WILMINGTON, Del., Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — illumine, an AI-powered childcare management platform purpose-built for multi-site operations, already serving more than 4,000 childcare centers across the United States and 60+ countries, has now announced the next chapter of its AI platform at illumine NEXT. The flagship innovation event, witnessed registrations from over 400 future-first early years leaders and introduced three new pathbreaking AI agents designed specifically for the early years.

The conversation brought together insights from global experts, including Tim Seldin, author, educator and President of The Montessori Foundation, with more than 40 years of experience in Montessori education, and Lara Hudson, Early Years Leader and Education Strategist with more than 25 years of international experience, including two decades in the UAE education sector. They were joined by the illumine co-founders – Navneet Rastogi, Sourabh Agarwal and Purva Goyal. The event witnessed enthusiastic conversations around the future of childcare management and the role technology and AI can play in helping operators build stronger, more scalable organizations.

“Childcare leaders are building increasingly ambitious organizations, and the technology supporting them should evolve with that ambition,” said Navneet Rastogi, Co-founder and CEO of illumine. “We see a future where AI does more than just generate content. It can help in taking meaningful action across the workflows that matter most, while keeping people firmly in control and being mindful of the sensitivity of data in the early years. At illumine NEXT, we have given a glimpse into that future, and into what becomes possible when technology is built to help childcare organizations raise the standard as they grow.”

AI Designed for Real-World Childcare Operations

illumine’s latest capabilities are built around a simple belief: AI should not only provide information. It should help get meaningful work done. The three AI agents unveiled at illumine NEXT extend intelligence into the workflows that matter most to childcare organizations.

By taking on repetitive, time-sensitive interactions, the illumine AI enrollment agent helps teams keep enrollment moving while people remain focused on the conversations and decisions that require a human touch. It gives admissions teams support around the clock, helping answer calls in non-work hours and to even book tours and schedule follow-ups. For growing brands in childcare this means fewer inquiries waiting for a response, faster conversions and less routine work competing for the attention of enrollment teams.

The second showcased agent, the illumine AI Billing Agent, brings a simpler way to work with financial and operational information across centers – one just needs to ask!

Operators can ask for financial reports, identify billing trends, retrieve specific information or prepare data for compliance reports by just a quick chat with the billing agent. Instead of searching through reports and files, early years leaders can now access the information they need to make an informed decision.

Multi-center operators can now use the illumine AI billing agent to generate business reports for board meetings with just a chat based interface, thereby saving time on manual reporting. The goal is not simply faster reporting; it is better visibility for better decisions.

The third AI capability, which brought exceptional interest from educators, brings convenience into everyday activity planning, addressing one of the most persistent administrative demands on educators. Today, educators spend hours uploading photos and documenting classroom activities. With the illumine AI Activity Agent, that process becomes simpler. The AI scans the uploaded classroom photos and drafts personalized observations, making documentation faster and easier to review. Educators can also add their own voice input, co-creating and refining observations with AI to turn their notes and ideas into well-drafted documentation in minutes. The result is less time spent on documentation and more time for educators to focus on creating meaningful learning experiences.

For families, richer and more timely documentation can also strengthen the connection between what happens in the classroom and what they see at home.

Across each AI agent, the principle remains the same: technology should take on more of the administrative weight without taking away the judgment, relationships and care at the heart of early years.

Built With AI Controls and Safeguards at the Core

As AI takes on a more active role in childcare operations, trust, privacy and control are foundational. illumine has designed its AI capabilities with safeguards built into the platform from the ground up, giving childcare organizations the ability to adopt AI while maintaining control over how sensitive data is accessed, processed and used.

illumine’s AI architecture is designed around Privacy by Design and Responsible AI principles, with customer data protected within secure, controlled environments. Customer data is not used to train public or shared AI models, and AI workflows are designed to use only the contextual information required for a given task, helping minimize unnecessary exposure of sensitive child, family and center information.

For multi-site operators, illumine provides granular role-based access controls, tenant-level data segregation and comprehensive audit logging, helping ensure that users only access information appropriate to their role, classroom or center. AI-enabled workflows are also designed with appropriate human oversight, particularly where outputs may affect sensitive childcare records, family communications or other high-impact workflows.

illumine’s security foundation includes SOC 2 Type II certification, encryption for data in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication, role-based permissions and auditability across platform activity. Together, these controls are designed to give childcare leaders the confidence to adopt increasingly capable AI without compromising the privacy, security or operational integrity their organizations require.

“As AI becomes more deeply integrated into childcare operations, the question isn’t simply what AI can do. It is whether organizations can use it with the right level of trust, control and accountability,” said Sourabh Agarwal, Co-founder and CTO of illumine. “We believe advanced AI and strong safeguards must be built together. Our approach gives childcare organizations the ability to benefit from AI while maintaining clear controls around their data, access and oversight.”

The capabilities unveiled at illumine NEXT are part of illumine’s broader vision to continue building an AI-native platform for the future of early years management. The event made one thing clear: a new era of AI-powered childcare management is here, and illumine is building what comes next.

About illumine
illumine is an AI-powered childcare management platform built for preschools, Montessori schools, and early education networks. It streamlines enrollment, tuition and billing, attendance tracking, regulatory compliance, and parent communication within a unified system powered by AI. Built to reduce administrative burden and improve operational efficiency, illumine supports childcare centers and multi-site programs across the United States and globally. For more information, visit www.illumine.app

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/illumine-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-childcare-ai-with-its-latest-launch-at-illumine-next-302882198.html

SOURCE illumine Technology Inc

BEIJING, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. (NASDAQ: WiMi) (“WiMi” or the “Company”), a leading global Hologram Augmented Reality (“AR”) Technology provider, leverages the interdisciplinary technology of quantum computing and machine learning to propose a specific problem encoding circuit generation scheme based on reinforcement learning technology, breaking the limitations of traditional heuristic design and providing an innovative technical path for improving the performance of QML models. This scheme takes task adaptability optimization as its core objective and utilizes the intelligent search capability of reinforcement learning algorithms to achieve automated and customized generation of encoding circuit architectures, which will solve the core problems of traditional design methods, such as poor adaptability, low search efficiency, and insufficient consideration of multiple objectives.

WiMi’s proposed technical solution has its core innovations concentrated on the deep integration of model-based reinforcement learning algorithms and hierarchical circuit structures, constructing a sample-efficient encoding circuit search framework. Unlike traditional reinforcement learning algorithms, this solution adopts a model-based reinforcement learning strategy. By constructing an environment model to predict the performance of encoding circuits, it eliminates the need to perform actual quantum hardware evaluations for every candidate circuit architecture, significantly reducing the number of necessary circuit evaluations during the search process, effectively lowering quantum resource consumption, and markedly improving search efficiency. This sample-efficient characteristic enables it to rapidly explore the optimal encoding circuit architecture adapted to specific tasks under limited quantum computing resource constraints.

The introduction of the hierarchical circuit structure further breaks through the performance bottlenecks of traditional search algorithms. It abandons the traditional algorithm’s blind search mode for complete circuit architectures by decomposing the encoding circuit into multiple levels of basic modules. Through hierarchical exploration and combinatorial optimization of each level of modules by the reinforcement learning agent, a complete encoding circuit adapted to specific tasks is gradually constructed. This hierarchical design approach effectively decomposes the originally huge circuit search space, substantially reducing the search dimensions, avoiding efficiency losses caused by redundant searches, and ensuring through module-level optimization that the final generated encoding circuit possesses better structural rationality and performance stability. Compared with traditional search algorithms, this hierarchical strategy achieves dual improvements in search efficiency and architecture optimization effectiveness, providing efficient and feasible technical support for the customized generation of encoding circuits.

WiMi’s researched technical solution possesses strong multi-objective optimization capabilities, enabling it to fully meet the diversified needs of different application scenarios and precisely match the core requirements of tasks. During the encoding circuit generation process, it can simultaneously consider multiple core objectives such as model performance, quantum resource consumption, and noise robustness. Through the design of a multi-objective reward function, the reinforcement learning agent achieves synergistic optimization of various objectives during the search process, avoiding performance imbalance issues caused by single-objective optimization. In the future, WiMi will continue to deeply explore the interdisciplinary field of quantum computing and machine learning technology. Relying on its own technological accumulation and innovation capabilities, it will continuously optimize the encoding circuit generation solution, lead the sustained development of QML technology, and contribute to the progress of the global quantum computing industry.

About WiMi Hologram Cloud

WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. (NASDAQ: WiMi) focuses on holographic cloud services, primarily concentrating on professional fields such as in-vehicle AR holographic HUD, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR, head-mounted light field holographic devices, holographic semiconductors, holographic cloud software, holographic car navigation, metaverse holographic AR/VR devices, and metaverse holographic cloud software. It covers multiple aspects of holographic AR technologies, including in-vehicle holographic AR technology, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR technology, holographic vision semiconductor technology, holographic software development, holographic AR virtual advertising technology, holographic AR virtual entertainment technology, holographic ARSDK payment, interactive holographic virtual communication, metaverse holographic AR technology, and metaverse virtual cloud services. WiMi is a comprehensive holographic cloud technology solution provider. For more information, please visit http://ir.wimiar.com.

Translation Disclaimer

The original version of this announcement is the officially authorized and only legally binding version. If there are any inconsistencies or differences in meaning between the Chinese translation and the original version, the original version shall prevail. WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. and related institutions and individuals make no guarantees regarding the translated version and assume no responsibility for any direct or indirect losses caused by translation inaccuracies.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wimi-studies-quantum-encoding-circuit-adaptation-optimization-architecture-based-on-reinforcement-learning-302882191.html

SOURCE WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc.

Boston Business Journal also names Granite CEO Rob Hale its 2026 CEO Social Leadership Award honoree

QUINCY, Mass., Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Granite Telecommunications, one of North America’s largest providers of communications and technology solutions to businesses and government agencies, today announced it has again been recognized among Massachusetts’ top corporate philanthropists by the Boston Business Journal (BBJ), ranking No. 3 on the publication’s 2026 Top Charitable Contributors List.

The recognition marks Granite’s 18th consecutive year on the BBJ list and its 10th straight year among the top three charitable contributors in Massachusetts. The annual ranking honors companies that reported at least $100,000 in cash contributions to Massachusetts-based charities during the prior calendar year.

The BBJ also named Granite CEO Rob Hale as its 2026 CEO Social Leadership Award honoree. The annual award recognizes a Greater Boston executive who demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to giving back to the community.

“This recognition belongs to our teammates, who bring Granite’s culture of giving to life with their time, generosity and heart, and to the nonprofit leaders doing the hard work every day,” said Hale. “I’m grateful that the BBJ is recognizing Granite’s collective impact, and I’m deeply humbled by the personal honor. More importantly, this recognition shines a light on the nonprofit partners whose tireless work improves countless lives and strengthens our communities.”

Granite’s Corporate Giving and Volunteerism
In 2025, Granite contributed more than $30 million in cash and in-kind donations to charitable organizations in Massachusetts and more than $30.2 million nationwide.

Granite supports causes including medical research and care, housing insecurity, education, food access and veterans’ services. Granite also gives teammates opportunities to support the communities where they live and work through Granite Gives Back, paid volunteer time, employee-led service projects and companywide fundraising efforts.

Granite’s signature Saving by Shaving fundraiser has brought together employees, family members, customers and supporters over the past 13 years. By shaving their heads, donating their hair and contributing to the campaign, participants have helped raise $62.7 million to support lifesaving medical research and patient care, benefiting Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the event’s early years and Boston Children’s Hospital since 2019.

Rob Hale Honored for Social Leadership
The BBJ’s CEO Social Leadership Award recognizes Hale’s commitment to philanthropy and the example he has set for other business leaders. Hale and his wife, Karen, support nonprofit organizations working in health care, education, cancer research, youth development and social services.

In 2025, the Hales donated $110.9 million, including a $100 million gift to Boston Children’s Hospital, the largest gift in the hospital’s history. The gift will help transform pediatric behavioral health care by expanding treatment, research, clinical training and community support.

The Hales have become known for transformational philanthropic investments that strengthen organizations for the long term. In 2022, they committed $1 million per week for 52 weeks to support grassroots nonprofits, with many of the gifts establishing endowments to help sustain their missions for years to come. More recently, after completing his first Boston Marathon, Hale donated $26.2 million to 72 local charities, extending the spirit of the race into a region-wide investment in community organizations.

Granite and Hale were honored at the BBJ’s 21st annual Corporate Citizenship Awards on Sept. 16 at Big Night Live in Boston. The BBJ also featured Hale in a special profile highlighting his commitment to philanthropy and community impact.

To learn more about Granite’s philanthropic initiatives, visit granitenet.com/granite-gives-back.

About Granite
Granite delivers advanced communications and technology solutions to businesses and government agencies throughout the United States and Canada. The company serves more than two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies and has 1.75 million voice and data lines under management, supporting more than 650,000 locations. Founded in 2002, Granite has grown to be one of the largest competitive telecommunications carriers in the U.S. by simplifying sourcing and management of voice, data and cellular service with a single point of contact and consolidated invoicing for all locations nationwide. Today, Granite supports customers with a wide range of services, including access, UCaaS, mobile voice and data, and MSP solutions for SD-WAN, monitoring and network management. Granite employs more than 2,220 people at its headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts, and 10 regional offices nationwide. For more information, visit www.granitenet.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/granite-again-ranked-among-massachusetts-top-charitable-companies-302882031.html

SOURCE Granite Telecommunications, LLC