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NCS Analytics Makes NCS Thea Available as Standalone Lending Intelligence Platform for Cannabis Financial Institutions

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DENVER, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NCS Analytics, the leader in cannabis operational intelligence and predictive analytics, today announced the standalone availability of NCS Thea, its lending intelligence platform designed specifically for financial institutions, private lenders, credit funds, and other organizations providing capital to licensed cannabis businesses.

Launched in April 2026 as part of the NCS Platform, NCS Thea was developed to support financial institutions entering the cannabis lending market. By offering NCS Thea as a standalone solution, lenders can now access operational intelligence without subscribing to the full NCS Analytics compliance suite.

Cannabis lending creates unique challenges that traditional underwriting tools were never designed to address. Financial statements are often inconsistent, conventional credit data is limited, and the industry’s regulatory complexity makes it difficult to validate borrower performance. NCS Thea tackles these challenges by combining government-mandated operational data from state cannabis track-and-trace systems with NCS Analytics’ proprietary behavioral and predictive analytics to provide an objective, independent assessment of business health and lending risk.

Rather than relying solely on borrower-submitted financial documents, NCS Thea analyzes the operational data that cannabis businesses are legally required to report to state regulators, providing lenders with an additional layer of confidence when evaluating borrowers.

The platform generates a composite lending score and detailed operational profile that supports multiple stages of the credit process, including:

Pre-Screening: Quickly identify qualified lending opportunities before committing time in collecting documentation.Underwriting: Independently validate borrower-reported financial information with government-mandated operational data while identifying potential anomalies or emerging risks.Portfolio Monitoring: Continuously monitor existing borrowers with regularly updated scores that provide early warning of operational deterioration before it appears in quarterly or annual financial statements.

“NCS Thea was built to solve one of the biggest challenges facing cannabis lenders- access to trusted, objective data,” said Adam Crabtree, Founder and CEO of NCS Analytics. “Financial institutions want to expand lending within the cannabis industry, but they need greater confidence that they’re making informed decisions. NCS Thea provides an independent operational perspective based on data businesses are already required to report, allowing lenders to underwrite more consistently, monitor portfolios more proactively, and ultimately expand access to capital with greater confidence.”

Expanding Access to Trusted Cannabis Lending Intelligence

Making NCS Thea available as a standalone product gives banks, credit unions, private lenders, commercial finance companies, credit funds, family offices, and cannabis-focused investment firms direct access to operational intelligence without requiring the full NCS Analytics platform.

Unlike traditional commercial credit models that primarily evaluate historical financial statements and consumer or business credit histories, NCS Thea incorporates operational performance, compliance trends, inventory management, sales activity, business relationships, financial indicators, and other predictive factors to generate a single, easy-to-understand lending risk assessment.

The platform is designed to help lenders:

Improve underwriting consistencyReduce manual due diligenceIdentify operational risk earlierMonitor borrower health throughout the life of a loanExpand responsible access to capital across the regulated cannabis industry

As cannabis lending continues to mature, NCS Thea provides a standardized operational intelligence layer that helps financial institutions make faster, more confident decisions while strengthening portfolio performance.

For more information about NCS Thea, visit www.ncsanalytics.com/introducing-thea.

About NCS Analytics

NCS Analytics, founded in 2015 in Denver, Colorado, is a leading advanced analytics company that empowers regulators and financial institutions to oversee high-risk industries—starting with cannabis—through its NCS Platform. This SaaS solution aggregates millions of daily data points, delivering real-time anomaly detection, risk scoring, alerts, and compliance monitoring to prevent diversion, fraud, and non-compliance while supporting BSA/AML requirements. NCS Analytics monitors thousands of licenses across multiple states, processes 89M+ records weekly, and launched its newest analytic tool, the Risk Index, in 2025. Discover how NCS empowers real-time critical decision-making with absolute confidence at ncsanalytics.com.

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Rockwell Automation Receives Eight Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards

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India-based Gurukul leadership development program wins four Gold and four Silver honors in the 2026 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards

NEW DELHI, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, announced that its India-based Gurukul leadership development program has received eight awards at the 2026 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards®. The program earned four Gold and four Silver awards, receiving recognition for all eight submissions entered across four disciplines.

In Learning & Development, the Gurukul program received three Gold awards for Best Competencies & Skill Development, Best Use of a Blended Learning Program and Best Learning Team. In Talent Management, the program earned two Silver awards for Best High Potential Development and Best Succession & Career Management. In Leadership Development, it received Gold for Best Unique or Innovative Leadership Development Program and Silver for Best Leadership Development Program. The program also earned Silver for Best Program for Upskilling Employees in the Future of Work discipline.

The Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards recognize organizations that successfully develop and deploy programs, strategies, technologies and solutions that deliver measurable business results and advance excellence in human capital management. Each submission is evaluated by an independent panel of Brandon Hall Group analysts, industry experts and experienced practitioners against criteria including business need, program design, innovation, adoption and organizational impact.

The Gurukul program was designed to prepare high-potential team leads for broader enterprise roles as Rockwell Automation India evolves into a strategic Global Capability Center. Developed with Chrysalis HRD Pvt Ltd., the nine-month program combined leadership assessments, experiential workshops, simulations, action learning projects, global mentoring and coaching to strengthen strategic thinking, commercial awareness and stakeholder influence. All 15 participants completed the leadership journey, with a participant satisfaction score of 4.9 out of 5. During the program, eight participants were promoted and three others transitioned into expanded or different roles, while manager feedback identified improvements in enterprise perspective, collaboration and leadership ownership.

“This recognition from Brandon Hall Group is a testament to Rockwell Automation India’s commitment to developing talent and creating a future-ready workforce. Through Gurukul, we have built a learning ecosystem that empowers employees to continuously grow, embrace new opportunities, and develop the leadership capabilities needed for tomorrow’s challenges. Winning eight awards across learning, talent management, leadership development, and future of work categories is an honor that reflects the impact of our people-first approach and the remarkable contributions of our teams,” said Abhishek Misra, Head Human Resources – India, Rockwell Automation.

“Every year, the HCM Excellence Awards remind us that innovation is ultimately about impact. The organizations recognized this year have demonstrated that great HR and learning strategies don’t just improve programs, they strengthen organizations, empower people and deliver measurable business results. We are honored to celebrate their achievements,” said Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group™ and HCM Excellence Awards® Program Leader.

For more information about the awards, visit the official Brandon Hall Group announcement.

About Rockwell Automation: Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), is a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation. We connect the imaginations of people with the potential of technology to expand what is humanly possible, making the world more productive and more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 26,000 problem solvers dedicated to our customers in more than 100 countries as of fiscal year end 2025. To learn more about how we are bringing the Connected Enterprise® to life across industrial enterprises, visit www.rockwellautomation.com.

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As the Industry Revisits What Premium Customers Value, LEPAS Shares Its Own Perspective

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BARCELONA, Spain, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As the automotive industry revisits what premium customers value, LEPAS, Chery Auto’s mid-to-premium new energy vehicle (NEV) brand, is setting out its own perspective. For LEPAS, premium is defined by elegance: design people connect with, technology that stays in the background, and a cabin that makes every journey feel composed.

“We believe premium is something you experience every day, not only on special occasions,” said a LEPAS spokesperson. “It is the calm of a quiet cabin, the pleasure of a considered design and the feeling that a car fits the way you live. That is what we mean by elegant mobility, and it guides every product we create.”

LEPAS expresses this view through three brand pillars. Leopard Aesthetics draws on the poise and agility of the leopard to shape a distinctive design language. Elegant Technology, built on the LEX Platform, aims to make cockpit and safety technology intuitive. Exquisite Space combines thoughtful space planning, comfortable materials, acoustic refinement and everyday practicality.

The LEPAS L6 brings these ideas into the cabin. At the 2026 Torino Automotive Design Award (TADA), announced on Sept. 11, 2026 in Turin, Italy, the LEPAS L6 received the Best Interior Design Award in the City Car category. The 2026 edition evaluated 87 models across City Car, Family Car and Premium Car categories. The jury highlighted the L6’s spacious and refined cabin, its premium materials and flexible storage, and the natural integration of technology throughout the interior.

The cabin features a flat rear floor, a gull-wing wraparound layout and NVH optimisation designed to support a calm interior atmosphere. The LEPAS L6 EV has launched in Thailand; specifications and availability vary by market.

LEPAS believes customers should be free to choose the powertrain that suits their lives. Its portfolio covers multiple powertrain technologies for different market needs, with NEV models launched in markets including Thailand and Indonesia and pre-sales underway in selected European markets. Within Chery Group, the iCAUR brand is also preparing to enter several European markets.

In October, LEPAS will host its inaugural Global Elegant Lifestyle Week under the theme “TOGETHER IN ELEGANCE” during the 2026 Chery International User Summit, bringing together users, partners and cross-industry guests to explore how elegance can shape everyday mobility.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/as-the-industry-revisits-what-premium-customers-value-lepas-shares-its-own-perspective-302887449.html

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Brain-Inspired AI Neo-lab Xisiid Intelligence Raises Seed Funding

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The Company Unveils the First Brain-Inspired Self-Evolving Foundation System at the Shanghai Pujiang Innovation Forum

SINGAPORE, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Xisiid Intelligence, an AI neo-lab exploring new paradigms for next-generation artificial intelligence, announced the completion of a RMB 25 million seed round. The funding will primarily support continued research and development of its Brain-Inspired Self-Evolving Foundation System and the joint development of AI applications with domain experts.

As AI agents move beyond conversational applications toward increasingly complex professional workflows, Xisiid Intelligence is developing a new approach designed to help AI systems learn from real-world task execution and continuously build reusable capabilities.

The company also made its public debut at the recent Shanghai Pujiang Innovation Forum, a high-level international science and technology forum jointly hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China. At the forum, it introduced its technical vision and multidisciplinary team and unveiled its proprietary foundation system.

The Next Phase of AI: From Content Generation to Reliably Completing Complex Tasks

The way large language models (LLMs) are evaluated is reaching a pivotal transition. Industry attention is shifting beyond generation and reasoning performance on static benchmarks toward a more demanding question: Can AI reliably complete complex, real-world tasks?

In high-stakes professional fields such as investment banking, management consulting, and cross-border legal practice, a single assignment may require processing large volumes of heterogeneous documents, coordinating workflows across multiple software applications, and reasoning through complex, multi-step processes with iterative verification.

Current state-of-the-art LLMs, however, still struggle with complex, long-horizon tasks. As task length and complexity increase, they remain vulnerable to reasoning drift, compounding errors, and inconsistent execution. Frontier agent benchmarks highlight this gap. Across both APEX-Agents, which evaluates complex tasks spanning multiple applications, and Harvey LAB, which assesses professional legal deliverables, even state-of-the-art models continue to face challenges in reliably completing end-to-end work. Recent public results from Harvey LAB, for example, show that under its rigorous All-Pass standard, leading models still achieve end-to-end task completion rates of below 20%.

“Current AI systems have already achieved remarkable capabilities in generation and reasoning, but in mission-critical environments, the real test is whether AI can reliably complete complex, multi-step work over extended task horizons, like a human expert,” said Dr. Chua Yam Song, Founder of Xisiid Intelligence. “Increasing model parameters alone cannot solve the challenges of reliable execution and cumulative learning. Our approach, Brain-inspired Intelligence for Artificial Intelligence (BI4AI), goes beyond replicating the physical structure of the brain. Instead, we draw on the principles by which biological intelligence organizes cognition, memory, learning, and adaptive feedback—moving AI from a computation-centric paradigm toward a memory-centric one.”

A Dual-System Architecture for Reliable Execution and Continual Learning

To translate this memory-centric philosophy into an engineering architecture, Xisiid Intelligence has developed a dual-system architecture comprising System 1 and System 2, integrating a proprietary language model layer with structured memory layer.

System 1: Fast Execution Through Latent-Space Interaction

System 1 serves as the high-speed execution layer for frequent tasks. Powered by their proprietary latent exchange protocol, it enables vector-based interaction at the internal representation layer, allowing functional modules to exchange states directly rather than relying on decoding and encoding of text.

Conventional agent frameworks typically coordinate modules through prompts and natural-language context. As task horizons expand, larger context windows increase token overhead while important information can become diluted or lost. By using latent exchange protocol, Xisiid Intelligence aims to reduce communication overhead and information loss across complex workflows.

System 2: Task-Centric Hierarchical Memory

System 2 functions as a task-centric hierarchical memory system. Beyond factual knowledge, it captures reusable workflows, decision heuristics, and experience derived from previous task execution.

When the system encounters non-standard or unfamiliar situations, it can retrieve relevant prior experience to provide task-specific constraints, execution guidance, and decision support. This allows accumulated experience to become reusable rather than requiring each task to effectively start from scratch.

Together, System 1 and System 2 form a continual-learning loop driven by real-world task feedback:

Execution –> Feedback –> Generalization –> Consolidation

Within this loop, validated skills and experience can be progressively consolidated into reusable system and model capabilities. The evolution process is governed by evaluation, gating, and rollback mechanisms designed to keep updates controlled and reversible.

As experience accumulates, the system can progressively adapt to the workflows, knowledge, and operating environments of individual professionals and organizations.

Xisiid Intelligence reports that the architecture has already completed initial milestone validation. In benchmark evaluations covering complex professional tasks, its agent system—powered by models of approximately 30 billion parameters—has demonstrated performance comparable to frontier models with more than one trillion parameters, effectively supporting fully private, on-premise deployment.

A Multi-disciplinary Team Advancing Brain-Inspired Intelligence

The technical roadmap of Xisiid Intelligence is grounded on years of interdisciplinary research and engineering across computational neuroscience, brain-inspired computing, artificial intelligence, and large-scale systems.

Founder Dr. Chua Yam Song has extensive experience in computational neuroscience and neuromorphic computing. His previous roles include serving as Principal Investigator for the Neuromorphic Program at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore; Chief Researcher of Neuromorphic Computing at Huawei 2012 Labs; Chief Expert and Director of a leading Chinese Neuromorphic Computing Laboratory. He currently leads and participates in several Chinese National research initiatives, including projects under the China Brain Project.

At the 2024 World Internet Conference, Dr. Chua introduced NaoQi-SuWen, the first brain-inspired medical language model developed in China. In 2025, leveraging on common core technologies Qixin, a language model designed for emotional companionship, was also launched. He also contributed to the development of a general-purpose neuromorphic cloud platform capable of supporting both large language models and brain simulations up to 10 billion neurons.

Brain-inspired technologies developed under his leadership have been deployed across healthcare, electric power, energy, transportation, and agriculture, reflecting end-to-end experience spanning algorithm research, software development, and large-scale cloud-edge computing systems.

Building on this foundation, Xisiid Intelligence has assembled a multi-disciplinary team spanning computational neuroscience, neuromorphic computing, large-model algorithms, cognitive science, and systems engineering. The team combines rigorous academic research with extensive industry experience, with research published in leading international venues including Nature Machine Intelligence and IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (IEEE TNNLS).

This enables Xisiid Intelligence to connect insights from biological intelligence with current AI approaches such as large language models, agentic systems, memory architectures—advancing a new generation of brain-inspired innovation designed for complex, real-world tasks.

From Co-Creation to Own Intelligence

Xisiid Intelligence is currently working with institutional clients across professional domains including investment decision-making, legal due diligence, and enterprise operational governance, validating its Brain-Inspired Self-Evolving Foundation System in real-world workflows.

Through continued human-AI interaction, this experience can be consolidated into persistent and reusable organizational memory, enabling the system to develop capabilities increasingly aligned with expertise and technical know-how of each organization.

The system can also be deployed on-premise, allowing mission-critical data, proprietary workflows, and accumulated organizational knowledge to remain within enterprise-controlled environments. Over time, organizations may then build an intelligence asset that is progressively accumulated and owned within the organization itself.

With the new funding, Xisiid Intelligence will continue advancing its core architecture and deepen co-creation with professional institutions across knowledge-intensive domains.

The Company sees this as critical to the transition of AI from content generation to the reliable completion of real-world tasks, and continually evolving through real-world execution.

Its long-term vision is to enable every individual and enterprise to build intelligence they truly own—intelligence that learns, evolves, and compounds over time.

This is “Own Intelligence.”

Media Contact: 
Name : Yang Chen
Email: chenyang@xisiid.com
Website: www.xisiid.com 

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SOURCE Xisiid Intelligence

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