HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On April 20, Ant Digital Technologies introduced its architectural vision for the agent economy at Hong Kong Web3 Festival — the “4R Full-Stack Architecture,” comprising four layers: Agentic Runtime, Payment Rails, Agent Registry, and Root Infrastructure — aimed at providing AI agents with foundational technical infrastructure covering identity, payments, risk control, and regulatory compliance.

In her keynote, Dr. Yan Ying, CTO of Ant Digital Technologies identified four fundamental fault lines in the current foundations of the agent economy: execution failures arising from prompt logic vulnerabilities, an accountability vacuum caused by AI’s lack of verifiable identity, transactional barriers stemming from payment gateways designed around human principals, and collaboration risks that emerge when unfamiliar agents cannot establish mutual trust. “This cannot be resolved by patching software,” she stated. “It requires a ground-up redesign at the infrastructure layer.”

The core product of the Agentic Runtime layer is DT Claw, which embeds the CARLI safety model to enforce behavioral constraints on agents at the execution level, supports multi-model compatibility and financial-grade compliance standards, and is designed to ensure that every AI operation is controllable, auditable, and recoverable.

The Payment Rails layer establishes a native on-chain payment channel that integrates agent-driven intelligent decision-making with verifiable credential chain technology, enabling precise identification of payment intent and end-to-end security while delivering full transaction transparency and immutability. For high-frequency micropayment scenarios, the platform builds a native instant settlement network supporting cross-chain, multi-asset seamless transfer and intelligent routing, significantly improving capital turnover efficiency. Additionally, by providing a standardized developer toolchain and a frictionless wallet integration experience, the solution substantially lowers both development barriers and end-user adoption costs — forming a payment closed-loop that balances financial-grade security with best-in-class usability.

The Agent Registry layer issues on-chain identities to each agent based on the DID (Decentralized Identifier) standard and ERC-8004, ensuring every instance of inter-agent collaboration is traceable and verifiable. The Root Infrastructure layer serves as the architectural foundation, leveraging Jovay Layer2 to achieve sub-120-millisecond transaction confirmation in support of AI micropayments, and combining ZKVM technology to enable off-chain computation with on-chain verification — resolving the computational trust problem inherent in the AI economy. As Yan Ying put it, “Root Infrastructure uses blockchain and privacy-preserving computation to provide agents with a tamper-proof contract execution environment. Even two agents with no prior relationship can establish trust through code and transact with confidence.”

AI is currently progressing from the Chat phase through the Action phase and into the era of the agent economy. Yan Ying argued that the defining transformation of this third phase lies not in AI becoming more intelligent, but in AI beginning to hold assets and exercise transactional authority. She noted that over the past decade-plus, Ant Digital Technologies has accumulated deep engineering expertise across financial-grade security, privacy computing, blockchain, and compliance systems — and that the 4R Architecture represents a ground-up research and development effort built upon that foundation.

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SOURCE Ant Digital Technologies

Seasoned product leader joins from OLX to scale Candid’s Live Marketing™ AI infrastructure across the UK and beyond

LONDON and AMSTERDAM, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Candid, the platform-based advertising, marketing and communications group operating across the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, has today appointed Andrew Shaw as Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO), effective immediately.

Working at group level, Shaw assumes responsibility for Candid’s product strategy, technology infrastructure and the scaling of its agency brands and capabilities. His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for the group, with strong and growing market demand for Candid’s proprietary Live Marketing™ platform — an integrated, AI-powered infrastructure spanning strategy, campaigns, media and creative. Shaw’s immediate mandate is to accelerate its development and bring it to enterprise scale.

Shaw joins with a strong international pedigree in product leadership and technology innovation. He was most recently Director of Product at OLX in Amsterdam, and prior to that held a comparable senior product role at adidas in Germany. Originally from South Africa, Shaw spent over five years in Germany before relocating to the Netherlands four years ago, where he has built deep expertise working within complex, international technology organisations.

In his new role, Shaw will work across Candid’s group of agencies and brands — building the product and technology foundations that underpin the group’s client proposition and ensuring the Candid platform maintains its competitive edge in a fast-evolving market.

Andrew Shaw, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Candid:

“My remit is clear: to take Candid’s Live Marketing™ infrastructure from proven technology to a truly differentiated, enterprise-grade and scalable platform — one that holds its competitive advantage in a market that is moving fast.”

Gerard Ghazarian, Founder & President, Candid:

“Andrew brings exactly the depth of product and technology leadership that this moment calls for. He will be instrumental in shaping our product strategy and in building the technology organisation we need to realise our ambitions — in the UK, the Netherlands, and beyond.”

Shaw’s appointment represents a significant step in Candid’s continued investment in its technology capabilities and leadership team. As the group scales across its agency brands and geographies, this appointment signals an unambiguous commitment to building a robust, future-proof platform that delivers tangible, measurable value for clients and brand partners across the portfolio.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2960657/Candid.jpg

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TOKYO, April 21, 2026 /CNW/ — NIPPON EXPRESS HOLDINGS, INC. (hereafter “NX Group”) has reached an agreement to acquire all shares in Metro Supply Chain Group Inc. (“Metro Supply Chain Group”) based in Montreal, Canada, and entered into a share purchase agreement, dated April 17, 2026.

Logo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dqm0cxpYamnvMUra1AGXMuGlX932Z353/view?usp=drive_link 

The transaction values Metro Supply Chain Group at CAD1.8 billion (approximately 207.0 billion yen) on an enterprise value basis, representing the largest acquisition in NX Group’s history. In addition, an earnout of up to CAD400 million (approximately 46.0 billion yen) may be payable to the sellers, contingent on the company meeting certain financial targets as defined in the share purchase agreement.

Metro Supply Chain Group has a strong operational footprint across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, providing third-party logistics (3PL) services to a broad range of industries, including consumer goods, automotive, manufacturing and healthcare. Through this acquisition, NX Group expects to significantly expand its presence in the North American market and enhance its end-to-end logistics capabilities. The transaction represents a pivotal step toward accelerating NX Group’s long-term vision — set out in its management plan “NX Group Management Plan 2028 Dynamic Growth 2.0” — of becoming “a logistics company with a strong presence in global markets.”

For more details, please visit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvzqxdP0zEEDCtmm2yhpGjBuDkM3iJea/view?usp=drive_link 

About the NX Group: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mbvBL6C8THZNrR5LREgGeafNkEdaAmV-/view?usp=drive_link 

NX Group official website: https://www.nipponexpress.com/ 

NX Group’s official LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nippon-express-group/ 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nx-group-to-acquire-all-shares-in-metro-supply-chain-group-of-canada-turning-it-into-subsidiary-302747977.html

SOURCE NIPPON EXPRESS HOLDINGS, INC.