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Première mondiale pour Safran et l’Agence européenne de la sécurité aérienne avec la certification du premier moteur électrique destiné à propulser des drones, des petits avions et des jets régionaux.

Le premier moteur d’avion tout électrique certifié dans le monde, l’ENGINeUS 100, est Français. Son concepteur, le motoriste Safran, a annoncé, ce lundi, avoir obtenu sa certification auprès de l’Agence européenne de la sécurité aérienne (EASA), à l’issue d’une campagne d’essais de 1 500 heures de tests et de plus de 100 heures de vol en conditions réelles. L’EASA devient la première agence dans le monde à avoir défini les règles de navigabilité ainsi que les méthodes et normes de certification de ce type de moteurs, appelés à devenir des standards mondiaux.

Il s’agit donc d’une double première mondiale pour l’aéronautique française et européenne, qui démontre sa capacité à avoir de l’avance dans une industrie stratégique. Contrairement à d’autres secteurs industriels qui sont dominés par les États-Unis et la Chine. «C’est une réalisation française mais aussi une réalisation européenne qui acte un moment clef dans l’histoire de l’aéronautique. C’est une immense fierté pour nous et nos partenaires », insiste Bruno Bellanger, président de Safran Electrical & Power.

4 lignes de production automatisées dont 2 en France

La certification de l’ENGINeUS 100, capable de délivrer une puissance électrique allant de 100 à 200 kilowatts, en fonction de l’architecture des avions qu’il motorisera est le fruit d’un «investissement conséquent» et de plusieurs années de travail. «Nous avons engagé les premiers travaux de recherche et technologie (R&T) en 2016 et la certification en collaboration avec l’EASA, il y a quatre ans», précise Bruno Bellanger.

L’obtention du précieux sésame permet d’engager l’industrialisation à grande échelle du nouveau moteur. À cet effet, le motoriste français a ouvert quatre lignes de production automatisées en Europe. Deux d’entre elles sont basées à Pickstone, à 100 km de Londres, au Royaume-Uni. Elles sont en charge du «cœur électromagnétique» des moteurs (stators et rotors). Les deux autres sont installées à Niort en France et sont en charge de l’électronique de puissance et l’assemblage final. « La ligne d’assemblage finale sera opérationnelle en 2026 et aura une capacité de 1000 moteurs par an. Elle a été pensée pour être extensible, avec une capacité de production de 4 000 à 5 000 moteurs par an, voire plus en fonction de la demande du marché», explique le président de Safran Electrical & Power. La ligne sera reconfigurable et modulaire : elle pourra assembler indifféremment toutes les versions de la gamme ENGINeUS, notamment le modèle XL plus puissant (750 Kilowatts).

Car le modèle 100 qui a permis à Safran de travailler sur des briques technologiques pour hybrider de nouveaux moteurs, prépare la suite. Il s’inscrit au cœur de la feuille de route décarbonation de Safran. Elle comporte trois piliers : «le premier porte sur l’optimisation des équipements actuels et des moteurs de plus en plus frugaux ; le second sur l’utilisation de carburants d’aviation durable (SAF) et le troisième sur l’hybridation avec des systèmes de génération et de distribution de puissance électriques vers les moteurs thermiques pour les appareils les plus grands ou la propulsion tout électrique, adaptée aux nouvelles mobilités aériennes (NDLR : drones, taxis volants, petits avions)» détaille Bruno Bellanger.

Aura Aero et Volt Aero parmi les clients

Cette certification de l’ENGINeUS 100 ouvre la voie à la certification, la production et à la commercialisation des premiers appareils électriques. Plusieurs acteurs des nouvelles mobilités aériennes ont en effet déjà choisi le moteur ENGINeUS (ou les moteurs-générateurs GENeUS ) notamment les Français Aura Aero et Volt Aero, les Américains Bye Aerospace et Electra, l’autrichien Diamond Aircraft (passé sous pavillon chinois) et le chinois TCab Tech.

Avec la famille ENGINeUS, Safran a décidé de répondre aux besoins de tous les marchés, de la propulsion 100% électrique pour les petits avions de 2 à 4 passagers, à la propulsion hybride distribuée pour les avions de transport régional de 19 passagers, jusqu’à l’hybridation électrique des futures générations de moteurs d’avions commerciaux régionaux. Mais aussi aux marchés des drones civils (livraison notamment) et militaires.

Une concurrence multiforme

Le groupe dirigé par Olivier Andriès a pris de l’avance sur ses concurrents qui n’ont pas adopté la même stratégie. Alors que Safran commence par de petits moteurs lui permettant d’acquérir de l’expérience et d’éprouver des technologies qui monteront à bord de plus gros moteurs, l’américain GE (partenaire de Safran dans CFM International et dans le programme de recherche RISE de moteur ultra-sobre ) a décidé d’entrer sur le marché des moteurs électriques par le haut, en travaillant d’emblée sur des réacteurs puissants. C’est aussi l’option retenue par Pratt & Whitney et Collins, les deux filiales du géant américain RTX. En revanche, le britannique Rolls-Royce a jeté l’éponge, en fermant sa branche dédiée aux moteurs électriques.

D’autres acteurs sont sur les rangs. La Chine, qui veut à terme devenir un grand de l’aéronautique travaille sur le moteur électrique. Des start-up spécialisées sont aussi dans la course telle que l’américaine Magicall. Et plusieurs constructeurs de e-VTOL (appareils électriques à décollage vertical) aussi appelés taxis volants électriques, clients potentiels des motoristes établis, ont décidé de concevoir et de fabriquer leurs moteurs électriques en interne. C’est le choix fait par Joby Aviation, Archer ou encore Wisk (filiale de Boeing), les plus importants spécialistes américains des taxis volants.

ChatGPT operator eyes biggest disruption in tech devices since iPhone

PALO ALTO, California -- After taking the world by storm with ChatGPT, OpenAI is looking to develop an artificial intelligence-specific device -- a move that could bring the largest disruption to tech hardware since the 2007 launch of the iPhone.

"We hope to do it in partnership" with Jony Ive, a former chief design officer for Apple, OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman told Nikkei on Jan. 27. Altman is visiting Japan and plans to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday.

OpenAI has not previously announced official plans to develop AI-specific hardware. Altman indicated that it would take several years to unveil a prototype.

"It feels to me like AI is a big enough shift in how we can interact with computers that there ought to be a new kind of hardware," he said.

Altman's journey as an entrepreneur began when he dropped out of Stanford University to start a mobile social media company. He later served as president of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, and co-founded OpenAI in 2015. He became the full-time CEO in 2019.

The startup's ChatGPT AI chatbot launched in 2022 and has since gained over 300 million users worldwide. OpenAI aims to lead the AI market in both software and hardware with its AI-specific device.

Apple's iPhone revolutionized user interface design with the use of touchscreens. With AI, "I think voice should be a key," Altman said.

When asked whether OpenAI would develop its own semiconductors, Altman said, "We're certainly working on it."

Other U.S. tech companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are also working on custom-made chips to deliver faster and more efficient AI.

On the day after U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration, OpenAI announced a $500 billion Stargate venture with SoftBank Group and Oracle to develop AI infrastructure on U.S. soil.

OpenAI will be responsible for running the company overseeing Stargate and will build and operate data centers.

"Stargate is a big and complex project that is up and down the stack," Altman said. "I think there's places to collaborate [with Japanese companies and investors] at every level, including chip."

Altman is calling for Japanese companies to participate in Stargate. OpenAI has recently put forward policy recommendations warning the U.S. might fall behind China competitively without drawing AI investment from global partners, such as Japan and Middle East countries.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has developed an AI model it claims rivals OpenAI's model at a fraction of the cost.

DeepSeek's offering is "clearly a good model," said Altman. "It's a reminder of the strong interest in reasoning, and there is going to be serious competition."

"This capability level isn't new," he added. "We've had models at this level for some time and we'll continue to make better models."

OpenAI is looking into whether DeepSeek improperly used its proprietary technology for training.

China has caught up to American AI companies "significantly," Altman said, while warning bad actors could apply advanced AI to military and similar applications.

"If authoritarian governments misuse powerful AI for power consolidation, that would be bad," he said.

The Stargate venture has become a signature project in Trump's presidency. Under former President Joe Biden, the government sought to regulate AI development by setting mandatory safety requirements for powerful AI models, but the Trump administration represents a departure from that trajectory.

The plan is to ease regulatory strictures and encourage investment in AI companies, so the U.S. solidifies global leadership in the field.

"I think it's important for the world to get AI built correctly and be deployed for maximum benefit to everyone," said Altman. "U.S. leadership is helpful to get to that place."

"I was very impressed with the way President Trump thinks about the need to build infrastructure and to move quickly and sensibly on technology policy," he added.

Some have voiced concerns that AI safety would be compromised if the Trump administration eases regulations. Altman mentioned the idea of establishing an international watchdog to monitor AI development processes for potential harm and prevent AI from becoming a threat to humanity.

"When we have these technologies that have truly global potential, mega impact, we have some sort of international framework or plan," said Altman.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is one example.

"I think the same thing makes sense here," said Altman. There is "a lot of talk in the world right now about all of the different approaches, that'll be for the heads of states to decide," he added.

Anglo boss warns Trump tariffs will push up cost of mining for years

Wanblad’s remarks come as a worldwide trade war threatens to upend the flow of commodities

Anglo American chief executive Duncan Wanblad has warned that US President Donald Trump’s wave of new tariffs will push up the cost of mining production for years.

Wanblad’s remarks come as a worldwide trade war threatens to upend the flow of commodities on oil and gas and a range of precious and base metals on which their businesses depend.

Trump’s sabre-rattling sent the stocks of some of the big mining groups lower on Monday with London listed Glencore and Anglo American down more than 2 per cent at the close.

Wanblad warned that Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico and threat to freeze funding to South Africa over a new law that permits expropriation of land in public interest would lead to market volatility and inflation. 

“One thing I’m sure of is that under all circumstances, [tariffs] are going to be inflationary. We are going to see the cost of production go up pretty much everywhere as a result of this,” he said.

It remains unclear whether Trump will stick to his plans, however, as Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said the tariffs would be suspended for one month after a discussion with the US president. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also locked in talks with Trump.

The Anglo boss said the near-term impact on mining groups was unclear, depending on the region, the level of the tariff and where the product was bought. “I have no idea what to make of the [Trump] statement, other than we could have all done without it.”

Wanblad’s view on tariffs echoes other mining chief executives, who are all assessing the impact of higher tariffs, particularly on resource-rich Canada, which has reserves of oil and gas and metals such as gold and copper. 

Speaking to the Financial Times in January before the tariffs were announced, William Oplinger, the chief executive of aluminium producer Alcoa, said a tax on Canadian imports would mean “aluminium prices in the US would be substantially higher”. 

“Ultimately it will be in the price of pick-up trucks and beer cans,” he said. “It’s really hard to determine how much demand destruction we’ll see . . . If prices are substantially higher in the US that has to put some downward pressure on aluminium demand.” 

Duncan Hobbs, an analyst at trader Concord Resources, said the impact of the tariffs would be reflected in the premiums paid by metal users on top of the benchmark exchange price for physical metals in the US.

Analysts at BMO said higher premiums were likely to endure until “Canadian producers and US consumers alike can reroute supply chains to avoid the new duties”. 

Practically, that is likely to mean Canadian metals being diverted to Europe and the US importing more from other regions such as Australia, they said.

Such a change would “create longer supply chains which will result in a sustained increase in US premiums”. 

Speaking at the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Monday, South Africa’s mining minister Gwede Mantashe called on African countries to halt mineral exports to the US in retaliation for Trump’s decision to suspend funding aid programmes on the continent. 

“They want to withhold funding, but they still want our minerals,” he said. “Let us withhold minerals. Africa must assert itself.”

Italy makes a meal of bank takeovers

It is hard to escape the feeling that an opportunity for simplification has been missed

Italian financiers rarely opt for a simple plan where a complicated one would do. That shows in a five-way pile-up taking shape between the country’s banks and insurers. It’s a power struggle that offers crumbs to the companies’ regular shareholders.

The tangle looks thus. Large lender UniCredit has bid for Banca Popolare di Milano — derailing a potential merger between BPM and Tuscan lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena. That bank, in turn, launched a hostile bid for Mediobanca, whose key asset is a 13 per cent stake in insurer Generali. And in a weekend colpo di scena, UniCredit unveiled a 4 per cent stake in Generali. 

All of this may sound confusing. It stems, though, from two long-standing — and not especially complex — strategic challenges in Italy’s financial landscape. 

The first is that its banking system remains fragmented, with two larger groups — Intesa and UniCredit — and a number of smaller banks that will need to consolidate. The second is that Generali, one of the country’s prize assets, has not participated in consolidation and lost scale relative to its rivals. Detractors argue Mediobanca’s influence has held it back.

Both of these issues have long needed bringing to the table. The trouble is, it looks like spaghetti is on the menu.

In terms of bank consolidation, the potential combinations on offer help, but only partly. While UniCredit’s bid for BPM does have obvious potential synergies, Monte dei Paschi and Mediobanca is less of a natural combination. There is limited business overlap and the Tuscan lender relies in part on a more rapid use of deferred tax assets to create value.

Over at Generali, meanwhile, the stage has been set for a struggle for control which looks likely to descend into a bunfight, as opposed to a bid with a fulsome control premium.

Much of the frenzy has been sparked by Italian tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and Delfin, the Del Vecchio family’s holding company, who have in the past tried and failed to install their own candidates at Generali. 

When the insurer’s shareholders pick a new board next May, the two will have tanks on everyone’s lawn. Together they own a direct 17 per cent stake in Generali. Alongside the Italian government, they are both significant shareholders in Monte dei Paschi, which has Mediobanca’s 13 per cent stake in Generali in its sights. They may be hoping that UniCredit — which now has a chance to play kingmaker — could come down on their side.

There are plenty of questions that arise. Who will own whom when the dust settles? Who will control Generali, and will it be any better as a result? But it is hard to escape the feeling that an opportunity for simplification has been missed. The new world of Italian finance may be just as convoluted as the old.

Anthropic makes ‘jailbreak’ advance to stop AI models producing harmful results

Leading tech groups including Microsoft and Meta also invest in similar safety systems

Artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic has demonstrated a new technique to prevent users from eliciting harmful content from its models, as leading tech groups including Microsoft and Meta race to find ways that protect against dangers posed by the cutting-edge technology.

In a paper released on Monday, the San Francisco-based start-up outlined a new system called “constitutional classifiers”. It is a model that acts as a protective layer on top of large language models such as the one that powers Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, which can monitor both inputs and outputs for harmful content.

The development by Anthropic, which is in talks to raise $2bn at a $60bn valuation, comes amid growing industry concern over “jailbreaking” — attempts to manipulate AI models into generating illegal or dangerous information, such as producing instructions to build chemical weapons.

Other companies are also racing to deploy measures to protect against the practice, in moves that could help them avoid regulatory scrutiny while convincing businesses to adopt AI models safely. Microsoft introduced “prompt shields” last March, while Meta introduced a prompt guard model in July last year, which researchers swiftly found ways to bypass but have since been fixed.

Mrinank Sharma, a member of technical staff at Anthropic, said: “The main motivation behind the work was for severe chemical [weapon] stuff [but] the real advantage of the method is its ability to respond quickly and adapt.”

Anthropic said it would not be immediately using the system on its current Claude models but would consider implementing it if riskier models were released in future. Sharma added: “The big takeaway from this work is that we think this is a tractable problem.”

The start-up’s proposed solution is built on a so-called “constitution” of rules that define what is permitted and restricted and can be adapted to capture different types of material.

Some jailbreak attempts are well-known, such as using unusual capitalisation in the prompt or asking the model to adopt the persona of a grandmother to tell a bedside story about a nefarious topic.

To validate the system’s effectiveness, Anthropic offered “bug bounties” of up to $15,000 to individuals who attempted to bypass the security measures. These testers, known as red teamers, spent more than 3,000 hours trying to break through the defences.

Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet model rejected more than 95 per cent of the attempts with the classifiers in place, compared to 14 per cent without safeguards.

Leading tech companies are trying to reduce the misuse of their models, while still maintaining their helpfulness. Often, when moderation measures are put in place, models can become cautious and reject benign requests, such as with early versions of Google’s Gemini image generator or Meta’s Llama 2. Anthropic said their classifiers caused “only a 0.38 per cent absolute increase in refusal rates”.

However, adding these protections also incurs extra costs for companies already paying huge sums for computing power required to train and run models. Anthropic said the classifier would amount to a nearly 24 per cent increase in “inference overhead”, the costs of running the models.

Security experts have argued that the accessible nature of such generative chatbots has enabled ordinary people with no prior knowledge to attempt to extract dangerous information.

“In 2016, the threat actor we would have in mind was a really powerful nation-state adversary,” said Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, who leads the AI red team at Microsoft. “Now literally one of my threat actors is a teenager with a potty mouth.”

Creditors criticise “ransom terms” on up to £3bn in funding as the utility faces running out of cash

Thames Water faced mounting opposition in its attempt to win court approval for an expensive £3bn loan on Monday after the judge agreed to hear “public interest” objections from environmental campaigners and another group of creditors sought to block the plan.

A group of bondholders and lenders represented by the regulated utility’s parent company — Thames Water Limited — released court documents opposing the emergency funding for the first time. They argued that the “ransom terms” on the funding would allow lenders to make a “handsome return” on an “essentially risk-free” deal, which would give them “effective control” over any future restructuring.

The intervention came at the start of a crowded four-day court hearing, in which Britain’s biggest water utility is seeking approval to take out up to £3bn in loans from its so-called class A bondholders, which include US hedge funds such as Elliott Management, to stave off an imminent cash crunch.

The proposed loan carries a hefty 9.75 per cent annual interest rate, as well as further fees and onerous terms that critics argue will hand the lenders greater control over the company.

London’s High Court on Monday also allowed Charlie Maynard, a Liberal Democrat MP representing environmental campaigners in the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney, to speak for the “public interest and the consumer interest” in considering Thames Water’s restructuring proposal. 

In documents submitted to court, Maynard argued that Thames Water’s restructuring plan was a “poor, short-term fix” that “aggravates rather than mitigates the Thames Water debt doom loop”.

Without the loan, Thames Water says it will run out of cash on March 24 and risk crashing into the government’s special administration regime, a form of temporary renationalisation. This process would allow services to keep running while the debt is frozen ahead of a potential restructuring and sale of the business, or a full nationalisation. 

The loan proposal has led to an increasingly bitter spat between the company and its lower-ranking class B bondholders, who claim that the utility has not properly considered their rival offer, which they say comes at a lower cost and with less restrictive terms.

These class B lenders, who could face near-total losses if the company’s proposed restructuring went ahead, have argued that they would fare better under a special administration than under the company’s plan.

They argued in written submissions to court that the planned loan from class A creditors had “inbuilt control mechanics” that were typical of “an aggressive loan-to-own strategy adopted by distressed [debt] hedge funds”. 

Thames Water has said that the loan is a necessary bridge to a wider restructuring, which will give it time to raise equity from new investors and renegotiate its debts.

Julian Gething, Thames Water chief restructuring officer, said: “Our plan remains the only implementable solution to putting the business on a firmer financial footing, and approval will not affect customer bills, but it will unlock billions of pounds for investment.”

Maynard argued in his written submission that the class A loan “provides a bridge to nowhere” and the “better and fairer course would be a special administration”. 

A judgment is not expected for at least a week after the hearing is scheduled to end on Thursday.