Global Scans · Skynet · Weekly Summary

• [New] The contract extension, awarded to BAE Systems, will support more than 4,500 workers across the UK in developing advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, advanced software, and augmented reality. UKAuthority
• [New] The best predictive maintenance software for manufacturers in 2026 pulls signal directly from PLCs and IoT sensors, uses AI to separate noise from real risk, prescribes the next action, and opens a work order in the CMMS or EAM automatically. Decisyon
• [New] South Korea's K-Robot Economy Plan targets 1 million robot installations by 2030, while the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act is channeling capital into highly automated semiconductor fabs. Persistence Market Research
• [New] Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have developed PyRET, an open-source software tool that helps scientists understand and predict how energy is transferred between tiny defects in solid materials. AZOM
• [New] Apptronik unveiled the Apollo 2 humanoid robot and also announced the opening of Robot Park, which it will use for data collection and robot training in Texas. Robotics 24/7
• [New] 2026 has not been a quiet year for enterprise software vulnerabilities. Tech Insider
• [New] Worldwide IT spending is forecast to reach $6.31 trillion in 2026, up 13.5% from 2025, with data center systems growing 55.8% and software spending up 15.1%. FE International
• [New] AI agents will eventually rival the capabilities of human traders, while OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to build increasingly autonomous systems that can navigate software and complete complex tasks on their own. CoinDesk
• [New] AMD is betting Helios can grow its data center GPU share from 4.5% to 20-25%, targeting tens of billions in AI revenue starting in 2027 - but closing Nvidia's massive CUDA software ecosystem lead remains the critical hurdle. The Brief - Superculture
• [New] NAVER plans to launch an AI agent platform in Korea in the second half of the year, powered by NVIDIA Agent Toolkit software including NVIDIA NemoClaw blueprints. GlobeNewswire
• We build an Interactive World Simulator: a learned, action-conditioned video prediction model that, given the current image and a sequence of robot actions, predicts the next frames purely in pixel space, with no physics engine inside. Robohub
• OpenAI was testing GPT-5.6 Sol and a more powerful unreleased model using ExploitGym, a benchmark that challenges AI systems to find and exploit software vulnerabilities. Live Science
• Tesla plans to unveil the third generation of its Optimus humanoid robot in the first quarter of 2026. Grokipedia
• Human software engineers will still be needed if for no other reason than the cost of AI. The Guardian
• As AI changes how software is developed - Google says 75% of its code is now written by AI - it's altering the profession much faster than the rank-and-file anticipated. The Guardian
• In a report called Predicts 2026: AI Potential and Risks Emerge in Software Engineering Technologies, Gartner predicts that by 2028, the prompt-to-app approach used by non-technical (citizen) developers could cause software bugs to increase by 2500% - if companies do not add proper checks and rules. Snoika
• Microsoft is preparing Project Perception, an AI cybersecurity platform that finds and fixes software vulnerabilities using models from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic together, positioned as a lower-cost alternative to Anthropic's Mythos-class security offering. Build Fast with AI
• The broader ecosystem-software frameworks, training algorithms, developer tools - is expected to mature over the next 3-5 years. Innovative AI Solutions
• The tech companies that dominate the next decade will not necessarily be the ones with the slickest consumer user interfaces or the largest software ecosystems. MaGeN-AI
• IBM and Quantinuum have both pointed to 2029 as a meaningful target for scalable fault tolerance, which means the software layer will remain tied to hybrid and pre-production use cases through much of the forecast window. Mordor Intelligence
• The enterprise SaaS model faced a direct threat as Starbucks began building internal AI software to replace Microsoft applications. Kersai
• Forrester warns that customers should brace for bigger software bills in 2027 as software and AI vendors raise prices and pile on usage charges. theregister

Last updated: 03 August 2026