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Cao rejoins following tenure as Head of Quantum at BCG X; Olson is one of the few IP attorneys globally who also has a background in theoretical physics

 

BOSTON, Massachusetts – May 27, 2026 – Zapata Quantum (OTC: ZPTA) (“Zapata,” “Zapata Quantum” or the “Company”), a leader in quantum computing algorithm and application development, today announced the return of two of its co-founders to the Company’s leadership team: Yudong Cao, Ph.D., former Head of Quantum at BCG X, as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Jonathan Olson, Ph.D., J.D., as Vice President of Strategy and Operations.

“Yudong and Jonny are pioneers in quantum software and have helped shape the field through foundational work spanning algorithms, applications and intellectual property,” said Sumit Kapur, CEO of Zapata Quantum. “They know first-hand what it takes to translate scientific advances into practical applications, and their decision to return following our restructuring is a powerful validation of both our position and the opportunity ahead.”

Cao rejoins as CTO following his tenure as Head of Quantum at BCG X, a 3,000‑person global tech unit inside Boston Consulting Group. During his prior time at Zapata, he helped develop a significant portion of the Company’s foundational intellectual property portfolio, which today spans more than 60 granted and pending patents across quantum algorithms, optimization, machine learning and software techniques. His work in quantum application research includes Zapata’s quantum-enabled drug discovery study co-authored with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that was recognized as one of Nature Biotechnology’s Top 10 Papers of 2025.

“Quantum computing has made extraordinary progress, but significant work remains in turning technological advances into practical applications,” said Cao. “The next phase of the industry will require software infrastructure that helps organizations identify, develop and deploy quantum applications more effectively, including by leveraging advances in AI and formal verification methods. I’m excited to work alongside Jonny and the broader team to advance that vision.”

Olson rejoins as VP of Strategy and Operations and is one of the few intellectual property attorneys globally with a deep expertise in quantum algorithms and a background as a theoretical physicist. His postdoctoral research at Harvard University focused on quantum computing and machine learning. He also helped Zapata secure the first significant quantum computing appeal before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), establishing an important precedent that expanded the accessibility of quantum algorithm patents.

“I believe Zapata Quantum holds the key to unlocking an entirely new era of developing quantum applications at scale,” said Olson. “Organizations need better infrastructure for evaluating and developing quantum applications in a rigorous and repeatable way. Zapata uniquely combines the scientific leadership, enterprise experience and foundational IP needed to meet that challenge, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”

Bogotá, Colombia, May 26: To support job creation, advance sustainable infrastructure, expand access to finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and strengthen Colombia’s transition to a low-carbon economy, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, announced a financing package of up to US$150 million for Banco de Bogotá.

The investment aims to mobilize private capital into key sectors such as construction, transport, energy, and manufacturing—critical drivers of productivity, competitiveness, and job creation in the country. These labor-intensive sectors face structural constraints linked to infrastructure gaps and limited access to financing.

The investment will focus on three key areas. Approximately 20 percent will support transition finance, helping companies advance technological upgrades and improve operational efficiency. Around 30 percent will be channeled to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to support their growth and expansion. The remaining 50 percent will be allocated to sustainable construction, exclusively financing projects certified under EDGE Advanced or comparable international standards such as LEED Gold or Platinum, with a strong emphasis on reducing water and energy footprints in Colombia’s construction sector.

In addition to financing, IFC provided technical assistance to Banco de Bogotá to develop the first transition finance frameworks in Latin America, strengthening the financial system’s capacity to channel resources toward investments aligned with decarbonization goals.

“This transaction demonstrates our ability to structure innovative financial solutions aligned with international standards, mobilizing capital toward projects that enhance business competitiveness, accelerate the energy transition, and deliver tangible economic and environmental impact for Colombia. The mobilization of these US$150 million will enable more companies to access financing to modernize their processes, reduce energy and water consumption, adopt more efficient technologies, and strengthen their competitiveness in an increasingly demanding environment,” said Juan Carlos Echeverry, President of Banco de Bogotá.

“This project reinforces our commitment to supporting sustainable economic growth in Colombia by expanding access to long-term financing for sectors that are critical for job creation and competitiveness,” said Elizabeth Martínez Marcano, IFC Division Director for Colombia, the Andean Region, and the Caribbean. “At the same time, we are helping mobilize capital toward investments that drive climate transition and strengthen the country’s resilience.”

The investment is supported by a performance‑based incentive under the IFC-UK Market Accelerator for Green Construction (MAGC), a blended finance program supported by the United Kingdom, acting through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. MAGC helps scale green construction across emerging markets by incentivizing financial intermediaries to offer or expand green construction lending products. 

 

Santa Clara, CA, May 26: Auditoria.AI, the leader in agentic artificial intelligence for the Office of the CFO, today introduced Governed Autonomy, a new operating framework for enterprise finance AI that allows autonomous agents to execute work inside enterprise-defined guardrails instead of requiring human approval at every step. Auditoria believes the biggest barrier to enterprise AI deployment is no longer model capability, but governance.

The enterprise AI conversation inside finance is changing quickly. Most organizations no longer question whether AI can automate work. The bigger issue is whether autonomous systems can operate inside financial environments without introducing new governance, compliance, and operational risks. The announcement coincides with Gartner’s 2026 CFO Symposium, where Autonomous Finance has emerged as a central theme for finance leaders evaluating how AI agents can safely operate across accounts payable, accounts receivable, planning, and controllership functions.

McKinsey reports that 88% of organizations are already using AI in at least one business function, yet most have not embedded it deeply enough to capture enterprise-level value. According to Deloitte’s 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report, 46% of organizations cite governance and oversight as a key AI risk, while only 21% say they have a mature governance model in place. Auditoria believes the gap between AI experimentation and operational deployment now comes down to governance, not capability.

“Human-in-the-loop was how the industry learned to trust AI. It is not how the enterprise will ultimately run on it,” said Rohit Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder of Auditoria.AI. “If every invoice or approval still needs a human to validate the system, AI is just sitting on top of the old operating model. The bottleneck shifts from doing the work to approving it. Governed Autonomy changes that. The enterprise sets the policies upfront: what agents can do, when they can act, how authority is enforced, and how every action is audited. Trust shifts from approving every transaction to designing systems that are trustworthy by construction.”

Governance becomes the new enterprise AI battleground

The introduction of Governed Autonomy reflects a broader shift underway across enterprise technology markets. Over the last year, every major enterprise platform vendor has accelerated its AI agent strategy. Yet most enterprise environments remain deeply fragmented, with finance workflows spanning multiple systems of record, productivity platforms, procurement systems, and service management environments.

According to Auditoria, that fragmentation creates a new challenge for enterprise AI governance. Governed Autonomy allows finance organizations to move human oversight upstream into policy design, operational governance, and exception management, rather than inserting people into every transaction flow. Under the framework, AI agents dynamically adapt as governance policies change, automatically applying updated rules and controls across categories of work.

The framework operates across Auditoria’s agentic finance platform, spanning accounts payable, accounts receivable, and FP&A workflows. It is designed to operate on continuously validated financial data across enterprise systems, allowing governance policies, identity controls, and audit logic to remain consistent as workflows move between platforms.

Governance cannot stop at the edge of a single platform. Enterprise AI requires identity propagation, policy enforcement, entitlement controls, and auditability across the entire operating environment. Auditoria’s Governed Autonomy framework is designed to operate across multi-system enterprise environments, including Workday, Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, Coupa, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and ServiceNow. The platform combines cross-system orchestration with identity-bound execution, configurable rule enforcement, and controller-grade audit logging.

Every agent action is tied to enterprise identity, runtime authorization, and entitlement enforcement. Organizations can define configurable operational boundaries around what agents can do, under which conditions, and with what level of authority. The company says this represents a fundamental shift from reactive review-based AI governance toward policy-driven operational governance.

“Autonomy without governance creates risk. Governance without autonomy creates friction,” Gupta said. “Get that balance right and AI stops being a pilot and starts being how the enterprise actually runs. Trust cannot depend on reviewing every transaction forever, it must be engineered into the operating model itself.”

New capabilities operationalize Governed Autonomy across AP workflows

Auditoria also announced expanded capabilities across its AP platform that operationalize the framework inside live enterprise workflows.

The latest version of AP Helpdesk introduces deeper visibility and classification across vendor and finance communications, using configurable rules that allow agents to process, route, and respond to inquiries autonomously while maintaining complete auditability. Auditoria also expanded AP Invoices with configurable policy logic that enables agents to process invoice data, routing decisions, coding structures, and exception handling based on enterprise-defined governance parameters rather than static workflow rules.

The company says these capabilities allow finance teams to automate increasingly complex operational scenarios without sacrificing transparency or control.

“What enterprises want now isn’t just AI capability, but operational accountability,” said Swami Chandrasekaran, Partner & Global Head of AI & Data Labs at KPMG. “As autonomous agents move into financial workflows, they need clear boundaries, identity-bound execution, and auditability that runs with every action, not after it. That’s what separates a true digital teammate/collaborator from an automation script. Governance isn’t the friction layer. It’s how trust gets engineered into the operating model. Auditoria’s Governed Autonomy framework reflects and leads the direction serious enterprises are already moving in.”

“Within a decade, AI will execute most transactional work in finance, leaving governance as finance’s only remaining lever of control and oversight. Teams that adapt their governance approach to accommodate AI now will adopt and scale quickly. Teams that delay and focus on short-term wins will end up with a fragmented AI landscape heavily dependent on people to ensure transactional integrity,” said Mark D. McDonald, founder of Finance Next.

Ecosystem alignment across enterprise governance platforms

Auditoria’s Governed Autonomy framework is designed to interoperate with emerging enterprise AI governance ecosystems, including Workday Agent System of Record, ServiceNow AI Control Tower, Microsoft governance services, and OpenAI governance frameworks.

The company recently achieved official certification in Workday’s Agent System of Record, reinforcing Auditoria’s position within the evolving enterprise governance stack for AI agents operating within finance environments.

Availability

Governed Autonomy capabilities are now available across the Auditoria platform, including AP Helpdesk, AP Invoices, SmartResearch, and broader agentic finance workflows that support the Office of the CFO.

AMSTERDAM and SAN FRANCISCO – May 26: Mews, the hospitality operating system, has announced a strategic partnership with Uber to embed ride booking, real-time tracking and integrated billing directly into the Mews platform.

Uber announced GO-GET 2026 last month, organizing the app around three actions: go, get and travel. Alongside a series of partnerships on the rider side, the Mews integration extends the same direction into the hotel’s property management system (PMS), giving hoteliers a way to offer Uber rides as part of the guest stay rather than a transaction that happens outside their walls.

At Mews Unfold on May 27 in Amsterdam, Christophe Peymirat, Sr. Director, General Manager, Uber for Business EMEA, and Mike Coscetta, President of Mews, will take the stage together to discuss how collaboration between travel technology, hotels and companies outside the traditional travel sector is reshaping the guest experience.

Transportation bookings are one of the most common guest requests and one of the most manual processes in hotel operations. Mews research from 2026 found that guests arrange their own transportation and spend an average of $50 on it per stay, money that bypasses the hotel entirely1. With this integration hoteliers can drive additional ancillary revenue by offering this service to guests.

This highlights a significant opportunity: guests today want a ‘frictionless’ stay where the hotel solves every problem for them, not just the room. By bringing these moments together, this integration allows hotels to move beyond just accommodation and deliver the fully connected experience guests are looking for.

The integration will enable hotel staff to request rides for guests in just a few clicks, track journeys in real time, and manage payments seamlessly — all within Mews. Airport pickups and last-minute changes will be visible and manageable from within the Mews platform.

“Hotels put enormous effort into the guest experience within their four walls,” said Christophe Peymirat, Sr. Director, GM, Uber for Business EMEA. “The journey to and from the property is just as much a part of that experience. Connecting Uber’s network directly into the Mews platform is a practical step toward giving hotels visibility and control over something they have been managing manually for decades.”

The same logic applies to hotel teams: staff transportation for late and night shifts gives hotels a simple way to arrange stress-free, reliable journeys home for team members and improve staff satisfaction.

The integration is being built to include:

– Staff-initiated and guest-initiated ride booking, available via the Mews platform through accounts and the guest portal

– Live vehicle tracking and trip confirmations, so staff and guests know exactly where a ride is

– Automatic billing to the guest folio through Mews Payments, removing manual reconciliation and keeping every transaction inside the same platform

– Full visibility for the hotel regarding all ride activity, and full transparency for the customer regarding costs

– Insights into guest transportation patterns to help hotels plan better and manage services across the guest journey

“Embedding Uber into the Mews Operating System means hotels can offer transportation services as part of the stay and add it to the one unified guest bill, making it part of the guest relationship rather than a separate transaction. Transportation is one of the clearest examples of a regular guest requirement that hotels are best positioned to provide, but not currently set up to do seamlessly,” said Mike Coscetta, President of Mews.

The Mews and Uber integration is in development, with a pilot launching this year. Further details will be shared directly with customers and partners ahead of launch.

The entire Unfold program will be available to stream live and for free, with the session, “Vision for the industry – Uber” running on Wednesday, May 27, 11:50 AM to 12:05 PM CET.

ICCPL Group, one of India’s  home-grown PR and communications firms, has announced its ambition to cross 7,000+ marketing campaigns for the real estate sector by FY 2026–27, further strengthening its position as a specialised communications partner for the industry.

Over the last 15 years, ICCPL Group has serviced 500+ real estate companies across India, with a strong presence across North, West, East and select South Indian markets. The firm has also been associated with the launch and promotion of 2,500+ real estate projects, spanning residential, commercial, retail, mixed-use and allied segments.

Headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, ICCPL Group has built a strong national footprint with offices in Delhi, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Goa, along with backend operations across 42+ cities in India and presence in the UAE. The firm has also expanded its communications reach across parts of Southeast Asia.

Known for its deep sectoral understanding, strong media relationships and reference-led business model, ICCPL Group has emerged as one of the most preferred PR and communications agencies for real estate companies in India. Its sector-first approach has helped the firm create a strong legacy in real estate PR, backed by consistent performance, long-standing client relationships and market credibility.

The company has been awarded three times as one of the most preferred PR and communications agencies for real estate, further reinforcing its leadership credentials in the sector.

As per market reports and industry estimates, ICCPL Group is currently valued at Rs 250+ crore and is aggressively working towards achieving a Rs 400 crore valuation by FY 2026–27. The growth strategy is expected to be driven through continued expansion across communications, digital media, real estate allied services and strategic investments in the hospitality sector.

Over the years, ICCPL Group has worked with several leading real estate brands including BCD Group, Bhartiya Group, Signature Global, Gaurs Group, Omaxe, Gulshan Group, Reach Group, Bhumika Group, MRG Group and Aurika Homes, among others. The agency has also been associated with the launch of several marquee projects including Gaurs NYC Residences, Taj Skyscape by Gulshan Group, Experion Saatori, Omaxe Chowk and Nimbus The Arista Luxe, along with multiple residential, commercial and mixed-use developments across NCR and other key markets.

Speaking on the milestone, a spokesperson from ICCPL Group said,

“Real estate has always been at the core of ICCPL Group’s journey. Our focus has been to build meaningful communication strategies that support brands, projects and sector narratives across markets. As we move towards FY 2026–27, crossing 7,000+ campaigns will mark a significant milestone in our journey and reflect the trust that developers and industry stakeholders continue to place in us.”

With its specialised focus, expanding national network and growing international presence, ICCPL Group continues to strengthen its leadership in real estate PR and communications while supporting brands across emerging and established markets.

Paris (France), May 26:  Schneider Electric, a global energy technology leader, today announced that its SpaceLogic KNX solution can now be integrated with Samsung SmartThings for residential settings and SmartThings Pro* for enterprise-scale buildings and multi-site operations. 

Samsung has streamlined its certification process, enabling Schneider Electric to rapidly bring its full SpaceLogic KNX portfolio into the SmartThings ecosystem. As a result, Schneider Electric is expanding the range of connected devices available to homeowners and facility managers through a single platform.

The integration enables users to monitor and control SpaceLogic KNX devices through the SmartThings ecosystem, providing a single interface to manage building functions such as lighting, blinds, temperature control, sensors, and energy systems. This empowers users to optimize energy consumption across residential and commercial environments, enabling them to reduce buildings’ carbon footprint through smart automation.   

“Interoperability has become increasingly important in both residential and commercial environments, where customers expect connected systems to work together seamlessly,” said Laurent Roussel, SVP Commercial & Channel at Schneider Electric. “Integrating SpaceLogic KNX with Samsung SmartThings expands how customers can manage their connected devices, personalize their automation experience and gain greater visibility into energy usage across homes and buildings.” 

Centralizing Energy and Commercial Building Management

Managing energy and building systems across multiple commercial locations has traditionally meant navigating a fragmented landscape of products from different manufacturers, siloed data, and disconnected controls, leaving facility managers with no single view of what’s happening across their portfolio. 

The SpaceLogic KNX integration with SmartThings Pro enables facility managers to monitor and manage energy consumption for multiple commercial locations through centralized dashboards. SpaceLogic KNX devices can now be integrated into SmartThings Pro to monitor lighting, blinds, HVAC, occupancy, and energy consumption across commercial spaces.

Centralizing Connected Home Control

Smart home technology has delivered remarkable capability, but managing it has often meant juggling a growing number of separate apps, incompatible systems, and devices that don’t talk to each other. For homeowners, home builders, and residential contractors, that fragmentation has been one of the biggest barriers to realizing the full potential of connected home investments. 

But now, the integration enables the management of SpaceLogic KNX solutions and other connected home products within the SmartThings application. This gives homeowners a more centralized way to control connected devices like smart appliances and electronics like TVs, simplifying day-to-day management of comfort, lighting, and household energy use.