery whole line solutions.

Looking ahead, Lead Intelligent will continue to strengthen its intelligent manufacturing equipment capabilities, accelerating the industrialization of solid-state batteries and other advanced battery technologies and contributing LEAD power to the global new energy industry.

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SOURCE LEAD Intelligent

Former Global CTO of Banco Santander, former Group CIO of Currys, former CEO of IBPAP, and former Microsoft CVP and CTO of AI join the advisory community

Advisors will provide guidance on AAVA platform innovation, AI strategy, C-suite alignment, and enterprise adoption across Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, and the UK

The growing community of advisors will bring practitioner perspective closer to Ascendion as enterprises move AI from experimentation to governed, production-scale outcomes

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ascendion, an AI-native software engineering company, today announced the appointment of four global business and technology leaders to its AI Advisory Community: Andy Gamble, Jack Madrid, Julieta Ross, Ph.D., and Joseph Sirosh, Ph.D. 

The advisors bring perspectives rarely found in one group: executives who answered to Boards, regulators, and C-suites for what technology actually delivered; a builder of AI and data platforms at global scale; and a leader who shaped one of the world’s largest technology-services and talent ecosystems. Their experience spans banking, high-tech, media, and retail. Each will work directly with Ascendion’s regional and engineering leaders, so their counsel reaches the decisions it is meant to shape. 

“We are changing how software gets built. Enterprise leaders have moved past experiments. They want AI that delivers outcomes boards can measure and risk they can manage. Andy, Jack, Julieta, and Joseph have the experience and know where transformation succeeds. They will challenge our thinking, raise our ambition, and help us navigate a period of intense — and exciting — change,” said Karthik Krishnamurthy, CEO, Ascendion.  

Each advisor will map to a different part of the business, strengthening Ascendion’s alignment with leadership communities across the globe. 

Julieta Ross, Ph.D., former Global CTO of Banco Santander, brings two decades of leading technology inside global banks, along with public-company board experience. She will work with Ascendion’s leadership on executive relationships, go-to-market strategy, and growth, and will help the company meet the governance, regulatory, and risk expectations that banking and financial services leaders place on AI. 

Andy Gamble, former Group CIO of Currys plc, has spent nearly three decades as a technology buyer and transformation leader across consumer electronics, industrial, and retail businesses. He will advise Ascendion’s work across Europe and the UK, with a focus on consumer goods, manufacturing, and retail, and will share what executive teams and Boards expect from a technology partner. 

Joseph Sirosh, Ph.D., former Microsoft CVP and CTO of AI, has spent his career building and scaling machine learning platforms in the high-tech industry. He will advise Ascendion’s engineering leadership on the evolution of AAVA and its broader platform strategy as AAVA becomes an orchestration and harness layer for enterprise AI. 

Jack Madrid, former President and CEO of IBPAP, spent five years leading the industry association behind one of the world’s largest technology and business-services ecosystems, centered in the Philippines. He brings robust experience working across industries, including banking, high-tech, and media, and will advise Ascendion on Asia-Pacific markets and on how AI is reshaping global delivery, skills, and workforce models. 

Together, the advisors give Ascendion an outside perspective on the full spectrum of enterprise AI, from agentic platform strategy and product engineering to industry alignment and delivery. They will add capacity to Ascendion’s ongoing work on AI governance, helping ensure trusted impact from AI-native software engineering, and their practice-based insight will inform how Ascendion applies its Engineering to the Power of AI™ approach to commercial models, platform design, service execution, and workforce development. 

About Ascendion

Ascendion is a global AI-native software engineering company delivering trusted business outcomes – capital unlock, innovation velocity, lower risk – to 250+ enterprise clients. The company delivers business outcomes at scale by combining expert engineers, AI agents, and AAVA, Ascendion’s agentic AI platform. Together, they design, engineer, and operate production-ready software that improves everyday work and life. Learn more at www.ascendion.com.

Engineering to the Power of AI™, Engineering to Elevate Life™, and AAVA™ are trademarks or service marks of Ascendion. AAVA™ is pending registration. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

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