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Illumina and Broad Clinical Labs usher in new era of drug discovery with collaboration to rapidly scale single-cell solutions

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Longstanding partners bring together end-to-end workflows and leading CRISPR
Perturb-seq technologies setting a standard for single-cell studies and enabling a 5
billion single-cell atlas ecosystem within three years

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN), a global leader in next-generation sequencing and array-based technologies, today announced a collaboration with Broad Clinical Labs to rapidly streamline and scale single-cell projects with cutting-edge tools and workflows. 

Together, the longstanding partners will set the standard for scalable single-cell research and accelerate the development of a 5 billion cell atlas within the next three years.

“Disease doesn’t wait, and neither do we – Broad Clinical Labs and Illumina are unlocking the massive opportunities of single-cell sequencing to build a deeper understanding of biology,” said Steve Barnard, Chief Technology Officer at Illumina. “Illumina has set the standard in whole genome sequencing, and now, with Broad’s deep experience and long history of translating complex molecular biology assays into high-throughput, high quality workflows, we’re doing the same with single-cell technology to advance precision health.” 

“Supporting the entire -omics ecosystem in building these capabilities enables significantly greater insights into key drivers of disease and more rapid translation of these insights into better precision care,” said Niall Lennon, Chairman of the Board and Chief Scientific Officer at Broad Clinical Labs. 

“By expanding our partnership to single-cell solutions, we’re making significant strides to understand the roots of disease and close the gap between new biological insights and impact for patients,” said Aziz Al’Khafaji, Director of Molecular R&D at Broad Clinical Labs. “The capabilities we’re building, like combining Perturb-seq with Illumina Single Cell 3′ RNA Prep, will support rapid and consistent data generation like we’ve demonstrated in the whole genome space, giving the research community the ability to create billion-cell atlas studies to make the next discoveries.”

The combination of Illumina’s Single Cell Prep, NovaSeq™ X Plus platform, 25B flow cell and DRAGEN™ analysis software creates a seamless end-to-end workflow enabling the high-throughput processing of single-cell samples.

Broad Clinical Labs will use this leading workflow alongside state-of-the-art techniques like Perturb-seq, CRISPR screens, and other cutting-edge applications. Together, these capabilities will help researchers process and analyze unprecedented volumes of single-cell reads with unparalleled speed and accuracy to make large-scale functional genomics studies possible and accelerate discovery in areas such as disease modeling and drug development.

Use of forward-looking statements

This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors to which our business is subject that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements are: (i) challenges inherent in developing and launching new products and services, including modifying and scaling manufacturing operations, and reliance on third-party suppliers for critical components; (ii) our ability to manufacture robust instrumentation and consumables; and (iii) the acceptance by customers of our newly launched products, which may or may not meet our and their expectations, together with other factors detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, or in information disclosed in public conference calls, the date and time of which are released beforehand. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update these forward-looking statements, to review or confirm analysts’ expectations, or to provide interim reports or updates on the progress of the current quarter.

About Broad Clinical Labs

Broad Clinical Laboratories was founded in 2013 as a non-profit subsidiary of Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to accelerate the world toward a better understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of disease by pursuing projects, developing products, and driving adoption of cutting edge -omics technologies and novel molecular assays. Broad Clinical Labs is a leader in translational genomics, having sequenced over 700,000 genomes in service of its mission to accelerate the understanding and diagnosis of human disease. www.broadclinicallabs.org

About Illumina

Illumina is improving human health by unlocking the power of the genome. Our focus on innovation has established us as a global leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies, serving customers in the research, clinical, and applied markets. Our products are used for applications in the life sciences, oncology, reproductive health, agriculture, and other emerging segments. To learn more, visit illumina.com and connect with us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Contacts

Investors:
Salli Schwartz
858-291-6421
IR@illumina.com

Media:
Christine Douglass
PR@illumina.com

 

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SOURCE Illumina, Inc.

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Compunnel Unveils State-of-the-Art Noida Office: A Strategic Milestone in AI-Led Transformation and Innovation Ecosystem

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New flagship facility positions India center as AI innovation powerhouse; signals strategic shift to agentic AI across all business operations

NOIDA, India, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Compunnel today unveiled its new state-of-the-art office in Noida Sector 142, covering over 1,35,000 sq ft of built-up area, marking a transformative milestone in the company’s strategic repositioning as an AI-led transformation company. More than a facility expansion, this launch represents Compunnel’s evolution from a trusted consulting and technology services provider into a comprehensive AI-native enterprise partner – leveraging agentic AI approaches across intelligent workforce solutions, digital transformation, and cybersecurity services for global enterprises.

The cutting-edge workspace featuring an on-site gym, modern cafeteria, advanced digital infrastructure, air quality control systems, and innovative design – is engineered to attract and nurture world-class talent while serving as an AI innovation hub. The facility will also house InfoPro Learning, a leader in corporate learning solutions, strengthening the collaborative ecosystem for talent development and enterprise training excellence.

A STRATEGIC INFLECTION POINT FOR GROWTH AND DIVERSIFICATION

Compunnel’s strategic shift towards AI-led operations is fundamentally reshaping how the company serves enterprises and positions itself for exponential growth:

Intelligent Workforce Solutions Reimagined: Compunnel’s strategic investment in Eximius – an agentic AI hiring platform – exemplifies the company’s shift towards autonomous intelligence in talent acquisition. By leveraging AI agents that autonomously match talent, predict hiring needs, and accelerate placements, Compunnel is positioned to significantly advance its #48 ranking among the Top 50 Staffing Firms in the USA. Complementing this, OneGuru – Infopro Learning’s agentic platform for the complete ‘hire to retire’ employment lifecycle, establishes the company as a formidable contender in the HCMS/HRIS market, delivering AI-driven workforce management from onboarding to succession planning.

Security, Risk, and Transformation Solutions: In an era where AI-powered threats evolve faster than traditional defenses, Compunnel is embedding living intelligence into enterprise security frameworks. The company’s modern approach helps organizations transform into a more mature, resilient, and risk-reduced state by leveraging advanced workflows to predict risks, proactively dismantle threats, and turn security from a cost center into a competitive advantage. This is complemented by strong capabilities across privacy and compliance-driven risk management, enabling organizations to protect sensitive data, meet regulatory requirements, and strengthen enterprise-wide governance and risk posture.

Digital Transformation Architected for AI-First Operations: Compunnel Digital is an AI-native digital engineering group built for the enterprises redefining what’s possible in Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Consumer, Retail, and Manufacturing. It doesn’t layer AI onto legacy workflows – it architects intelligent systems from the ground up. Powered by Compunnel AI-OS, the company’s AI-first platform, Compunnel designs digital ecosystems where autonomous agents accelerate delivery, data fabrics power real-time decisions, and machine intelligence works alongside human expertise – turning disruption into competitive advantage.

LEADERSHIP VISION: TECHNOLOGY, TALENT, TRAINING, AND TRANSFORMATION

“Technology – and specifically agentic AI – is the backbone of everything we do at Compunnel. This new center amplifies that engine, bringing together AI innovation, advanced analytics, and our growing portfolio of AI-driven companies under one roof,” said Andy Gaur, CEO of Compunnel. “From Eximius transforming how we staff enterprises, to OneGuru revolutionizing HCMS, to incubating the next generation of AI startups – this workplace represents our commitment to leading, not following, the AI transformation. As we serve enterprise clients globally, this is where breakthrough thinking meets breakthrough execution.”

“For technology and business professionals, the new facility represents more than a workplace. It’s a launchpad for career acceleration. The Noida office will serve as a center for talent development, offering opportunities to work on global projects spanning talent solutions, cloud modernization, data and AI, cybersecurity, and digital engineering for Fortune enterprises across sectors such as banking, healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, government, and more,” said Rakesh Shah, President of Compunnel.

ABOUT COMPUNNEL

Founded in 1994, Compunnel delivers AI-driven workforce solutions, digital transformation, and cybersecurity services to global enterprises. With 30+ delivery centers across the U.S. and global R&D hubs in Canada, Europe, and India, Compunnel serves 23% of Fortune enterprises. Ranked #48 on SIA’s Largest Staffing Firms in the United States and recognized 12 times on the Inc. 5000 list, Compunnel combines deep domain expertise with intelligent automation to accelerate enterprise velocity and build future-ready operations. Learn more at www.compunnel.com.

ABOUT INFOPRO LEARNING

An offshoot of Compunnel, Infopro Learning is a global learning solutions partner that helps organizations transform their workforce development from strategy to scale. For 30 years, they have partnered with the world’s largest and most reputable companies, delivering Managed Learning Services, Leadership Development, Strategic Advisory, and Content Development solutions. Leveraging AI-driven innovation, they help organizations deliver greater impact while optimizing costs. Learn more at www.infoprolearning.com.

ABOUT ONEGURU

OneGuru is an AI-powered talent development platform that improves employee performance by taking learning out of the classroom and into the flow of work. Every employee will get access to a dedicated AI-Agent, equipped with insight from the world’s greatest coaches and the data that drives your business and people forward (HRIS, Performance, LMS). Unlike most agents, OneGuru is designed to be proactive, nudging your team to build their skills, build their careers, and build your business. Learn more at https://oneguru.ai/.

Media Contact:
Email: pr@compunnel.com

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2971872/Compunnel_Noida.jpg

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SUPCON Showcases the Path to Autonomous Operations with Software-defined Controls, Large Industrial AI models and Agentic AI Platforms at Hannover Messe 2026

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HANNOVER, Germany, May 5, 2026 /CNW/ — At Hannover Messe 2026, SUPCON (688777.SH, SUPCON.SW), a global leader in industrial automation and AI, demonstrated how the process industry can move beyond simple data analysis to real-time and autonomous execution. By unveiling its latest advancements in Agentic AI and software-defined automation, SUPCON provided a tangible roadmap for the transition to fully autonomous operating plants.

A central theme of the showcase was bridging the industry’s “execution gap”. While many plants generate vast amounts of data, the challenge remains in acting on that data in a timely, reliable manner. SUPCON’s integrated solution featuring the Universal Control System (UCS), Time-series Pre-trained Transformer (TPT2), and UNS-based IIOT Data Platform (Tier0), enables industrial plants to not only analyze information but to execute closed-loop optimization in real time.

“Industrial AI has reached a critical turning point. It is no longer just about generating insights, but about embedding them within closed-loop controls to achieve peak performance,” said Kenneth Lim, Director of Strategy and Marketing at SUPCON International Business. “Our role is to provide the industry with an open, reliable foundation that allows our customers to scale at their own pace, ensuring that today’s investments remain future-proof for decades of innovation ahead.”

Technical Keynote Highlights: The Path to Autonomous Operating Plants

Through a series of technical keynote sessions, SUPCON reframed autonomy not as a single hardware upgrade, but as a strategic operating model designed to empower the modern workforce.

Real-time Field Intelligence (Smart Field Instrumentation & Ethernet-APL): Moving beyond legacy protocols like HART, SUPCON showcased how Ethernet-APL brings high-speed connectivity directly to the field, turning passive instruments into active sources of real-time intelligence.Building the Unified Namespace (Tier0): To eliminate the “integration tax,” SUPCON introduced Tier0, a UNS-based platform using MQTT pub/sub and semantic structures to create a shared, event-driven data layer that prevents vendor lock-in and unifies fragmented systems.Agentic Application Development (AppBuilder): The Tier0 AppBuilder demonstrated how factory teams can build industrial applications up to 10x faster using natural language and domain-aware agents, moving from costly customization to rapid, user-centric creation.The Autonomous Workforce (Robotics & AI): By utilizing autonomous robots as “mobile sensors” for hazardous tasks like leak detection, SUPCON proved that technology isn’t about replacing humans, but about liberating engineers for high-value creative problem-solving and strategic oversight.Software-Defined Controls: The Universal Control System (UCS) represents a new era of efficiency. By revolutionizing traditional controls architecture, it reduces physical footprints and cabling by up to 90%, directly helping partners meet carbon neutrality goals without sacrificing productivity.Time-Series Pre-Trained Transformers (TPT): Unlike standard Large Language Models, the TPT is purpose-built for industrial time-series data. It consolidates fragmented use cases like equipment health forecasting and bottleneck analysis into a single AI layer for faster scaling.Autonomous Operating Plants (AOP): SUPCON framed “Zero-Touch Operations” not as a single hardware upgrade, but as a total strategic transformation. Addressing the “hidden” barriers of fragmented data and multi-OEM complexity, Autonomous Operating Plants (AOP) are achievable when open architectures and next-generation control systems are designed as a unified foundation from the outset.Self-Optimizing Plants via Closed-Loop AIO: SUPCON introduced Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO) as a revolutionary step beyond traditional DCS and APC systems. By enabling AI to learn from real-time plant data and feed optimized decisions back into control systems autonomously. This closed-loop approach serves as a practical pathway for manufacturers to optimize throughput, energy, and safety simultaneously without manual intervention.

A Partner in Industrial Evolution

By connecting smart field instrumentation, open data platforms, and software-defined control, SUPCON is providing the industry with a practical blueprint for safer, more resilient, and self-optimizing plants. The vision presented at Hannover Messe 2026 establishes that autonomous operations are achievable today when open architectures and next-generation intelligence are designed as a unified foundation.

Resources & Media

Resource Hub & Presentations: global.supcon.com/events/hannover-messe-2026Highlights Video: View on YouTubeNext Event: Join us at Gastech 2026 | 14–17 September 2026 | Bangkok, Thailand

About SUPCON

SUPCON (688777.SH, SUPCON.SW) is a global provider of industrial automation and industrial AI, offering control systems, digital platforms, robotics, and software solutions that power the world’s process and energy industries. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, with the SUPCON Internal Business Headquarters in Singapore and the regional hubs around the globe, SUPCON is well-positioned to elevate industrial intelligence and drive customer success. Trusted by more than 250 leading enterprises and 39,000+ customers worldwide across major process industries such as oil & gas, chemical and petrochemical, as well as other industries such as power, pulp and paper, building materials, and more, SUPCON is driving the evolution from automation to autonomy–enabling safer, smarter, and more sustainable industrial operations.

For more information, please visit https://global.supcon.com/

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SOURCE SUPCON International Business Pte Ltd

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PwC and OpenAI Build a First-of-Its-Kind OpenAI Native Finance Function

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The collaboration aims to help redefine the future of finance by combining agentic AI with human supervision, enabling finance teams to govern, improve, and scale AI agents over time.

NEW YORK, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — PwC today announced an expanded collaboration with OpenAI to help create the first of its kind AI native finance function at enterprise scale, combining agentic AI with human supervision to reshape how finance work gets done.

Together, PwC and OpenAI are building AI agents around the core operating rhythms of finance, from planning, forecasting, and reporting to procurement, payments, treasury, tax, and the accounting close. What sets this collaboration apart is its focus on building in the real world, not just designing in theory. For example, PwC and OpenAI are building a procurement agent inside the OpenAI finance organization, and are applying those learnings to additional agents across core finance workflows. That hands-on model is intended to speed innovation, prove the value of an AI native finance function in practice at OpenAI, and continuously improve the offering based on learnings.

Powered by OpenAI native finance capabilities and PwC’s deep expertise in finance, risk, and transformation, the collaboration is intended to move finance beyond task automation toward an operating model where AI agents can execute complex work, collaborate across workflows, and support faster, more insight-driven decisions.

“Finance is at an inflection point, where organizations are moving from process efficiency to intelligent, decision-centric operations,” said Tyson Cornell, US Advisory Leader. “Through our collaboration with OpenAI, we’re helping clients embed agentic AI into the core fabric of the finance function, enabling more proactive insights, stronger controls, and a more adaptive operating model.”

In this new operating model, the role of finance professionals evolves from primarily executing processes to supervising, governing, and improving AI agents over time. Finance teams remain accountable for judgment, controls, and outcomes, while helping define the guardrails, policies, and organizational memory that allow agents to perform more effectively and responsibly. Through MCPs and reusable skills, agents can connect to enterprise systems with the right controls, produce more reliable outputs, and follow consistent operating patterns across finance processes.

At the same time, domain experts can use Codex and OpenAI emerging product surfaces to build bespoke applications for targeted finance workflows — accelerating solutions for accruals, close activities, reconciliations, reporting, and other operational needs without relying solely on traditional software development cycles. This is the foundation of a new kind of finance function: AI native by design, human-governed actions, continuously improving over time.

“Finance has always been about judgment, trust, and making decisions in environments filled with complexity and constant change. AI gives finance leaders a much deeper ability to see around corners and act faster,” said Sarah Friar, CFO at OpenAI. “I believe we’re now entering a moment where the finance function itself gets reimagined to shape decisions in real time. The opportunity here is far bigger than efficiency, it’s about giving finance leaders the tools to operate with greater foresight, agility, and strategic impact across the business.”

This collaboration reflects a broader shift toward an OpenAI native finance operating model, where work begins with intent and is executed by AI agents acting across systems, workflows, and data environments. Through hands-on collaboration, PwC and OpenAI are creating a continuous feedback loop between emerging innovation and real-world execution. This model allows both organizations to rapidly test, refine, and scale capabilities in ways that are practical, enterprise-ready, and closely aligned to the evolving priorities of CFOs.

Co-developing the future of Intelligent Enterprise for Finance

The focus of this collaboration is on practical, high-value workflows where AI agents can execute and coordinate work under human supervision. This includes:

Procurement agents that guide intake, create requisitions, answer policy questions, record item receipt and support procurement workflowsSpecialized agents that accelerate contract review, perform risk assessments, and power other autonomous finance operationsBespoke applications that help automate accruals, accelerate close activities, streamline reporting, and deliver customized dashboards — enabling domain experts to build targeted solutions around enterprise platforms faster and better serve stakeholders.

By leveraging Workspace Agents, Codex and OpenAI emerging product surfaces, the collaboration aims to show how finance teams can move beyond point automation toward an enterprise operating model where agents run repeatable workflows, surface exceptions, and continuously improve how work gets done.

PwC is proud to collaborate with OpenAI in this way within the finance domain, helping shape how an AI native finance function can be deployed with the governance, transparency, and control required in enterprise environments. Together, PwC and OpenAI are translating emerging AI capabilities into enterprise-ready solutions designed to work within existing finance systems, controls, and operating models.

You can learn more about how PwC and OpenAI are helping drive impact here: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology/alliances/openai.html

About PwC 

At PwC, we help clients build trust and reinvent so they can turn complexity into a competitive advantage. We’re a tech-forward, people-empowered network with more than 364,000 people in 136 countries and 137 territories. Across audit and assurance, tax and legal, deals and consulting we help clients build, accelerate and sustain momentum. Find out more at www.pwc.com.

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SOURCE PwC

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