Ukrainian medical startup CheckEye, which is developing an artificial intelligence system for the early detection of chronic diseases using retinal images, has received a $175,000 award at the international Healthy Longevity Global Competition organized by the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM). The company took second place in the final stage of the competition, NAM reported.
The award ceremony took place in Washington during the international NAM Global Innovator Summit. The Ukrainian team was represented by CheckEye co-founder Viktoriia Chuchyna, who was identified by the organizers as the leader of the competition project.
The Ukrainian company’s development, called AI-Powered Retinal Screening for Early Detection of Chronic Diseases, involves using artificial intelligence to analyze retinal images and identify signs of chronic diseases.
The technology allows examinations to be conducted without complex invasive procedures. According to the company, capturing an image of the fundus takes about three minutes, after which the image is analyzed by a cloud-based platform using artificial intelligence algorithms.
The examination can be conducted in primary healthcare facilities, pharmacies and specialized screening centers without the direct involvement of an ophthalmologist at the image acquisition stage.
Currently, the platform is primarily focused on detecting diabetic retinopathy and signs of vascular diseases, including arterial hypertension. In the future, the developers intend to expand the technology’s capabilities to assess the risks of more than 50 diseases.
According to the project description submitted to the competition organizers, CheckEye has already screened more than 15,000 people in five countries: Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Romania and the United Kingdom.
The company reports that its algorithms achieve a sensitivity of 93–95% in detecting diabetic retinopathy and a specificity of approximately 90%. These figures are presented in the competition documentation and represent the development results claimed by the team.
As part of a pilot program of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, implemented from October 2024 to March 2025 in Odesa and Chernihiv regions, more than 870 patients with diabetes underwent screening. According to the project, approximately one-quarter of the participants were referred for treatment.
The company plans to use the $175,000 received from the competition to scale up the technology and further develop methods for the early diagnosis of chronic diseases.
“It is a great honor for us to represent and promote Ukrainian innovations around the world. This recognition at the global level confirms that our technology has the potential to change the approach to treating chronic diseases — from dealing with their consequences to early prevention,” CheckEye founder and CEO Kyrylo Honcharuk said in a company statement.
According to NAM, 147 applications from participants who had previously received support from the program were considered in the final stage of the Healthy Longevity Global Competition. Fourteen projects became winners in various categories, sharing $2 million in awards.
Two projects received the top prizes of $700,000 each, while two others, including Ukraine’s CheckEye, took second place and received $175,000 each. The third prize amounted to $125,000, and nine other projects received honorable mention awards.
In total, over the seven years of the international program, launched by NAM in 2019, its organizers and partners have supported more than 725 projects with over $38 million in funding. The program covered more than 50 countries and territories.
For CheckEye, the award marked another stage of international recognition. The Ukrainian startup previously received support from EIT Health, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Google for Startups, and also won the EIT Health InnoStars Awards 2024.
According to NAM, the total amount of support attracted by CheckEye before receiving the latest award exceeded $750,000.
CheckEye is a Ukrainian HealthTech company specializing in the development of medical screening technologies using artificial intelligence. Its platform is designed for the early detection of diseases based on retinal image analysis and for expanding access to preventive examinations. The company’s founder and CEO is Kyrylo Honcharuk.
artificial intelligence, CHECKEYE, INNOVATION, MEDICINE, STARTUP, UKRAINE
Global spending on data centers will reach $1 trillion in 2026 and more than double to $2.1 trillion by 2028, according to forecasts by experts at BofA Global Research.
The growth in the technology sector’s spending on data centers is becoming an increasingly important source of revenue for industrial companies that manufacture generators, construction equipment, power distribution equipment, and cooling systems.
Chip and server equipment manufacturers are among the main beneficiaries of the large-scale construction of data centers for artificial intelligence developments, according to the BofA report. Experts estimate the cost of building and equipping data centers at $49 million per 1 MW of capacity, with 78% of that amount going toward IT infrastructure.
According to BofA estimates, the average annual growth rate of data center spending from 2025 to 2030 will be 37%. As a result, experts predict that by 2030, the market will reach $2.93 trillion. For comparison, in 2025, this figure stood at $275 billion.
artificial intelligence, BOFA, DATA CENTER, INFRASTRUCTURE, INVESTMENT
Schneider Electric has reached an agreement to acquire the American company PTC, one of the world’s leading developers of software for the design of complex industrial products, engineering processes, and data management. The value of 100% of PTC’s share capital is estimated at approximately $22.6 billion (20.1 billion euros), Schneider Electric announced on October 5.
Under the terms of the deal, Schneider Electric will pay $205 in cash for each share of PTC. The proposed price is 42.3% higher than the company’s share price at the close of trading on the day before the deal was announced. The enterprise value is estimated at $23.7 billion (€21.1 billion).
The deal is expected to be a key milestone in Schneider Electric’s transformation from a manufacturer and supplier of energy and industrial technologies into a global company that integrates energy management, automation, industrial software, and artificial intelligence.
PTC specializes in software solutions for the design, manufacturing, and operation of complex industrial products. The company’s portfolio includes systems for managing product lifecycles, engineering data, and enterprise digital processes.
The integration of PTC’s technologies is intended to supplement Schneider Electric’s existing digital ecosystem with data generated as early as the product design stage. The company plans to combine this data with information from manufacturing processes, equipment, and energy systems.
This will create a unified digital environment covering the entire lifecycle of an industrial facility or product—from design and construction to operation, maintenance, and future upgrades.
Schneider Electric places particular emphasis on using integrated data to advance industrial artificial intelligence. For AI agents to operate effectively, they need not only access to large amounts of information but also an understanding of the context—including equipment design, engineering concepts, the manufacturing process, and actual operating conditions.
Following the merger with PTC and taking into account the planned acquisition of the Cognite industrial AI platform, Schneider Electric’s software division will expand significantly. According to the company’s estimates, Software & Services will account for approximately 24% of the group’s total revenue on a pro forma basis. The software business will employ over 15,000 specialists, and the number of software solution customers will exceed 50,000.
Schneider Electric expects to realize approximately 250 million euros in cost savings within three years of the transaction’s completion and estimates potential revenue synergies at approximately 800 million euros. These are expected to be driven by cross-selling, expansion of the customer base and geographic reach, as well as the joint development of solutions utilizing artificial intelligence.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2027. It has already been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of Schneider Electric and PTC, but still requires the approval of a majority of PTC’s shareholders and the necessary regulatory approvals.
What This Deal Could Mean for Ukrainian Industry
For Ukraine, the development of such solutions is particularly relevant in the context of industrial recovery and modernization. The integration of energy technologies, industrial automation, engineering software, and artificial intelligence enables companies to create digital models of production facilities as early as the design stage and then utilize the data throughout their entire operational lifecycle.
This approach can be applied during the modernization of existing enterprises and the construction of new production facilities, energy facilities, logistics, and other critical infrastructure. The digitization of engineering processes enables faster facility design, monitoring of energy consumption and equipment condition, predictive maintenance, and a reduction in the risks of unplanned downtime.
For Ukrainian enterprises, which are simultaneously facing the need to modernize equipment, improve energy efficiency, and address a shortage of qualified engineering personnel, the development of Industrial AI can become one of the tools for increasing productivity and ensuring the sustainability of production.
“It is particularly important for Ukraine that this is not simply about implementing individual digital products or artificial intelligence. We are talking about the ability to integrate the entire life cycle of an industrial facility—from engineering design to production, energy consumption, operation, and maintenance—into a single digital environment. For companies that need to modernize or, in fact, build new production facilities, this is an opportunity to immediately transition to a more modern management model,” said Mykhailo Bubnov, CEO of Schneider Electric Ukraine.
According to him, combining PTC’s engineering data with Schneider Electric’s automation and energy management technologies could be particularly relevant for Ukrainian companies with energy-intensive and complex production processes.
“In Ukraine, we see great potential for such solutions in industry, energy, infrastructure, logistics, and other sectors where the cost of equipment downtime or inefficient energy use is particularly high. Artificial intelligence in industry is meant to solve very practical problems: helping engineers make decisions faster, predict equipment condition, reduce unplanned downtime, and use energy more efficiently. As the economy recovers, it is precisely this practical impact of digitalization that will be of key importance to Ukrainian enterprises,” Bubnov emphasized.
Schneider Electric operates in the fields of energy technologies, electrification, automation, and digitalization of industry, buildings, data centers, infrastructure, and power grids. The company has approximately 160,000 employees and works with a network of about 1 million partners in more than 100 countries worldwide.
AGREEMENT, artificial intelligence, PTC, Schneider Electric, SOFTWARE
Using artificial intelligence to manage building systems can reduce their overall energy consumption by 22% compared to traditional control systems, according to the results of a new study by Schneider Electric.
The company presented the study, “AI for Climate: Quantifying the Energy and Carbon Impact of Building Optimization,” on September 21 as part of Climate Week NYC 2026. Its findings show that artificial intelligence can use existing data on building operations to automatically manage energy consumption and reduce operating costs.
In particular, using artificial intelligence to optimize heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems through an intelligent building management system delivers additional energy savings ranging from 7.2% to 12.7%.
In some simulated scenarios, total energy savings exceeded 200 MWh per year per building, and emissions reductions reached nearly 60 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent. According to Schneider Electric’s calculations, the volume of emissions avoided was more than 100 times greater than the carbon footprint of the AI system itself.
Based on current commercial rates in the markets used in the study, the potential cost savings ranged from $13,600 to $49,300 per year per building. The specific financial impact depends on the country, energy costs, building type, climatic conditions, and the existing management system.
The study was conducted using building energy modeling, with the results validated through real-world pilot projects. The analysis covered various operational scenarios for facilities in the United States, Australia, and India.
Artificial intelligence analyzes several types of information simultaneously—actual occupancy levels, weather forecasts, equipment status and performance, and other operational metrics. Based on this data, algorithms can adjust the operation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in real time.
“The future of building management will be determined by how effectively organizations can integrate and utilize data that was previously stored in siloed systems. The level of artificial intelligence integrated into existing business systems is capable of transforming complexity into intelligence, and intelligence into action, while simultaneously reducing emissions, cutting costs, and increasing efficiency,” said Pankaj Sharma, Executive Vice President of Software and Services at Schneider Electric.
A key finding of the study was the potential effectiveness of AI not only for large commercial complexes. Schneider Electric notes that buildings with an area of less than 100,000 square feet—or about 9,300 square meters—can also benefit significantly.
Previously, the implementation of complex energy management systems in relatively small facilities was often limited by cost and the need to maintain specialized staff. The use of AI allows for the automation of certain processes and makes intelligent energy management accessible to a wider range of facilities.
For Ukraine, improving the energy efficiency of buildings is particularly important due to damage to the energy infrastructure and the need to simultaneously rebuild the residential, commercial, and public building stock.
“For Ukraine, the issue of energy efficiency today is no longer just a matter of electricity costs or decarbonization. It is a matter of sustainable development. Every kilowatt-hour that a building can avoid consuming without compromising conditions for its occupants reduces the load on the energy system. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to move from simply tracking consumption to actively managing it—taking into account building occupancy, weather, and equipment operating modes to automatically select the most efficient scenario,” said Mykhailo Bubnov, CEO of Schneider Electric Ukraine.
According to him, this approach may be particularly promising for facilities with high and relatively complex energy consumption.
“In Ukraine, we see great potential in hospitals, universities, administrative and office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, and industrial facilities. But even more important is the ability to immediately implement modern management systems during renovations and new construction. If we incorporate digital infrastructure and energy efficiency right from the design stage, we can create buildings that consume less energy from the outset and are better able to adapt to changes in load and operating conditions,” emphasized Bubnov.
According to Schneider Electric Ukraine, the widespread adoption of smart building management systems has the potential to benefit more than just individual property owners. Reducing and more flexibly managing energy consumption across a large number of facilities can alleviate the strain on the power grid during periods of peak demand.
However, the results of international studies cannot be automatically applied to every Ukrainian facility. The actual savings potential depends on the condition of the building, its engineering systems, operating mode, climatic conditions, and the degree of automation.
The company notes that when restoring damaged facilities, it is advisable to implement digital management systems as early as the design phase. In this case, energy efficiency becomes an integral part of the building’s engineering infrastructure from the moment it is commissioned, rather than a separate, subsequent modernization.
Schneider Electric operates in the fields of energy technologies, electrification, automation, and digitalization of buildings, industry, data centers, infrastructure, and power grids. The company operates in over 100 countries worldwide.
artificial intelligence, BUILDING, ENERGY EFFICIENCY, Schneider Electric, UKRAINE, Бубнов
Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) is expanding the use of its global corporate data system in artificial intelligence-based solutions: in September, the company announced the integration of D&B Commercial Graph with Microsoft and IBM AI platforms.
On September 16, D&B announced new integrations via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales AI agents. They make it possible to use verified information about legal entities, ownership structures, corporate relationships and risks directly in automated workflows.
As early as September 17, the company announced that D&B Commercial Graph had also become available in the IBM watsonx Orchestrate agent catalog via MCP.
The integration enables corporate AI systems to obtain verified business context while performing tasks in finance, credit analysis, compliance, procurement, sales, marketing and corporate data management.
A key element of the system remains the D-U-N-S Number — a unique nine-digit identifier for a legal entity that allows AI systems to unambiguously identify a company and link information about it from different sources.
Earlier in 2026, Dun & Bradstreet also announced the integration of its business data with OpenAI, Anthropic Claude and Gemini-based solutions. In particular, D&B’s cooperation with OpenAI makes it possible to use D&B Commercial Graph in ChatGPT and Codex via MCP for financial and analytical tasks.
“Artificial intelligence is moving very quickly from search and text generation to real corporate decisions — counterparty verification, supplier assessment, credit analysis or compliance. In such a model, it is critically important what specific data AI uses to make or recommend decisions,” said Maksym Urakin, Director of Development and Marketing at Interfax-Ukraine, Head of the D&B-Interfax-Ukraine business unit, and PhD in Economics.
According to him, publicly available information from the internet is insufficient for critically important business decisions.
“AI can process information very quickly, but speed alone does not guarantee its reliability. If the system has incorrectly identified a legal entity, failed to identify the parent company, beneficiary or a change in the ownership structure, automation will only accelerate the error. That is why verified corporate data are becoming the foundation of corporate AI,” Urakin emphasized.
Dun & Bradstreet reports that its global information infrastructure covers more than 600 million public and private companies in more than 200 countries.
For Ukrainian companies, the development of such technologies means that international business identification and the quality of corporate data will become even more important. Whereas previously information about a company was mainly checked by an employee of a bank, investor or procurement department, in the future part of such verification will increasingly be carried out by automated AI systems.
Discrepancies in a company’s English-language name, address, information about management or owners may, in such a situation, affect not only the speed of manual due diligence, but also the results of automated analysis.
“Ukrainian business must prepare for an environment in which it will increasingly be checked not by a person, but by an algorithm. For this, the corporate profile must be unambiguous, up to date and suitable for machine identification. The D-U-N-S Number and D&B’s global business data are effectively becoming one of the instruments of such digital trust,” Urakin added.
Dun & Bradstreet is an international provider of business data and analytical solutions whose history began in 1841. The company provides tools for business identification, counterparty verification, credit and commercial risk assessment, compliance, supply chain management and working with corporate data.
The official representative of Dun & Bradstreet in Ukraine is the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. The specialized D&B-Interfax-Ukraine unit helps Ukrainian companies work with international business data, verify foreign partners and obtain a D-U-N-S Number.
Questions can be submitted through the specialized D&B resource — dnb.ua, by email at Urakin@interfax.kyiv.ua, or by phone at +38 (044) 270-65-74.
artificial intelligence, BUSINESS DATA, DUN & BRADSTREET, IBM, MICROSOFT
According to The Guardian, the United Kingdom will gain access to Ukrainian battlefield data to train artificial intelligence systems that are planned to be used to protect military facilities and critical infrastructure from sabotage, drones, and other threats.
Ukraine and the UK signed a partnership agreement on artificial intelligence on August 24, 2026. The UK will become the first foreign partner to gain access to the Ukrainian platform Avengers AI Labs, the British government reported.
Avengers AI Labs aggregates a vast amount of real-world data collected by thousands of daytime cameras and infrared sensors on the battlefield. The system contains data on millions of objects, including tanks, artillery, air defense systems, personnel, and aerial targets—such as Shahed strike drones and reconnaissance drones. This data is used to train artificial intelligence models.
According to The Guardian, one of the first British pilot projects will be a system to protect a military facility using underground fiber-optic cables, which, with the help of AI, will be able to recognize characteristic movements of people and vehicles. In the future, such technologies could be applied at airports, railways, energy facilities, and prisons.
Three British technology companies—Sintela, Mind Foundry, and Skyral—have already been involved in the pilot projects. In particular, Sintela specializes in using fiber-optic networks as distributed sensors.
Another area of cooperation will be the development of a new generation of energy-efficient AI chips for drones, robotics, and autonomous systems. It is expected that such solutions will allow these systems to operate autonomously for longer periods and respond more quickly in challenging conditions.
The agreement calls for collaboration among governments, businesses, universities, and research centers in both countries. Ukraine provides unique data and experience in applying technologies under real combat conditions, while the United Kingdom contributes its research infrastructure, universities, and technology companies.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham stated that combining Ukraine’s combat experience with British expertise in AI will accelerate the development of technologies for both Ukraine’s defense and the protection of critical British infrastructure.
The partnership is part of a 100-year agreement between Ukraine and the United Kingdom. The joint declaration calls for the development of AI models, secure data-sharing mechanisms, autonomous systems, cybersecurity technologies, and solutions for the defense industry.
artificial intelligence, DEFENSE, INFRASTRUCTURE, UKRAINE, UNITED KINGDOM
