Giant Steps

Google has signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation, the largest nuclear power operator in the US, to update six nuclear plant sites across the country. The deal is aimed at securing more electricity to power Google's rapidly growing data centers, which are consuming increasing amounts of energy due to demand from artificial intelligence and cloud services. It marks a major step by a tech company toward nuclear energy as a long-term power source.

Austrian ski racer Marco Schwarz is stepping away from slalom, saying he wants out of the dense field of course gates that has defined the discipline. The announcement comes as the Alpine skiing season draws attention in Germany and Austria, where Schwarz has been a regular World Cup competitor. Reaction so far has focused on what the move means for his focus on giant slalom and other events going forward.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Ripple, the blockchain payments company, is making inroads into Wall Street, marking a notable step for a crypto firm into traditional finance. The piece examines how the payments giant is expanding its presence among established financial institutions as crypto and legacy finance grow closer.

SpaceX has received approval to build a pipeline in Brevard County, Florida, intended to supply fuel for its Starship program. The approval clears a key infrastructure step for launching the giant rocket from the Space Coast. Local outlets report the decision, though details on the pipeline's route, timeline and environmental conditions have not yet been widely shared.

Real Madrid have stepped up their interest in Jarell Quansah, the Liverpool centre-back. The Spanish giants are monitoring the young English defender as they look to strengthen their back line, though no bid or transfer details have been confirmed yet.

Tereina, a payments firm backed by German software giant SAP, has launched a payment service that operates directly inside SAP's business software. The move lets corporate customers handle transactions without leaving their SAP environment. It marks a step in SAP's push into embedded financial services for enterprise clients, and industry observers are watching how it will compete with established payment providers.

TikTok has introduced an AI-powered shopping assistant alongside a one-click checkout feature, deepening its push into social commerce. The assistant is designed to help users find products and complete purchases without leaving the app. The move puts TikTok in more direct competition with e-commerce giants and other platforms racing to embed AI into shopping.

Bitcoin tested the $86,500 level in a volatile week for crypto markets. The exchange Bitget reopened services to users, and payments giant Swift moved to add Chainlink to its infrastructure, a step widely read as advancing institutional blockchain integration. The week's developments point to renewed momentum across both trading and traditional finance adoption.

Australian biotech CSL has signed a drug development agreement with a Swiss biotech company to develop a treatment for a rare disease. The deal pairs CSL's global plasma and therapeutics scale with the Swiss firm's early-stage pipeline, and marks another step in CSL's push to expand beyond its core blood products business into rare and serious conditions.

Kroger has taken what Grocery Dive describes as a key step forward in connecting retail media creative to digital sales outcomes. The move would let the grocery giant's advertisers measure how ad creative drives online purchases, tightening the loop between media spend and sales results in Kroger's fast-growing retail media business.

The US Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into leading artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI. The probe targets the AI giants' practices as regulators step up scrutiny of the fast-growing sector. Details of the FTC's specific concerns and potential outcomes have not yet been made clear.

Large retailers are stepping up warehouse automation, with robotics increasingly taking over palletizing work traditionally done by hand. Industry coverage focuses on how this shift is changing pallet handling, supply chain labor needs and logistics efficiency, as companies race to cut costs and speed up fulfillment amid growing e-commerce demand.