Podcasts about Bangladesh

The Trump administration strips the Environmental Protection Agency of much of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions -- revoking a ruling that said they pose a threat to public health. As the people of Tumbler Ridge, BC gather for a vigil, an Alberta father who lost his son in a school shooting also mourns their loss -- and tells us how he survived his. After student protests toppled the longtime leader of Bangladesh, the country elects a new government. One young voter tells us it was his first chance to vote for his future. Researchers discover that a nineteenth-century house-turned-museum in New York City was a stop on the Underground Railroad, after deciphering a cleverly hidden secret compartment. Scientists develop a wearable device to measure human flatulence -- with the noble goal of creating a complete flatus atlas. Italy's national broadcaster for airing an Olympics promo in which a famous male figure drawn by Leonardo da Vinci appears, with his genitals erased. As It Happens, the Friday Edition. Radio that thinks you've gotta draw the loin somewhere.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party is claiming a "sweeping victory" after indications that it's heading for a landslide election win. It's the first poll since an uprising in 2024 that toppled the authoritarian leader, Sheikh Hasina. Also: President Trump has revoked an Obama-era law that underpinned US regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump said the move was the biggest act of deregulation in the country's history. The CIA has released a video designed to recruit disaffected Chinese military personnel, scientists, and other professionals as spies for the US. Jim Ratcliffe, who co-owns Manchester United Football Club, has apologised if his "choice of language" caused offence. He suggested the UK had been "colonised" by immigrants. And at the Berlin Film Festival, the world premiere of No Good Men, a romantic comedy set in a newsroom in Afghanistan.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content. Danny and Derek feel that their ice dance routine was strong, but ultimately respect the IOC judges. In this week's news: the first round of indirect U.S.-Iran talks begin in Oman (0:31); new Israeli security cabinet measures move forward de facto annexation in the West Bank (4:26); Indonesia is prepared to send troops for a proposed Gaza stabilization force (7:23); Israel uses its 2023 law to revoke the citizenship of Palestinian Israelis for the first time (9:07); RSF forces launch drone strikes in Sudan's Kordofan region and open a new offensive in Blue Nile state (11:08); fighting resumes around Uvira in the eastern DRC (14:43); elections are held in Bangladesh (17:57), Thailand (19:58), Japan (22:08), and Portugal (23:26); the new START deal with Russia expires (25:24); the Trump administration sets a June deadline to end the Ukraine war (27:47); Keir Starmer faces political fallout over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein (29:43); Haiti's transitional council dissolves without organizing elections (31:52); Cuba approaches collapse as fuel shortages worsen (33:54); organizers prepare for the inaugural “Board of Peace” meeting (37:40); Trump orders the Pentagon to purchase coal-based electricity (39:17); and the FAA briefly shuts down airspace over El Paso after a misidentified party balloon (41:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tarique Rahman is set to become the country's next prime minister. He comes from a family dynasty and has been living in self-imposed exile in London for the past 17 years. After a period of violent upheaval, what comes next for Bangladesh?Also on the programme: reaction from Ukraine after skeleton bob racer Vladyslav Heraskevych is disqualified from the Winter Olympics; and award-winning British cinematographer Roger Deakins has written a memoir. We hear from the man behind Fargo, the Big Lebowski, Skyfall and others. (Photo: Tarique Rahman greets supporters during an election campaign rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 09 February 2026 / Credit: MONIRUL ALAM/EPA/Shutterstock)

Donald Trump's “border czar”, Tom Homan, said that federal immigration agents would end their operation in Minnesota after more than two months. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danny and Derek feel that their ice dance routine was strong, but ultimately respect the IOC judges. In this week's news: the first round of indirect U.S.-Iran talks begin in Oman (0:31); new Israeli security cabinet measures move forward de facto annexation in the West Bank (4:26); Indonesia is prepared to send troops for a proposed Gaza stabilization force (7:23); Israel uses its 2023 law to revoke the citizenship of Palestinian Israelis for the first time (9:07); RSF forces launch drone strikes in Sudan's Kordofan region and open a new offensive in Blue Nile state (11:08); fighting resumes around Uvira in the eastern DRC (14:43); elections are held in Bangladesh (17:57), Thailand (19:58), Japan (22:08), and Portugal (23:26); the new START deal with Russia expires (25:24); the Trump administration sets a June deadline to end the Ukraine war (27:47); Keir Starmer faces political fallout over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein (29:43); Haiti's transitional council dissolves without organizing elections (31:52); Cuba approaches collapse as fuel shortages worsen (33:54); organizers prepare for the inaugural “Board of Peace” meeting (37:40); Trump orders the Pentagon to purchase coal-based electricity (39:17); and the FAA briefly shuts down airspace over El Paso after a misidentified party balloon (41:08).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Cuba goes dark as fuel shortages affect power supplies. We hear from the people affected by the outages, and the price the island nation is paying as the darkness spreads. As we approach the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we speak to the man in charge of keeping the power going as Ukraine approaches a humanitarian crisis.In Bangladesh, we get reaction as the Bangladesh National Party and allies win a commanding, two‑thirds‑plus majority in the first general election since the student‑led uprising that drove Sheikh Hasina from office in 2024. And we ask - what next for an economy hit so hard by US tariffs? And PlayStation has surprise‑launched a new God of War game, Sons of Sparta, on the PS5. We hear from a gaming expert on why this franchise is such a big deal.(Picture: A bicitaxi rides in a street of Havana, on February 13, 2026. Credit: YAMIL LAGE / AFP via Getty Images.)

The next government faces the huge task of restoring stability to key sectors, including the vital garment industry. We hear from a denim manufacturer and young voters about what they want next. And the designer behind Japan's Hello Kitty character for more than four decades is stepping down. Presenter: Andrew Peach Producer: David Cann Editor: Stephen Ryan

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Reuters exclusive reporting finds an Arizona sheriff is blocking FBI access to evidence in the case of missing Nancy Guthrie. U.S. President Donald Trump's upheaval of Atlantic ties looms over the Munich Security Conference. The El Paso airspace closure lays bare tensions between the Pentagon and the FAA. And Russia blocks WhatsApp. Plus, Bangladesh election results are in.  Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Le Journal en français facile du vendredi 13 février 2026, 17 h 00 à Paris. Retrouvez votre épisode avec la transcription synchronisée et des exercices pédagogiques pour progresser en français : http://rfi.my/CRT8.A

Voters cast their ballots in Bangladesh for the first time since authoritarian leader Sheikh Hasina was forced from office in 2024. They'll be choosing a new government and deciding on constitutional reforms. Also: our correspondent reports from inside Iran. We have the latest on the deadly shooting in Canada. The US attorney general gets a grilling at a congressional committee meeting. New figures suggest China's carbon dioxide emissions fell in 2025. We'll hear about the European robin that made it all the way to Canada. And the student who had a good excuse for not handing in her homework on time - she was taking part in the Olympics.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk

Vote counting is underway in Bangladesh after its first election since the protests that overthrew the authoritarian Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024. We hear about the circumstances surrounding these elections.Also on the programme: in China, annual emissions of carbon dioxide fell for the first time last year. Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which compiled the data, explains the significance behind this, and the Berlin film festival opens tonight with an Afghanistan romcom. We hear from its writer, director and star, Shahrbanoo Sadat.(Photo: Electoral workers count the votes, during the 13th general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 12 February, 2026. Credit: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

The US economy added 130,000 jobs in January, beating market expectations, and documents appear to contradict testimony Jes Staley gave about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Plus, Bangladesh is holding its first elections since 2024's mass uprising. Mentioned in this podcast:Epstein trustee document contradicts Jes Staley testimonyUS economy far outstrips expectations to add 130,000 jobs in JanuaryAfter 17 years in exile, dynastic heir looks to lead BangladeshFind the latest season of Tech Tonic here: https://www.ft.com/tech-tonicNote: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts Today's FT News Briefing was hosted and edited by Marc Filippino, and produced by Fiona Symon, Victoria Craig and Sonja Hutson. Our show was mixed by Kelly Garry. Additional help from David da Silva. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT's Global Head of Audio. The show's theme music is by Metaphor Music.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The release of documents surrounding sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has stirred massive media attention, but it remains unclear if prosecutions will result. Instead of the files providing clarity, one result so far is a frenzy of speculation and conspiracy theories. Also: today's stories, including why a positive January jobs report leaves economists uncertain; why women are notably absent from this week's ballots in Bangladesh; and the importance of this year's location for the Winter Olympics. Join the Monitor's Christa Case Bryant for today's news.

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

We discuss what’s at stake in the Bangladesh elections and whether the outcome could set the country on a path towards democracy. Then: preparations for the Munich Security Conference and cultural news from Japan Plus: we dig into recipes from a famed Parisian bistro. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

durée : 02:29:36 - Les Matins - par : Guillaume Erner, Yoann Duval - Ce matin sur France Culture, à 7h40 et à 8h20, Guillaume Erner reçoit la grande chercheuse albanaise Léa Ypi pour sa leçon inaugurale au Collège de France : "L'invention de l'Europe par les langues et les cultures". A 7h17, Charza Shahabuddin nous parle des tensions pré-électorales au Bangladesh. - réalisation : Félicie Faugère

durée : 00:15:16 - Journal de 8 h - Après le mouvement étudiant au Bangladesh en 2024, devenu ensuite massif, des élections législatives sont organisées ce jeudi dans le pays. Le chef du gouvernement provisoire Muhammad Yunus salue "la fin du cauchemar et le début d'un nouveau rêve".

White House border czar Tom Homan announces end to immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Prime Minister Mark Carney to visit Tumbler Ridge, BC where 9 people, including the shooter, were killed on Tuesday. Voters in Bangladesh head to the polls today for the country's first free and fair election in nearly twenty years. State TV declares Barbados Prime ‌Minister ​Mia Mottley has won her ​third election, ​sweeping all ⁠30 seats. Quebec selling US alcohol at a discount to prevent stock from spoiling, after it was taken off shelves in response to new US tariffs. Olympic Winter Games: Canadians Éliot Grondin and Mikael Kingsbury win silver medals.

World news in 7 minutes. Friday 13th February 2026.Today : Bangladesh election. Korea Bitcoin accident. Australia Israel protests. Italy Olympics. Ukrainian banned. France, Spain, Portugal storms. Russia WhatsApp. Kenya Somalia open. Madagascar cyclone. Canada suspect. Barbados election. Brazil dogs loyal forever.SEND7 is supported by our amazing listeners like you.Our supporters get access to the transcripts and vocabulary list written by us every day.Our supporters get access to an English worksheet made by us once per week.Our supporters get access to our weekly news quiz made by us once per week.We give 10% of our profit to Effective Altruism charities. You can become a supporter at send7.org/supportWith Stephen DevincenziContact us at podcast@send7.org or send an audio message at speakpipe.com/send7Please leave a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify.We don't use AI! Every word is written and recorded by us! We do not consent to the podcast being used to train AI.Since 2020, SEND7 (Simple English News Daily in 7 minutes) has been telling the most important world news stories in intermediate English. Every day, listen to the most important stories from every part of the world in slow, clear English. Whether you are an intermediate learner trying to improve your advanced, technical and business English, or if you are a native speaker who just wants to hear a summary of world news as fast as possible, join Stephen Devincenzi, Juliet Martin and Niall Moore every morning. Transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets and our weekly world news quiz are available for our amazing supporters at send7.org. Simple English News Daily is the perfect way to start your day, by practising your listening skills and understanding complicated daily news in a simple way. It is also highly valuable for IELTS and TOEFL students. Students, teachers, TEFL teachers, and people with English as a second language, tell us that they use SEND7 because they can learn English through hard topics, but simple grammar. We believe that the best way to improve your spoken English is to immerse yourself in real-life content, such as what our podcast provides. SEND7 covers all news including politics, business, natural events and human rights. Whether it is happening in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas or Oceania, you will hear it on SEND7, and you will understand it.Get your daily news and improve your English listening in the time it takes to make a coffee.For more information visit send7.org/contact or send an email to podcast@send7.org

durée : 00:15:16 - Journal de 8 h - Après le mouvement étudiant au Bangladesh en 2024, devenu ensuite massif, des élections législatives sont organisées ce jeudi dans le pays. Le chef du gouvernement provisoire Muhammad Yunus salue "la fin du cauchemar et le début d'un nouveau rêve".

Voting has begun across Bangladesh in the country's national parliament election. More than 127 million registered voters are expected to cast their ballots.

Bangladesh has held its first elections since a student revolution deposed autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina in 2024. Hasina's main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is now projected to win. Yet the biggest development is the resurgence of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which was banned under Hasina. Minorities targeted in recent mob violence and some women now fear for their rights. FRANCE 24's Navodita Kumari, Alban Alvarez and Muktadir Rashid report. 

durée : 00:11:43 - Les Enjeux internationaux - par : Guillaume Erner - Dix-huit mois après la "Révolution de juillet" qui a renversé Sheikh Hasina et mis fin à quinze années d'autocratie, le Bangladesh se rend aux urnes pour un scrutin décisif. Ces élections peuvent-elles ouvrir la voie à un "Nouveau Bangladesh", malgré les tensions sociales et économiques ? - réalisation : Félicie Faugère - invités : Charza Shahabuddin Politiste, enseignante et chercheuse postdoctorale ReligiS associée au CERI Sciences Po

The toppling of authoritarian leader Sheikh Hassina in Bangladesh in 2024 was celebrated as a triumph for democracy. Tomorrow the country finally heads to the polls. Our correspondent weighs the choice. Can Mars and other bleak planets be made fit for human habitation? And why AI bots are applying for human jobs. To find out how to have sex in space, listen to this episode of “The Weekend Intelligence”. Guests and host:Rosie Blau and Jason Palmer, co-hosts of “The Intelligence”Mark Johnson, senior writerOliver Morton, senior editorShera Avi-Yonah, business writerTopics covered: Bangladesh's electionAstrobiologyHow AI changes job recruitmentListen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The toppling of authoritarian leader Sheikh Hassina in Bangladesh in 2024 was celebrated as a triumph for democracy. Tomorrow the country finally heads to the polls. Our correspondent weighs the choice. Can Mars and other bleak planets be made fit for human habitation? And why AI bots are applying for human jobs. To find out how to have sex in space, listen to this episode of “The Weekend Intelligence”. Guests and host:Rosie Blau and Jason Palmer, co-hosts of “The Intelligence”Mark Johnson, senior writerOliver Morton, senior editorShera Avi-Yonah, business writerTopics covered: Bangladesh's electionAstrobiologyHow AI changes job recruitmentListen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the first time since the 2024 uprising, Bangladesh is heading to the polls. Voters will pick a new parliament and weigh in on a controversial "July Charter." With Gen Z now the largest voting bloc, will this election deliver real change? In this episode: Tanvir Chowdhury (@tanvirbengal), Al Jazeera Journalist Episode credits: This episode was produced by Tamara Khandaker, Noor Wazwaz and Chloe K. Li with Marcos Bartolomé, Tuleen Barakat, Maya Hamadeh, Sonia Bhagat, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Tamara Khandaker. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhemm. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. For more: Al Jazeera Investigates - 36 July: Uprising in Bangladesh Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

As Iran urges attendance at rallies Wednesday marking the anniversary of the revolution, many citizens could not be further estranged. On one side are grieving families and others infuriated by the regime's brutality, and on the other, officials who voice no expressions of regret. Also: today's stories, including how upcoming elections offer a chance for a democratic reset in Bangladesh; how AI-generated music, writing, and images are generating questions about the nature and source of creativity itself; and how joy was the point for skiers flying through the air at the Livigno Snow Park on Tuesday afternoon. Join the Monitor's Ira Porter for today's news.

Over the past few years, South Asia has witnessed a striking wave of mass protests toppling governments and upending long-standing political arrangements in countries ranging from Bangladesh to Nepal and Sri Lanka. These upheavals are often explained in terms of domestic factors—such as corruption, economic mismanagement, and democratic backsliding. But in a recent Foreign Affairs essay titled “The Folly of India's Illiberal Hegemony,” the scholar Muhib Rahman argues that there is a larger regional story at play—one that implicates not just local leaders, but also India and the United States. The essay challenges the assumption that India's regional leadership has been a stabilizing force and asks whether New Delhi's choices have instead helped create openings for China across South Asia.To talk more about the essay, Muhib joins Milan on the show this week. Muhib is a Perry World House Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His research sits at the intersection of international security, emerging technologies, and the politics of the Global South. He has served as a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University and holds a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas-Austin.Muhib and Milan discuss India's illiberal hegemony in its neighborhood, the downturn in Bangladesh-India ties, and the enabling role of the United States. Plus, the two discuss the drivers of the “India Out” phenomenon in countries ranging from Nepal to the Maldives and how China is positioning itself to take advantage.Episode notes:1.     Muhib Rahman, “Bangladesh's Quiet Pivot to China,” The National Interest, October 27, 2025.2.     Muhib Rahman, “Explaining Trump's Surprising Turn to Pakistan,” War on the Rocks, October 1, 2025.3.     “Why Washington Is Wooing Pakistan (with Uzair Younus),” Grand Tamasha, October 1, 2025.4.     “Sri Lanka's Peaceful Revolution (with Neil DeVotta),” Grand Tamasha, January 29, 2025.

Statins are one of the most prescribed drugs in the world as they are highly effective at reducing “bad” LDL cholesterol that causes cardiovascular disease. A new review in the Lancet has found there are far fewer side effects associated with their use than previously thought. New Nipah cases have been reported in India and Bangladesh. Trudie Lang Professor of Global Health Research at the University of Oxford explains the significance and how worried we should be.A team in Cardiff, Wales have designed a reusable sanitary pad that cleans in sunlight. As a trial of the product begins in Nepal, we find out what the participants think of the idea and how it works.What does air pollution do to our bodies? James Gallagher reports. Plus, does pink noise actually help us sleep?Presenter: Laura Foster Producer: Hannah Robins Assistant Producers: Jonathan Blackwell, Anna Charalambou

Infrastructure was passé…uncool. Difficult to get dollars from Private Equity and Growth funds, and almost impossible to get a VC fund interested. Now?! Now, it's cool. Infrastructure seems to be having a Renaissance, a full on Rebirth, not just fueled by commercial interests (e.g. advent of AI), but also by industrial policy and geopolitical considerations. In this episode of Tech Deciphered, we explore what's cool in the infrastructure spaces, including mega trends in semiconductors, energy, networking & connectivity, manufacturing Navigation: Intro We're back to building things Why now: the 5 forces behind the renaissance Semiconductors: compute is the new oil Networking & connectivity: digital highways get rebuilt Energy: rebuilding the power stack (not just renewables) Manufacturing: the return of “atoms + bits” Wrap: what it means for startups, incumbents, and investors Conclusion Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Introduction Welcome to episode 73 of Tech Deciphered, Infrastructure, the Rebirth or Renaissance. Infrastructure was passé, it wasn’t cool, but all of a sudden now everyone’s talking about network, talking about compute and semiconductors, talking about logistics, talking about energy. What gives? What’s happened? It was impossible in the past to get any funds, venture capital, even, to be honest, some private equity funds or growth funds interested in some of these areas, but now all of a sudden everyone thinks it’s cool. The infrastructure seems to be having a renaissance, a full-on rebirth. In this episode, we will explore in which cool ways the infrastructure spaces are moving and what’s leading to it. We will deep dive into the forces that are leading us to this. We will deep dive into semiconductors, networking and connectivity, energy, manufacturing, and then we’ll wrap up. Bertrand, so infrastructure is cool now. Bertrand Schmitt We're back to building things Yes. I thought software was going to eat the world. I cannot believe it was then, maybe even 15 years ago, from Andreessen, that quote about software eating the world. I guess it’s an eternal balance. Sometimes you go ahead of yourself, you build a lot of software stack, and at some point, you need the hardware to run this software stack, and there is only so much the bits can do in a world of atoms. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Obviously, we’ve gone through some of this before. I think what we’re going through right now is AI is eating the world, and because AI is eating the world, it’s driving a lot of this infrastructure building that we need. We don’t have enough energy to be consumed by all these big data centers and hyperscalers. We need to be innovative around network as well because of the consumption in terms of network bandwidth that is linked to that consumption as well. In some ways, it’s not software eating the world, AI is eating the world. Because AI is eating the world, we need to rethink everything around infrastructure and infrastructure becoming cool again. Bertrand Schmitt There is something deeper in this. It’s that the past 10, even 15 years were all about SaaS before AI. SaaS, interestingly enough, was very energy-efficient. When I say SaaS, I mean cloud computing at large. What I mean by energy-efficient is that actually cloud computing help make energy use more efficient because instead of companies having their own separate data centers in many locations, sometimes poorly run from an industrial perspective, replace their own privately run data center with data center run by the super scalers, the hyperscalers of the world. These data centers were run much better in terms of how you manage the coolings, the energy efficiency, the rack density, all of this stuff. Actually, the cloud revolution didn’t increase the use of electricity. The cloud revolution was actually a replacement from your private data center to the hyperscaler data center, which was energy efficient. That’s why we didn’t, even if we are always talking about that growth of cloud computing, we were never feeling the pinch in term of electricity. As you say, we say it all changed because with AI, it was not a simple “Replacement” of locally run infrastructure to a hyperscaler run infrastructure. It was truly adding on top of an existing infrastructure, a new computing infrastructure in a way out of nowhere. Not just any computing infrastructure, an energy infrastructure that was really, really voracious in term of energy use. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro There was one other effect. Obviously, we’ve discussed before, we are in a bubble. We won’t go too much into that today. But the previous big bubble in tech, which is in the late ’90s, there was a lot of infrastructure built. We thought the internet was going to take over back then. It didn’t take over immediately, but there was a lot of network connectivity, bandwidth built back in the day. Companies imploded because of that as well, or had to restructure and go in their chapter 11. A lot of the big telco companies had their own issues back then, etc., but a lot of infrastructure was built back then for this advent of the internet, which would then take a long time to come. In some ways, to your point, there was a lot of latent supply that was built that was around that for a while wasn’t used, but then it was. Now it’s been used, and now we need new stuff. That’s why I feel now we’re having the new moment of infrastructure, new moment of moving forward, aligned a little bit with what you just said around cloud computing and the advent of SaaS, but also around the fact that we had a lot of buildup back in the late ’90s, early ’90s, which we’re now still reaping the benefits on in today’s world. Bertrand Schmitt Yeah, that’s actually a great point because what was built in the late ’90s, there was a lot of fibre that was built. Laying out the fibre either across countries, inside countries. This fibre, interestingly enough, you could just change the computing on both sides of the fibre, the routing, the modems, and upgrade the capacity of the fibre. But the fibre was the same in between. The big investment, CapEx investment, was really lying down that fibre, but then you could really upgrade easily. Even if both ends of the fibre were either using very old infrastructure from the ’90s or were actually dark and not being put to use, step by step, it was being put to use, equipment was replaced, and step by step, you could keep using more and more of this fibre. It was a very interesting development, as you say, because it could be expanded over the years, where if we talk about GPUs, use for AI, GPUs, the interesting part is actually it’s totally the opposite. After a few years, it’s useless. Some like Google, will argue that they can depreciate over 5, 6 years, even some GPUs. But at the end of the day, the difference in perf and energy efficiency of the GPUs means that if you are energy constrained, you just want to replace the old one even as young as three-year-old. You have to look at Nvidia increasing spec, generation after generation. It’s pretty insane. It’s usually at least 3X year over year in term of performance. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro At this moment in time, it’s very clear that it’s happening. Why now: the 5 forces behind the renaissance Maybe let’s deep dive into why it’s happening now. What are the key forces around this? We’ve identified, I think, five forces that are particularly vital that lead to the world we’re in right now. One we’ve already talked about, which is AI, the demand shock and everything that’s happened because of AI. Data centers drive power demand, drive grid upgrades, drive innovative ways of getting energy, drive chips, drive networking, drive cooling, drive manufacturing, drive all the things that we’re going to talk in just a bit. One second element that we could probably highlight in terms of the forces that are behind this is obviously where we are in terms of cost curves around technology. Obviously, a lot of things are becoming much cheaper. The simulation of physical behaviours has become a lot more cheap, which in itself, this becomes almost a vicious cycle in of itself, then drives the adoption of more and more AI and stuff. But anyway, the simulation is becoming more and more accessible, so you can do a lot of simulation with digital twins and other things off the real world before you go into the real world. Robotics itself is becoming, obviously, cheaper. Hardware, a lot of the hardware is becoming cheaper. Computer has become cheaper as well. Obviously, there’s a lot of cost curves that have aligned that, and that’s maybe the second force that I would highlight. Obviously, funds are catching up. We’ll leave that a little bit to the end. We’ll do a wrap-up and talk a little bit about the implications to investors. But there’s a lot of capital out there, some capital related to industrial policy, other capital related to private initiative, private equity, growth funds, even venture capital, to be honest, and a few other elements on that. That would be a third force that I would highlight. Bertrand Schmitt Yes. Interestingly enough, in terms of capital use, and we’ll talk more about this, but some firms, if we are talking about energy investment, it was very difficult to invest if you are not investing in green energy. Now I think more and more firms and banks are willing to invest or support different type of energy infrastructure, not just, “Green energy.” That’s an interesting development because at some point it became near impossible to invest more in gas development, in oil development in the US or in most Western countries. At least in the US, this is dramatically changing the framework. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Maybe to add the two last forces that I think we see behind the renaissance of what’s happening in infrastructure. They go hand in hand. One is the geopolitics of the world right now. Obviously, the world was global flat, and now it’s becoming increasingly siloed, so people are playing it to their own interests. There’s a lot of replication of infrastructure as well because people want to be autonomous, and they want to drive their own ability to serve end consumers, businesses, etc., in terms of data centers and everything else. That ability has led to things like, for example, chips shortage. The fact that there are semiconductors, there are shortages across the board, like memory shortages, where everything is packed up until 2027 of 2028. A lot of the memory that was being produced is already spoken for, which is shocking. There’s obviously generation of supply chain fragilities, obviously, some of it because of policies, for example, in the US with tariffs, etc, security of energy, etc. Then the last force directly linked to the geopolitics is the opposite of it, which is the policy as an accelerant, so to speak, as something that is accelerating development, where because of those silos, individual countries, as part their industrial policy, then want to put capital behind their local ecosystems, their local companies, so that their local companies and their local systems are for sure the winners, or at least, at the very least, serve their own local markets. I think that’s true of a lot of the things we’re seeing, for example, in the US with the Chips Act, for semiconductors, with IGA, IRA, and other elements of what we’ve seen in terms of practices, policies that have been implemented even in Europe, China, and other parts of the world. Bertrand Schmitt Talking about chips shortages, it’s pretty insane what has been happening with memory. Just the past few weeks, I have seen a close to 3X increase in price in memory prices in a matter of weeks. Apparently, it started with a huge order from OpenAI. Apparently, they have tried to corner the memory market. Interestingly enough, it has flat-footed the entire industry, and that includes Google, that includes Microsoft. There are rumours of their teams now having moved to South Korea, so they are closer to the action in terms of memory factories and memory decision-making. There are rumours of execs who got fired because they didn’t prepare for this type of eventuality or didn’t lock in some of the supply chain because that memory was initially for AI, but obviously, it impacts everything because factories making memories, you have to plan years in advance to build memories. You cannot open new lines of manufacturing like this. All factories that are going to open, we know when they are going to open because they’ve been built up for years. There is no extra capacity suddenly. At the very best, you can change a bit your line of production from one type of memory to another type. But that’s probably about it. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Just to be clear, all these transformations we’re seeing isn’t to say just hardware is back, right? It’s not just hardware. There’s physicality. The buildings are coming back, right? It’s full stack. Software is here. That’s why everything is happening. Policy is here. Finance is here. It’s a little bit like the name of the movie, right? Everything everywhere all at once. Everything’s happening. It was in some ways driven by the upper stacks, by the app layers, by the platform layers. But now we need new infrastructure. We need more infrastructure. We need it very, very quickly. We need it today. We’re already lacking in it. Semiconductors: compute is the new oil Maybe that’s a good segue into the first piece of the whole infrastructure thing that’s driving now the most valuable company in the world, NVIDIA, which is semiconductors. Semiconductors are driving compute. Semis are the foundation of infrastructure as a compute. Everyone needs it for every thing, for every activity, not just for compute, but even for sensors, for actuators, everything else. That’s the beginning of it all. Semiconductor is one of the key pieces around the infrastructure stack that’s being built at scale at this moment in time. Bertrand Schmitt Yes. What’s interesting is that if we look at the market gap of Semis versus software as a service, cloud companies, there has been a widening gap the past year. I forgot the exact numbers, but we were talking about plus 20, 25% for Semis in term of market gap and minus 5, minus 10 for SaaS companies. That’s another trend that’s happening. Why is this happening? One, because semiconductors are core to the AI build-up, you cannot go around without them. But two, it’s also raising a lot of questions about the durability of the SaaS, a software-as-a-service business model. Because if suddenly we have better AI, and that’s all everyone is talking about to justify the investment in AI, that it keeps getting better, and it keeps improving, and it’s going to replace your engineers, your software engineers. Then maybe all of this moat that software companies built up over the years or decades, sometimes, might unravel under the pressure of newly coded, newly built, cheaper alternatives built from the ground up with AI support. It’s not just that, yes, semiconductors are doing great. It’s also as a result of that AI underlying trend that software is doing worse right now. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro At the end of the day, this foundational piece of infrastructure, semiconductor, is obviously getting manifest to many things, fabrication, manufacturing, packaging, materials, equipment. Everything’s being driven, ASML, etc. There are all these different players around the world that are having skyrocket valuations now, it’s because they’re all part of the value chain. Just to be very, very clear, there’s two elements of this that I think are very important for us to remember at this point in time. One, it’s the entire value chains are being shifted. It’s not just the chips that basically lead to computing in the strict sense of it. It’s like chips, for example, that drive, for example, network switching. We’re going to talk about networking a bit, but you need chips to drive better network switching. That’s getting revolutionised as well. For example, we have an investment in that space, a company called the eridu.ai, and they’re revolutionising one of the pieces around that stack. Second part of the puzzle, so obviously, besides the holistic view of the world that’s changing in terms of value change, the second piece of the puzzle is, as we discussed before, there’s industrial policy. We already mentioned the CHIPS Act, which is something, for example, that has been done in the US, which I think is 52 billion in incentives across a variety of things, grants, loans, and other mechanisms to incentivise players to scale capacity quick and to scale capacity locally in the US. One of the effects of that now is obviously we had the TSMC, US expansion with a factory here in the US. We have other levels of expansion going on with Intel, Samsung, and others that are happening as we speak. Again, it’s this two by two. It’s market forces that drive the need for fundamental shifts in the value chain. On the other industrial policy and actual money put forward by states, by governments, by entities that want to revolutionise their own local markets. Bertrand Schmitt Yes. When you talk about networking, it makes me think about what NVIDIA did more than six years ago when they acquired Mellanox. At the time, it was largest acquisition for NVIDIA in 2019, and it was networking for the data center. Not networking across data center, but inside the data center, and basically making sure that your GPUs, the different computers, can talk as fast as possible between each of them. I think that’s one piece of the puzzle that a lot of companies are missing, by the way, about NVIDIA is that they are truly providing full systems. They are not just providing a GPU. Some of their competitors are just providing GPUs. But NVIDIA can provide you the full rack. Now, they move to liquid-cool computing as well. They design their systems with liquid cooling in mind. They have a very different approach in the industry. It’s a systematic system-level approach to how do you optimize your data center. Quite frankly, that’s a bit hard to beat. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro For those listening, you’d be like, this is all very different. Semiconductors, networking, energy, manufacturing, this is all different. Then all of a sudden, as Bertrand is saying, well, there are some players that are acting across the stack. Then you see in the same sentence, you’re talking about nuclear power in Microsoft or nuclear power in Google, and you’re like, what happened? Why are these guys in the same sentence? It’s like they’re tech companies. Why are they talking about energy? It’s the nature of that. These ecosystems need to go hand in hand. The value chains are very deep. For you to actually reap the benefits of more and more, for example, semiconductor availability, you have to have better and better networking connectivity, and you have to have more and more energy at lower and lower costs, and all of that. All these things are intrinsically linked. That’s why you see all these big tech companies working across stack, NVIDIA being a great example of that in trying to create truly a systems approach to the world, as Bertrand was mentioning. Networking & connectivity: digital highways get rebuilt On the networking and connectivity side, as we said, we had a lot of fibre that was put down, etc, but there’s still more build-out needs to be done. 5G in terms of its densification is still happening. We’re now starting to talk, obviously, about 6G. I’m not sure most telcos are very happy about that because they just have been doing all this CapEx and all this deployment into 5G, and now people already started talking about 6G and what’s next. Obviously, data center interconnect is quite important, and all the hubbing that needs to happen around data centers is very, very important. We are seeing a lot movements around connectivity that are particularly important. Network gear and the emergence of players like Broadcom in terms of the semiconductor side of the fence, obviously, Cisco, Juniper, Arista, and others that are very much present in this space. As I said, we made an investment on the semiconductor side of networking as well, realizing that there’s still a lot of bottlenecks happening there. But obviously, the networking and connectivity stack still needs to be built at all levels within the data centers, outside of the data centers in terms of last mile, across the board in terms of fibre. We’re seeing a lot of movements still around the space. It’s what connects everything. At the end of the day, if there’s too much latency in these systems, if the bandwidths are not high enough, then we’re going to have huge bottlenecks that are going to be put at the table by a networking providers. Obviously, that doesn’t help anyone. If there’s a button like anywhere, it doesn’t work. All of this doesn’t work. Bertrand Schmitt Yes. Interestingly enough, I know we said for this episode, we not talk too much about space, but when you talk about 6G, it make me think about, of course, Starlink. That’s really your last mile delivery that’s being built as well. It’s a massive investment. We’re talking about thousands of satellites that are interconnected between each other through laser system. This is changing dramatically how companies can operate, how individuals can operate. For companies, you can have great connectivity from anywhere in the world. For military, it’s the same. For individuals, suddenly, you won’t have dead space, wide zones. This is also a part of changing how we could do things. It’s quite important even in the development of AI because, yes, you can have AI at the edge, but that interconnect to the rest of the system is quite critical. Having that availability of a network link, high-quality network link from anywhere is a great combo. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Then you start seeing regions of the world that want to differentiate to attract digital nomads by saying, “We have submarine cables that come and hub through us, and therefore, our connectivity is amazing.” I was just in Madeira, and they were talking about that in Portugal. One of the islands of Portugal. We have some Marine cables. You have great connectivity. We’re getting into that discussion where people are like, I don’t care. I mean, I don’t know. I assume I have decent connectivity. People actually care about decent connectivity. This discussion is not just happening at corporate level, at enterprise level? Etc. Even consumers, even people that want to work remotely or be based somewhere else in the world. It’s like, This is important Where is there a great connectivity for me so that I can have access to the services I need? Etc. Everyone becomes aware of everything. We had a cloud flare mishap more recently that the CEO had to jump online and explain deeply, technically and deeply, what happened. Because we’re in their heads. If Cloudflare goes down, there’s a lot of websites that don’t work. All of this, I think, is now becoming du jour rather than just an afterthought. Maybe we’ll think about that in the future. Bertrand Schmitt Totally. I think your life is being changed for network connectivity, so life of individuals, companies. I mean, everything. Look at airlines and ships and cruise ships. Now is the advent of satellite connectivity. It’s dramatically changing our experience. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Indeed. Energy: rebuilding the power stack (not just renewables) Moving maybe to energy. We’ve talked about energy quite a bit in the past. Maybe we start with the one that we didn’t talk as much, although we did mention it, which was, let’s call it the fossil infrastructure, what’s happening around there. Everyone was saying, it’s all going to be renewables and green. We’ve had a shift of power, geopolitics. Honestly, I the writing was on the wall that we needed a lot more energy creation. It wasn’t either or. We needed other sources to be as efficient as possible. Obviously, we see a lot of work happening around there that many would have thought, Well, all this infrastructure doesn’t matter anymore. Now we’re seeing LNG terminals, pipelines, petrochemical capacity being pushed up, a lot of stuff happening around markets in terms of export, and not only around export, but also around overall distribution and increases and improvements so that there’s less leakage, distribution of energy, etc. In some ways, people say, it’s controversial, but it’s like we don’t have enough energy to spare. We’re already behind, so we need as much as we can. We need to figure out the way to really extract as much as we can from even natural resources, which In many people’s mind, it’s almost like blasphemous to talk about, but it is where we are. Obviously, there’s a lot of renaissance also happening on the fossil infrastructure basis, so to speak. Bertrand Schmitt Personally, I’m ecstatic that there is a renaissance going regarding what is called fossil infrastructure. Oil and gas, it’s critical to humanity well-being. You never had growth of countries without energy growth and nothing else can come close. Nuclear could come close, but it takes decades to deploy. I think it’s great. It’s great for developed economies so that they do better, they can expand faster. It’s great for third-world countries who have no realistic other choice. I really don’t know what happened the past 10, 15 years and why this was suddenly blasphemous. But I’m glad that, strangely, thanks to AI, we are back to a more rational mindset about energy and making sure we get efficient energy where we can. Obviously, nuclear is getting a second act. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro I know you would be. We’ve been talking about for a long time, and you’ve been talking about it in particular for a very long time. Bertrand Schmitt Yes, definitely. It’s been one area of interest of mine for 25 years. I don’t know. I’ve been shocked about what happened in Europe, that willingness destruction of energy infrastructure, especially in Germany. Just a few months ago, they keep destroying on live TV some nuclear station in perfect working condition and replacing them with coal. I’m not sure there is a better definition of insanity at this stage. It looks like it’s only the Germans going that hardcore for some reason, but at least the French have stopped their program of decommissioning. America, it seems to be doing the same, so it’s great. On top of it, there are new generations that could be put to use. The Chinese are building up a very large nuclear reactor program, more than 100 reactors in construction for the next 10 years. I think everybody has to catch up because at some point, this is the most efficient energy solution. Especially if you don’t build crazy constraints around the construction of these nuclear reactors. If we are rational about permits, about energy, about safety, there are great things we could be doing with nuclear. That might be one of the only solution if we want to be competitive, because when energy prices go down like crazy, like in China, they will do once they have reach delivery of their significant build-up of nuclear reactors, we better be ready to have similar options from a cost perspective. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro From the outside, at the very least, nuclear seems to be probably in the energy one of the areas that’s more being innovated at this moment in time. You have startups in the space, you have a lot really money going into it, not just your classic industrial development. That’s very exciting. Moving maybe to the carbonization and what’s happening. The CCUS, and for those who don’t know what it is, carbon capture, utilization, and storage. There’s a lot of stuff happening around that space. That’s the area that deals with the ability to capture CO₂ emissions from industrial sources and/or the atmosphere and preventing their release. There’s a lot of things happening in that space. There’s also a lot of things happening around hydrogen and geothermal and really creating the ability to storage or to store, rather, energy that then can be put back into the grids at the right time. There’s a lot of interesting pieces happening around this. There’s some startup movement in the space. It’s been a long time coming, the reuse of a lot of these industrial sources. Not sure it’s as much on the news as nuclear, and oil and gas, but certainly there’s a lot of exciting things happening there. Bertrand Schmitt I’m a bit more dubious here, but I think geothermal makes sense if it’s available at reasonable price. I don’t think hydrogen technology has proven its value. Concerning carbon capture, I’m not sure how much it’s really going to provide in terms of energy needs, but why not? Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Fuels niche, again, from the outside, we’re not energy experts, but certainly, there are movements in the space. We’ll see what’s happening. One area where there’s definitely a lot of movement is this notion of grid and storage. On the one hand, that transmission needs to be built out. It needs to be better. We’ve had issues of blackouts in the US. We’ve had issues of blackouts all around the world, almost. Portugal as well, for a significant part of the time. The ability to work around transmission lines, transformers, substations, the modernization of some of this infrastructure, and the move forward of it is pretty critical. But at the other end, there’s the edge. Then, on the edge, you have the ability to store. We should have, better mechanisms to store energy that are less leaky in terms of energy storage. Obviously, there’s a lot of movement around that. Some of it driven just by commercial stuff, like Tesla a lot with their storage stuff, etc. Some of it really driven at scale by energy players that have the interest that, for example, some of the storage starts happening closer to the consumption as well. But there’s a lot of exciting things happening in that space, and that is a transformative space. In some ways, the bottleneck of energy is also around transmission and then ultimately the access to energy by homes, by businesses, by industries, etc. Bertrand Schmitt I would say some of the blackout are truly man-made. If I pick on California, for instance. That’s the logical conclusion of the regulatory system in place in California. On one side, you limit price that energy supplier can sell. The utility company can sell, too. On the other side, you force them to decommission the most energy-efficient and least expensive energy source. That means you cap the revenues, you make the cost increase. What is the result? The result is you cannot invest anymore to support a grid and to support transmission. That’s 100% obvious. That’s what happened, at least in many places. The solution is stop crazy regulations that makes no economic sense whatsoever. Then, strangely enough, you can invest again in transmission, in maintenance, and all I love this stuff. Maybe another piece, if we pick in California, if you authorize building construction in areas where fires are easy, that’s also a very costly to support from utility perspective, because then you are creating more risk. You are forced buy the state to connect these new constructions to the grid. You have more maintenance. If it fails, you can create fire. If you create fire, you have to pay billions of fees. I just want to highlight that some of this is not a technological issue, is not per se an investment issue, but it’s simply the result of very bad regulations. I hope that some will learn, and some change will be made so that utilities can do their job better. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Then last, but not the least, on the energy side, energy is becoming more and more digitally defined in some ways. It’s like the analogy to networks that they’ve become more, and more software defined, where you have, at the edge is things like smart meters. There’s a lot of things you can do around the key elements of the business model, like dynamic pricing and other elements. Demand response, one of the areas that I invested in, I invest in a company called Omconnect that’s now merged with what used to be Google Nest. Where to deploy that ability to do demand response and also pass it to consumers so that consumers can reduce their consumption at times where is the least price effective or the less green or the less good for the energy companies to produce energy. We have other things that are happening, which are interesting. Obviously, we have a lot more electric vehicles in cars, etc. These are also elements of storage. They don’t look like elements of storage, but the car has electricity in it once you charge it. Once it’s charged, what do you do with it? Could you do something else? Like the whole reverse charging piece that we also see now today in mobile devices and other edge devices, so to speak. That also changes the architecture of what we’re seeing around the space. With AI, there’s a lot of elements that change around the value chain. The ability to do forecasting, the ability to have, for example, virtual power plans because of just designated storage out there, etc. Interesting times happening. Not sure all utilities around the world, all energy providers around the world are innovating at the same pace and in the same way. But certainly just looking at the industry and talking to a lot of players that are CEOs of some of these companies. That are leading innovation for some of these companies, there’s definitely a lot more happening now in the last few years than maybe over the last few decades. Very exciting times. Bertrand Schmitt I think there are two interesting points in what you say. Talking about EVs, for instance, a Cybertruck is able to send electricity back to your home if your home is able to receive electricity from that source. Usually, you have some changes to make to the meter system, to your panel. That’s one great way to potentially use your car battery. Another piece of the puzzle is that, strangely enough, most strangely enough, there has been a big push to EV, but at the same time, there has not been a push to provide more electricity. But if you replace cars that use gasoline by electric vehicles that use electricity, you need to deliver more electricity. It doesn’t require a PhD to get that. But, strangely enough, nothing was done. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Apparently, it does. Bertrand Schmitt I remember that study in France where they say that, if people were all to switch to EV, we will need 10 more nuclear reactors just on the way from Paris to Nice to the Côte d’Azur, the French Rivière, in order to provide electricity to the cars going there during the summer vacation. But I mean, guess what? No nuclear plant is being built along the way. Good luck charging your vehicles. I think that’s another limit that has been happening to the grid is more electric vehicles that require charging when the related infrastructure has not been upgraded to support more. Actually, it has quite the opposite. In many cases, we had situation of nuclear reactors closing down, so other facilities closing down. Obviously, the end result is an increase in price of electricity, at least in some states and countries that have not sold that fully out. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Manufacturing: the return of “atoms + bits” Moving to manufacturing and what’s happening around manufacturing, manufacturing technology. There’s maybe the case to be made that manufacturing is getting replatformed, right? It’s getting redefined. Some of it is very obvious, and it’s already been ongoing for a couple of decades, which is the advent of and more and more either robotic augmented factories or just fully roboticized factories, where there’s very little presence of human beings. There’s elements of that. There’s the element of software definition on top of it, like simulation. A lot of automation is going on. A lot of AI has been applied to some lines in terms of vision, safety. We have an investment in a company called Sauter Analytics that is very focused on that from the perspective of employees and when they’re still humans in the loop, so to speak, and the ability to really figure out when people are at risk and other elements of what’s happening occurring from that. But there’s more than that. There’s a little bit of a renaissance in and of itself. Factories are, initially, if we go back a couple of decades ago, factories were, and manufacturing was very much defined from the setup. Now it’s difficult to innovate, it’s difficult to shift the line, it’s difficult to change how things are done in the line. With the advent of new factories that have less legacy, that have more flexible systems, not only in terms of software, but also in terms of hardware and robotics, it allows us to, for example, change and shift lines much more easily to different functions, which will hopefully, over time, not only reduce dramatically the cost of production. But also increase dramatically the yield, it increases dramatically the production itself. A lot of cool stuff happening in that space. Bertrand Schmitt It’s exciting to see that. One thing this current administration in the US has been betting on is not just hoping for construction renaissance. Especially on the factory side, up of factories, but their mindset was two things. One, should I force more companies to build locally because it would be cheaper? Two, increase output and supply of energy so that running factories here in the US would be cheaper than anywhere else. Maybe not cheaper than China, but certainly we get is cheaper than Europe. But three, it’s also the belief that thanks to AI, we will be able to have more efficient factories. There is always that question, do Americans to still keep making clothes, for instance, in factories. That used to be the case maybe 50 years ago, but this move to China, this move to Bangladesh, this move to different places. That’s not the goal. But it can make sense that indeed there is ability, thanks to robots and AI, to have more automated factories, and these factories could be run more efficiently, and as a result, it would be priced-competitive, even if run in the US. When you want to think about it, that has been, for instance, the South Korean playbook. More automated factories, robotics, all of this, because that was the only way to compete against China, which has a near infinite or used to have a near infinite supply of cheaper labour. I think that all of this combined can make a lot of sense. In a way, it’s probably creating a perfect storm. Maybe another piece of the puzzle this administration has been working on pretty hard is simplifying all the permitting process. Because a big chunk of the problem is that if your permitting is very complex, very expensive, what take two years to build become four years, five years, 10 years. The investment mass is not the same in that situation. I think that’s a very important part of the puzzle. It’s use this opportunity to reduce regulatory state, make sure that things are more efficient. Also, things are less at risk of bribery and fraud because all these regulations, there might be ways around. I think it’s quite critical to really be careful about this. Maybe last piece of the puzzle is the way accounting works. There are new rules now in 2026 in the US where you can fully depreciate your CapEx much faster than before. That’s a big win for manufacturing in the US. Suddenly, you can depreciate much faster some of your CapEx investment in manufacturing. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Just going back to a point you made and then moving it forward, even China, with being now probably the country in the world with the highest rate of innovation and take up of industrial robots. Because of demographic issues a little bit what led Japan the first place to be one of the real big innovators around robots in general. The fact that demographics, you’re having an aging population, less and less children. How are you going to replace all these people? Moving that into big winners, who becomes a big winner in a space where manufacturing is fundamentally changing? Obviously, there’s the big four of robots, which is ABB, FANUC, KUKA, and Yaskawa. Epson, I think, is now in there, although it’s not considered one of the big four. Kawasaki, Denso, Universal Robots. There’s a really big robotics, industrial robotic companies in the space from different origins, FANUC and Yaskawa, and Epson from Japan, KUKA from Germany, ABB from Switzerland, Sweden. A lot of now emerging companies from China, and what’s happening in that space is quite interesting. On the other hand, also, other winners will include players that will be integrators that will build some of the rest of the infrastructure that goes into manufacturing, the Siemens of the world, the Schneider’s, the Rockwell’s that will lead to fundamental industrial automation. Some big winners in there that whose names are well known, so probably not a huge amount of surprises there. There’s movements. As I said, we’re still going to see the big Chinese players emerging in the world. There are startups that are innovating around a lot of the edges that are significant in this space. We’ll see if this is a space that will just be continued to be dominated by the big foreign robotics and by a couple of others and by the big integrators or not. Bertrand Schmitt I think you are right to remind about China because China has been moving very fast in robotics. Some Chinese companies are world-class in their use of robotics. You have this strange mix of some older industries where robotics might not be so much put to use and typically state-owned, versus some private companies, typically some tech companies that are reconverting into hardware in some situation. That went all in terms of robotics use and their demonstrations, an example of what’s happening in China. Definitely, the Chinese are not resting. Everyone smart enough is playing that game from the Americans, the Chinese, Japanese, the South Koreans. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Exciting things are manufacturing, and maybe to bring it all together, what does it mean for all the big players out there? If we talk with startups and talk about startups, we didn’t mention a ton of startups today, right? Maybe incumbent wind across the board. But on a more serious note, we did mention a few. For example, in nuclear energy, there’s a lot of startups that have been, some of them, incredibly well-funded at this moment in time. Wrap: what it means for startups, incumbents, and investors There might be some big disruptions that will come out of startups, for example, in that space. On the chipset side, we talked about the big gorillas, the NVIDIAs, AMDs, Intel, etc., of the world. But we didn’t quite talk about the fact that there’s a lot of innovation, again, happening on the edges with new players going after very large niches, be it in networking and switching. Be it in compute and other areas that will need different, more specialized solutions. Potentially in terms of compute or in terms of semiconductor deployments. I think there’s still some opportunities there, maybe not to be the winner takes all thing, but certainly around a lot of very significant niches that might grow very fast. Manufacturing, we mentioned the same. Some of the incumbents seem to be in the driving seat. We’ll see what happens if some startups will come in and take some of the momentum there, probably less likely. There are spaces where the value chains are very tightly built around the OEMs and then the suppliers overall, classically the tier one suppliers across value chains. Maybe there is some startup investment play. We certainly have played in the couple of the spaces. I mentioned already some of them today, but this is maybe where the incumbents have it all to lose. It’s more for them to lose rather than for the startups to win just because of the scale of what needs to be done and what needs to be deployed. Bertrand Schmitt I know. That’s interesting point. I think some players in energy production, for instance, are moving very fast and behaving not only like startups. Usually, it’s independent energy suppliers who are not kept by too much regulations that get moved faster. Utility companies, as we just discussed, have more constraints. I would like to say that if you take semiconductor space, there has been quite a lot of startup activities way more than usual, and there have been some incredible success. Just a few weeks ago, Rock got more or less acquired. Now, you have to play games. It’s not an outright acquisition, but $20 billion for an IP licensing agreement that’s close to an acquisition. That’s an incredible success for a company. Started maybe 10 years ago. You have another Cerebras, one of the competitor valued, I believe, quite a lot in similar range. I think there is definitely some activity. It’s definitely a different game compared to your software startup in terms of investment. But as we have seen with AI in general, the need for investment might be larger these days. Yes, it might be either traditional players if they can move fast enough, to be frank, because some of them, when you have decades of being run as a slow-moving company, it’s hard to change things. At the same time, it looks like VCs are getting bigger. Wall Street is getting more ready to finance some of these companies. I think there will be opportunities for startups, but definitely different types of startups in terms of profile. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Exactly. From an investor standpoint, I think on the VC side, at least our core belief is that it’s more niche. It’s more around big niches that need to be fundamentally disrupted or solutions that require fundamental interoperability and integration where the incumbents have no motivation to do it. Things that are a little bit more either packaging on the semiconductor side or other elements of actual interoperability. Even at the software layer side that feeds into infrastructure. If you’re a growth investor, a private equity investor, there’s other plays that are available to you. A lot of these projects need to be funded and need to be scaled. Now we’re seeing projects being funded even for a very large, we mentioned it in one of the previous episodes, for a very large tech companies. When Meta, for example, is going to the market to get funding for data centers, etc. There’s projects to be funded there because just the quantum and scale of some of these projects, either because of financial interest for specifically the tech companies or for other reasons, but they need to be funded by the market. There’s other place right now, certainly if you’re a larger private equity growth investor, and you want to come into the market and do projects. Even public-private financing is now available for a lot of things. Definitely, there’s a lot of things emanating that require a lot of funding, even for large-scale projects. Which means the advent of some of these projects and where realization is hopefully more of a given than in other circumstances, because there’s actual commercial capital behind it and private capital behind it to fuel it as well, not just industrial policy and money from governments. Bertrand Schmitt There was this quite incredible stat. I guess everyone heard about that incredible growth in GDP in Q3 in the US at 4.4%. Apparently, half of that growth, so around 2.2% point, has been coming from AI and related infrastructure investment. That’s pretty massive. Half of your GDP growth coming from something that was not there three years ago or there, but not at this intensity of investment. That’s the numbers we are talking about. I’m hearing that there is a good chance that in 2026, we’re talking about five, even potentially 6% GDP growth. Again, half of it potentially coming from AI and all the related infrastructure growth that’s coming with AI. As a conclusion for this episode on infrastructure, as we just said, it’s not just AI, it’s a whole stack, and it’s manufacturing in general as well. Definitely in the US, in China, there is a lot going on. As we have seen, computing needs connectivity, networks, need power, energy and grid, and all of this needs production capacity and manufacturing. Manufacturing can benefit from AI as well. That way the loop is fully going back on itself. Infrastructure is the next big thing. It’s an opportunity, probably more for incumbents, but certainly, as usual, with such big growth opportunities for startups as well. Thank you, Nuno. Nuno Gonçalves Pedro Thank you, Bertrand.

durée : 00:05:22 - La Revue de presse internationale - par : Catherine Duthu - 127 millions d'électeurs sont appelés aux urnes, demain, au Bangladesh pour des législatives et un référendum qui cherche à asseoir la démocratie après la chute de l'ex-Première ministre Sheikh Hasina à l'été 2024. Un parti islamiste monte en puissance et menace les droits des femmes.

In this podcast, Kushal and Ajay Rotti will address the entire controversy around the claim of Indian textiles being doomed. After the announcement of the India USA trade deal there was a declaration of the terms of agreement between Bangladesh and America. Post that there has been a lot of noise about how Indian textile industry is doomed. How accurate are these claims? Follow them: X: @ajayrotti #indiaustradedeal #pmmodi #donaldtrump #indiaustrade #trumptariffs #trump #donaldtrump #pmmodi #indiaustradedeal #tradedeal #trumptariffs #indiaustrade #tariffscuts #trumppmmodi #tariffs #indiausrelations ------------------------------------------------------------ Listen to the podcasts on: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kushal-mehra-99891819 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rVcDV3upgVurMVW1wwoBp Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-c%C4%81rv%C4%81ka-podcast/id1445348369 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-carvaka-podcast ------------------------------------------------------------ Support The Cārvāka Podcast: Buy Kushal's Book: https://amzn.in/d/58cY4dU Become a Member on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKPx... Become a Member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carvaka UPI: kushalmehra@icici Interac Canada: kushalmehra81@gmail.com To buy The Carvaka Podcast Exclusive Merch please visit: http://kushalmehra.com/shop ------------------------------------------------------------ Follow Kushal: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kushal_mehra?ref_... Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KushalMehraO... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecarvakap... Koo: https://www.kooapp.com/profile/kushal... Inquiries: https://kushalmehra.com/ Feedback: kushalmehra81@gmail.com

Those who hope to honor God and advance Jesus' Kingdom face powerful opposition from spiritual, physical, and psychological enemies. Successful launching and long term fruitfulness depends on recognizing and, in dependence on the Holy Spirit, waging war against those enemies.

Trade by leverage: at what cost did Bangladesh buy a 1% tariff cut?  Listen for more on Two Minutes in Trade. 

Urban Culture Talk Show@therydealongNYC

Mark Chapman is joined by T20 World Cup winner Tymal Mills, former England spinner Phil Tufnell and Chief Cricket Reporter Stephan Shemilt to discuss the opening few days of the World Cup.The big news today is that Pakistan will play India in the Group match on Sunday after Pakistan's government lifted their boycott with Bangladesh's blessing. Wisden editor Lawrence Booth joins the panel to talk about the internal politics of world cricket. England are off to a winning start, just, so what did we learn about Harry Brook's captaincy? And are the smaller nations catching the established powers in international cricket?You can hear ball-by-ball commentary of every match of the T20 World Cup on BBC Sounds

Il 12 febbraio i bangladesi andranno a votare per la prima volta dopo la violenta rivolta che nell'estate del 2024 ha rimosso la prima ministra Sheikh Hasina. Con Giuliano Battiston, giornalista, da Dakha.“Il grande terremoto" di Kathryn Schulz, il quarto volume della collana di tascabili di Internazionale, ricostruisce la scoperta della faglia di Cascadia, lungo la costa tra la California e il Canada, che potrebbe provocare il peggior terremoto del Nordamerica. ⁠Con Andrea Pipino, giornalista di Internazionale, e Alessandro Amato, sismologo.Oggi parliamo anche di:Scienza • “L'eterno riposo degli eonofili” di Karen G. Llyodhttps://www.internazionale.it/magazine/karen-g-lloyd/2026/02/05/l-eterno-riposo-degli-eonofiliLibri • Gian Carlo Fusco, Le rose del ventennio (Sellerio) Ci piacerebbe sapere cosa pensi di questo episodio. Scrivici a podcast@internazionale.it Se ascolti questo podcast e ti piace, abbonati a Internazionale. È un modo concreto per sostenerci e per aiutarci a garantire ogni giorno un'informazione di qualità. Vai su internazionale.it/abbonatiConsulenza editoriale di Chiara NielsenProduzione di Claudio Balboni e Vincenzo De SimoneMusiche di Tommaso Colliva e Raffaele ScognaDirezione creativa di Jonathan ZentiCi piacerebbe sapere cosa pensi di questo episodio. Scrivici a podcast@internazionale.it Se ascolti questo podcast e ti piace, abbonati a Internazionale. È un modo concreto per sostenerci e per aiutarci a garantire ogni giorno un'informazione di qualità. Vai su internazionale.it/abbonatiConsulenza editoriale di Chiara NielsenProduzione di Claudio Balboni e Vincenzo De SimoneMusiche di Tommaso Colliva e Raffaele ScognaDirezione creativa di Jonathan Zenti

Unknown Gunmen & Secret Ops in Pakistan, Bangladesh | Col Ajay Raina, Aadi Achint, Col Chaubey

Unknown Gunmen & Secret Ops in Pakistan, Bangladesh | Col Ajay Raina, Aadi Achint, Col Chaubey

Manon Chapelain, à Damas, nous fait vivre la toute récente guerre qui a opposé, fin janvier 2026, la nouvelle armée syrienne aux forces qui contrôlaient un tiers du territoire au nom d'une autonomie kurde. Manon a suivi la ligne de front aux côtés des soldats de Damas qui ont bénéficié du soutien de la coalition internationale... En 2è partie, Côme Bastin nous fait entendre la jeunesse du Sri Lanka, 4 ans après sa Révolution qui a vu une gauche radicale balayer les pouvoirs en place à Colombo.  Syrie : l'assaut de l'armée qui mit fin au rêve d'autonomie kurde   En Syrie, les autorités gouvernementales ont pris d'assaut, fin janvier 2026, les territoires administrés par les Forces démocratiques syriennes. Cette coalition de groupes armés, à majorité kurde, contrôlait depuis 2017 et de manière autonome. Un tiers du territoire syrien, un contrôle obtenu à la faveur de la lutte contre l'organisation État islamique. Dans un pays morcelé par 14 années de guerre, l'unité territoriale était devenue la priorité du président de transition Ahmed Al-Charaa. La semaine dernière, les deux partis ont annoncé avoir signé un accord global : arrêt définitif des combats et fin d'autonomie kurde dans la région. Un Grand reportage de Manon Chapelain qui s'entretient avec Jacques Allix.   Au Sri Lanka, entre Génération Z, marxisme et âge de raison  Gen Z. La génération Z, ces jeunes nés avec la révolution numérique et les réseaux sociaux. Au Sri Lanka, au large de la pointe sud du continent indien, elle a frappé un grand coup en 2022. Elle a chassé le président. Les jeunes du Bangladesh, du Népal, de Madagascar et d'ailleurs se sont sentis pousser des ailes : ils ont aussi secoué leurs institutions. Que reste-t-il du mouvement là où il est né ? Il peut se targuer de la confirmation au pouvoir, d'une gauche radicale. Mais finances et catastrophe naturelle portent une ombre au tableau. Un Grand reportage de Côme Bastin qui s'entretient avec Jacques Allix.

Serving as the Regional Leader for VOM's work in Latin America, Isaac Santiago tells what it's like to be a Christian today in countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Colombia. He has witnessed the shift since 2018 in Nicaragua—listed as a Restricted Nation in VOM's 2026 Global Prayer Guide—through more laws that directly affect the church and severe restrictions and government pressure similar to what Christians face in Communist nations like Cuba and China. While some Christians in Nicaragua are weary and struggling to adjust to the new persecution reality, Christians in Cuba have dealt with such restrictions for more than 60 years. Isaac says pastors and leaders in the church there continue to be obedient to the Lord despite threats from their government. Isaac will also share thoughts on what the change in leadership in Venezuela means for the church there. In the last two years, he has seen a revival break out in the country and the gospel advance in many parts of the country. In Colombia, people in the cities are often oblivious to what is happening in the "red zones" where Christians are being persecuted by Marxist guerillas and other armed groups. With the current president of Colombia being a former guerrilla, persecution of the church has increased as guerrilla forces have become more powerful. Even though pastors are afraid, they are choosing to be faithful where the Lord has called them. Isaac will also share the miraculous story of a woman held at gunpoint for reaching out to youth in her area and bringing them to Jesus. To learn more about each of these nations and how you can pray, request your free copy of VOM's 2026 Global Prayer Guide. Also, check out the new Spanish language podcast called VOM Radio: La Voz de los Mártires on Spotify, Amazon Music, Spreaker, and more! The VOM App for your smartphone or tablet will help you pray daily in 2026 for persecuted Christians in nations like North Korea, Nigeria, Iran and Bangladesh, as well as provide free access to e-books, audiobooks, video content, and feature films. Download the VOM App for your iOS or Android device today.

Kate Adie introduces stories from the Gaza-Egypt border, Cuba, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Slovenia.The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened this week after being mainly kept shut since Israel captured the Gazan side in 2024. It's opening has brought relief to many Palestinians who see it as a lifeline to the world. However, there has been frustration over delays and the small number of people being allowed through each day. Yolande Knell has been following developments.Outside Venezuela, nowhere was last month's US military action in Caracas felt more keenly than in Cuba. Venezuela has helped prop up the Communist-run island for twenty-five years, with subsidised supplies of crude oil. Will Grant reports from Havana on the island's growing economic crisis.Bangladesh goes to the polls next week in its first election since a student uprising forced the previous Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, to flee for India. However, a new student-led political party is already in crisis. Azadeh Moshiri reports from Dhaka.Ukraine continues to endure heavy Russian bombardment of its energy grid - in the capital more than a thousand buildings are still without power. But locals are finding innovative ways to keep warm amid freezing temperatures, as Abdujalil Abdurasulov discovered at a disco on a frozen river.The Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina are officially underway and one of Europe's smallest countries is hoping to fly higher than the rest. Guy De Launey met the Slovenian brother and sister who are favourites for ski-jumping gold.Producer: Serena Tarling Production coordinators: Katie Morrison and Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith