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Sicona lands $45M ARENA grant to open battery materials production facility in Wollongong

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SYDNEY, June 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Australian battery technology company Sicona Battery Technologies has secured $45 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to build and operate its first commercial-scale silicon-carbon battery anode material production facility in the Illawarra region.

As part of this, Sicona and BlueScope Steel Limited have entered into an exclusivity agreement to assess the potential development of the facility within BlueScope’s Port Kembla precinct.

The new facility will scale production of Sicona’s advanced silicon-carbon battery anode material, SiCx®, to produce up to 230 tonnes per annum for advanced customer qualification and commercial sales.

The SiCx® technology improves lithium ion battery performance by increasing energy density by over 20 percent and enabling charging speeds over 40 percent faster than conventional graphite.

It is also compatible with existing lithium-ion battery production lines, giving Sicona a clearer pathway to customer qualification, offtake agreements, and commercial-scale supply with global battery and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The ARENA grant will be delivered under the Australian Government’s Battery Breakthrough Initiative, which supports the growth of domestic battery manufacturing capability and strengthens Australia’s position in the global battery supply chain.

It marks a major validation point for Sicona as it moves from technology development into commercial scale-up, with its materials also being developed for applications across AI data centres, power tools, defence, robotics, and other high-performance battery markets in addition to electric vehicles.

The capital injection will help Sicona meet its ambition to build sovereign battery materials manufacturing capability in Australia, while proving the country can compete in higher-value global battery supply chains.

Christiaan Jordaan, Founder and CEO of Sicona Battery Technologies, said: “ARENA’s support is a major endorsement of Sicona’s technology, our team, and Australia’s ability to build globally relevant battery materials manufacturing capability.

“Battery-powered industries need higher performance at lower cost. Our silicon-carbon anode technology is designed to deliver faster charging, greater energy density and a scalable pathway into existing lithium-ion battery supply chains.

“While EVs remain a major opportunity, some of the fastest-growing demand is coming from AI data centres, robotics, drones and power tools. These applications need high energy and power density today, and SiCx® is designed to help meet that demand. The Wollongong facility will allow us to validate our process at commercial scale, deliver SiCx® to customers, and accelerate our entry to multiple markets.

“It also shows Australia can do more than export unprocessed critical minerals. We can manufacture advanced materials, create skilled jobs, and compete in the high-value battery supply chains that will power the global energy transition.”

Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA, said: “Sicona is developing the kind of next-generation battery technology that can help Australia move further up the global battery supply chain.

“Improving battery performance is critical to accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles and supporting the transition to a net zero economy.

“Sicona’s technology has the potential to deliver faster charging, longer driving range and lower-cost batteries. The technology has undergone independent testing and is already being evaluated by global battery manufacturers and electric vehicle companies, highlighting its strong commercial potential.

“By supporting Sicona’s Wollongong facility, ARENA is helping build the domestic manufacturing capability Australia needs to turn battery innovation into commercial supply.”

The development of the Wollongong facility is expected to create up to 36 skilled manufacturing jobs and support workforce development, training, and local industry partnerships.

It follows a May 2025 licensing and strategic partnership with Himadri in India, including an AU$17.5 million follow on investment, and comes as Sicona is also planning a 6,500 tonne per annum commercial facility, with longer-term expansion potential to 26,500 tonnes per annum.

Sicona Battery Technologies (www.siconabattery.com) is an Australian battery technology company improving lithium-ion battery performance through silicon-carbon anode technology designed to increase energy density and improve charge and discharge rate. Its SiCx® technology is designed for compatibility with existing battery manufacturing lines, supporting battery manufacturers and supply chain partners seeking higher-performance anode materials for electric vehicles, defence, power tools, and other lithium-ion battery applications.

Contact: 
Sicona Battery Technologies
media@siconabattery.com

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SOURCE Sicona Battery Technologies

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How Cool Is Shenzhen? Just Ask Global Journalists Who Come to See It

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SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — “Shenzhen may well be the world’s No. 1 innovation hub. And together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the perfect endpoint of the modern Silk Road.”

That was the glowing verdict American economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered in Shenzhen just over a month ago, effectively giving the city one of the highest-profile stamps of approval in the world of development economics.

Sachs is hardly an ordinary commentator. One of the world’s most influential authorities on sustainable development, and for years a special adviser to the UN secretary-general, he knows a thing or two about how cities and economies grow.

In a recent exclusive interview with Zhi News (from Shenzhen Media Group), Sachs shared his in-depth views. The following is the full report:

when representatives from APEC economies come to Shenzhen, they are bound to be impressed. They will discover that the city is not merely a great place to find capital and business partners, but also a window into entirely new models of development—and perhaps a glimpse of what the future could look like.

After decades of trailblazing development, Shenzhen has more than earned that kind of academic attention. It is, after all, a city built on miracles and a straight-A student in the school of urban development.

The more you admire Shenzhen, the more you begin to understand why it deserves admiration. That, to me, is precisely where the real significance of Shenzhen’s development lies: not simply in what the city has achieved, but in what its experience tells us about where the world may be heading.

As a journalist, I would put it this way: Shenzhen is a mother lode for anyone trying to understand China. For global academia, and perhaps even more so for the world’s media, it is a gold mine of stories, ideas and opportunities.

Over the past year or two, a curious phenomenon has swept across Western social media and, increasingly, Western society itself: China-maxxing, sometimes jokingly described as “becoming Chinese.”

“You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.”

Yes, that viral internet phrase borrows its punchline from the Hollywood classic Fight Club. Earlier this year, The New York Times offered a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek description of the trend in one of its features:  If you drink hot water, wear slippers indoors or shop at Asian supermarkets, you may be Chinese, according to the internet.

But here is what caught my attention.

When it comes to Shenzhen—and China more broadly—Western mainstream media can sometimes be surprisingly slow on the uptake. Take China-maxxing. It only became a mainstream media story, splashed across newspapers and television screens, earlier this year—more than six months after a Twitter user, @Girl_virus, first posted about “becoming Chinese.”

To put it bluntly, China-maxxing was not exactly handed down to the mainstream media from above. The world’s netizens pushed it up there.

The New York Times even framed the provocative question this way in a headline: From Labubu to “becoming Chinese,” has China become cool?

Well, if the Times’ reporter comes to Shenzhen, I’ll make a pretty safe bet: he or she will come away thinking, Shenzhen is super cool.

So here’s my advice to my fellow journalists around the world: follow the lead of those pioneering scholars. Get closer to Shenzhen. Walk into Shenzhen. Stay a little longer. Look a little deeper. And then go farther afield.

There are simply too many fascinating stories here waiting to be told—and too many forces behind those stories waiting to be decoded.

And here’s the best part.

More than two decades ago, Shenzhen residents already had the confidence to put it into one unforgettable slogan:

“Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener.”

I suspect foreign correspondents arriving in Shenzhen today may discover their own version of that old Shenzhen experience:

Come for the story. Stay for the experience. Leave having become, at least a little bit, a Shenzhener.

And trust me, it’s going to be quite an experience. 

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SOURCE Shenzhen Media Group

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Datamaran Appoints Bert Sinnema as Chief Technology Officer

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LONDON, NEW YORK and LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Datamaran, the AI-powered risk and governance software provider, today announced the appointment of Bert Sinnema as Chief Technology Officer. Based out of the company’s Leeuwarden office in the Netherlands, Sinnema will lead Datamaran’s global engineering and product teams, including the engineering hub in Valencia, Spain, driving the technology and product vision behind the platform that helps organizations understand and manage evolving risks and opportunities.

As CTO, Sinnema will own Datamaran’s product vision, strategy, and technology roadmap, from setting direction to architecture, delivery, and the teams building it. He steps into the role at a pivotal moment for the company, as Datamaran deepens its use of AI across the platform to give customers faster, more decision-ready insights into risk, regulation, and stakeholder expectations. His mandate: lead the engineering and product organization, accelerate the pace of AI-driven product development, and ensure the platform keeps pace with the increasingly complex and fast-moving risk landscape.

A track record scaling product engineering teams

Sinnema brings more than 12 years of product engineering leadership experience spanning startups, scale-ups, and category-leading platforms, with deep expertise at the intersection of engineering, cybersecurity, and AI. He joins Datamaran from Eye Security, Europe’s fastest-growing cybersecurity company, where he served as VP of Engineering and built the product and engineering organization from the ground up, scaling the multi-hub international team 3x and helping the company reach a €60M Series C round.

Before Eye Security, Sinnema spent over three years at HackerOne, the world’s leading ethical hacking and bug bounty platform, rising to Director of Engineering. Earlier in his career, Sinnema founded and served as CTO of SmartLockr, a secure communications and privacy platform he bootstrapped, scaled across three countries, and took through Microsoft’s Ventures Accelerator in Berlin.

Building for Datamaran’s next chapter

“Bert has spent his career building engineering organizations from the ground up and scaling them through some of the most demanding environments, including as a founder himself. He knows firsthand what it takes to turn conviction into something real, and to keep adapting as the market evolves,” said Marjella Lecourt-Alma, CEO and co-founder of Datamaran. “As Datamaran evolves from ESG issue management into an AI-powered governance platform, Bert’s founder mindset and experience building teams, technology, and culture make him exactly the right leader to shape what comes next for our teams, customers, and partners.”

“I like to operate at the intersection of product engineering leadership and AI, where the hardest problems live, and the highest-leverage decisions get made,” said Sinnema. “Datamaran is applying AI to help organizations navigate a genuinely complex risk landscape, and I’m excited to bring my experience building and scaling engineering and product organizations to that mission. This is the most interesting time to be building in tech, and I’m looking forward to being in the middle of it with the team.”

Contact: Helen Skeen, Director of Communications and Insights: helen.skeen@datamaran.com.

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SOURCE Datamaran Limited

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Diving deeper into real-life home demands, EZVIZ brings next-generation home innovations and products to IFA with expanded application scenarios

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HOOFDDORP, Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — This IFA, EZVIZ explores new frontiers with its full-range products in the smart home hall 1.2. Under the theme “Accelerating Innovation”, the company creates an immersive experience at booth 175, featuring anticipated debuts that highlight its leadership in self-developed smart home security and home entry products, and introducing next-generation devices powered by local-first EZVIZ AI. EZVIZ also builds excitement by unveiling brand-new smart cleaning robots and wearable electronics for stay-at-home and on-the-go lifestyle needs.

“EZVIZ has prepared a technological feast, with each line-up full of hardcore innovations,” said Chris Xu, General Manager of EZVIZ’s International Business Center. “Especially in Europe, where we’ve developed our portfolio and services for over a decade, we offer global solutions and Europe-tailored options rooted in insights and localization.”

As the hall’s largest stand, EZVIZ designs 5 interlinked areas, allowing audiences to embark on a journey from visual protection and add-on home convenience to robotic fun and future imagination.

For its renowned smart home cameras, EZVIZ aims to lead with an innovative leap in technology and product design.

The triple-lens 90f series for ultra-vision: Upgraded from the 90 Duals, the wired H90f and battery-powered HB90f pack three lenses, ushering in the triple-lens era of professional-level awareness. They are designed to cover visible distance with 12x mixed zoom, capturing details that are easy to miss across broad areas like ranches.The dual-lens 3K series for compact, mobile security: With the basic CB30 and advanced CB60 models, this series embodies flexibility enabled by high-capacity batteries and magnetic bases. The CB60 further maintains a clear view beyond Wi-Fi range with 8x zoom and switchable 4G-WiFi connectivity.

EZVIZ further expands the potential of smart cameras with EZVIZ AI, delivering the EZVIZ MIRA advanced model system directly on devices to unlock advanced detection and management.

EZVIZ AI CoreX home station: Bringing EZVIZ MIRA to the local level, EZVIZ delivers uncompromised AI performance through the masterpiece edge model AI CoreX. Acting as a private home station without reliance on the cloud, it offers large file storage, smart search with text, photos and videos, and multi-device management, without needing to be online.Local-first AI solutions: Making local AI features accessible at all levels, EZVIZ integrates the power of local AI chips on end devices with AI capabilities on edge devices, and by offering flexible AI home plans. Users can either enable detection features on standalone cameras without subscriptions, or customize scalable systems by adding AI CoreX or other home hubs like the X6.

In smart entry, EZVIZ introduces new line-ups for broader scenarios.

Smart AI locks: From DIY options to high-end choices, EZVIZ offers a complete understanding of smart locks. Among them is the flagship DL50FVX, integrated with pioneering technologies. It provides on-device palm vein and facial unlocking, enhanced awareness with dual lenses and a built-in screen.Doorbells & peephole cameras with add-on AI: EZVIZ showcases versatile options, from door viewers to dual-lens video doorbells that keep entrances connected. The state-of-the-art EP8 Ultra marks a new chapter in video doorbells, providing thoughtful care beyond security with its interactive local AI screen.Smart entry systems for villas: Designed for interaction at gates and driveways, EZVIZ presents systematic solutions with the representative HP7 Pro Video Doorphone and HG2 600 Pro Gate Opener. The HP7 Pro ditches bulky intercoms, offering keyless entry, 4K awareness and centralised management, while the HG2 600 Pro delivers lag-free vehicle access.

For more information, please visit ezviz.com/page/ifa2026.

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SOURCE EZVIZ

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