The award would increase the domestic supply of silane gas, a critical raw material for the production of silicon batteriesThis is the second time Group14 has been selected for a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant

WOODINVILLE, Wash., Sept. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Group14 Technologies, the global leader in advanced silicon battery materials, has been selected for an award negotiation of up to $200M by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains as part of the second set of projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic battery manufacturing for electric vehicles and the electrical grid. This marks the second time Group14 has been selected for a large-scale DOE grant in support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, following its initial $100M award in 2022.

“The largest global source of silane today is China, so the supply of silane gas in the U.S. must be increased to secure the U.S. silicon battery industry,” said Group14 CEO and Co-Founder, Rick Luebbe. “A new silane factory in Washington state will allow Group14 and other silicon battery companies in the U.S. to source this critical raw material domestically, to support EV-scale battery production and reduce foreign battery supply chain dependence.”

Manufacturing large commercial volumes of silicon-based battery materials in the U.S. requires equivalently large-scale commercial access to silane gas. This project is intended to install, commission, and operate a U.S.-based silane manufacturing plant with an annual capacity of 7,200 metric tons.

The DOE award would allow Group14 to build a silane factory using its proprietary intellectual property which produces silane at a significantly reduced capital and energy requirement from the conventional process. Siting the plant in Moses Lake, Washington, will allow the facility to directly feed silane to the locally based silicon battery plants, alleviating a critical bottleneck for the industry.

The project is expected to create more than 300 jobs to construct the silane factory and retain 150 employees to commission, ramp up, and sustain production.

Group14 is rapidly scaling its global manufacturing capabilities worldwide. The company’s advanced Battery Active Materials (BAM-1) factory has been manufacturing at the ton-scale since 2021. It has delivered shipments of SCC55™ to more than 100 customers representing 95% of worldwide lithium-ion battery production.

Group14’s BAM-2 factory in Moses Lake, Washington, is expected to be the world’s largest for advanced silicon battery materials with an initial annual capacity of 4,000 tons of SCC55™ or 20 GWh of silicon battery material. The first 2,000 tons (10,000 GWh) of capacity from BAM-2 is expected to start production in Q4 2024. With over 30 GWh of production capacity when combined with the company’s JV in South Korea, Group14 is firmly placed to be the leading EV-scale mass producer of advanced silicon materials.

About Group14 Technologies

Founded to enable the electrification of everything, Group14 is the world’s leading commercial manufacturer and supplier of silicon battery technology. With more than 100 customers representing 95% of worldwide battery production, Group14 is delivering the massive amounts of silicon battery material needed to help realize the global energy transition and bring the performance benefits of the silicon battery era, including extreme fast charging, lower cost, and availability of better renewable energy. Group14 operates a commercial-scale Battery Active Materials factory, BAM-1, in Woodinville, WA, and a joint venture factory with SK in South Korea. Group14’s second U.S. factory, BAM-2, in Moses Lake, WA, is expected to begin operation in 2024. To date, Group14 has raised over $650 million in financing from investors and customers such as Porsche AG, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, OMERS, Lightrock Climate Impact Fund, Decarbonization Partners, Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), BASF, Resonac and SK Inc. Visit us at www.group14.technology.

About DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains
MESC plays a critical and unique role in catalyzing investments in America’s energy future to support the re-shoring, skilling, and scaling of U.S. manufacturing across energy supply chains. MESC serves as the frontline of clean energy deployment and accelerates America’s transition to a resilient, equitable energy future through data-driven investments in manufacturing capacity and workforce development. Learn more at: www.energy.gov/mesc or LinkedIn.

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SOURCE Group14 Technologies

SHANGHAI, Sept. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — At HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, Executive Director of the Board of Huawei and CEO of Huawei Cloud Zhang Ping‘an delivered a keynote speech “Thrive with the Cloud: Reshaping Industries with AI”. Zhang states that enterprises must seize opportunities in the intelligent era and use AI to build competitive advantages. The key is to adopt an AI-native mindset now.

First, enterprises should actively embrace AI, open up industry scenarios, and develop enterprise AI platforms. This will enable AI to serve their core business. Today, Huawei Cloud Pangu Models have been applied in more than 30 industries and 400 scenarios.

Second, AI computing power is critical. Enterprises need to build AI-native cloud infrastructure that matches their requirements. Zhang officially released CloudMatrix to interconnect and pool all resources including CPUs, NPUs, DPUs and memory. It marks an evolution from monolithic to matrix compute. CloudMatrix comprises an AI-native cloud infrastructure in which everything can be pooled, peer-to-peer, and composed, providing enterprises with abundant AI computing power.

Third, data quality determines the effectiveness of AI models. We need to build knowledge-centric data foundations to enable data to serve AI better. Huawei Cloud has fully upgraded DataArts to provide customers with AI-oriented and knowledge-centric data foundations. The updated features include AI+data convergence engines, data development and governance, knowledge services, and AI+data application enablement services.

Fourth, build suitable AI models based on business applications. We must abandon the misconception that larger models are better. It is not feasible to address all needs with just one foundation model. Pangu Models 5.0 are available in different sizes, with parameters in the billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions, and trillions. The complete series of Pangu models meet practically all business application needs.

In addition, Huawei Cloud’s Pangu 5.0 models enhance spatiotemporal controllable generation (STCG) in the field of multimodal generation. For autonomous driving，the Pangu model can generate driving scenarios that accurately mirror the physical world. It can generate videos that reflect normal driving scenarios, random road conditions and accidental and aggressive driving, allowing automotive enterprises to train autonomous driving more efficiently.

Huawei Cloud officially released the Mainframe-to-Cloud Solution, designed to help customers develop new core systems on the cloud with high availability, easy O&M, and better agility, helping customers achieve 99.999% financial-grade high availability. Currently, most banks in China have chosen Huawei to build their new core systems on the cloud.

Tao Jingwen, Huawei’s Director of the Board and President of the Quality, Business Process & IT Mgmt Dept, recounted Huawei’s digital transformation journey. Huawei has developed a methodology, which can be broken down into three layers, five phases, and eight steps. The three layers are redefining intelligent business, AI model development and delivery, and ongoing optimization of intelligent applications. The five phases are identifying suitable scenarios, reshaping processes, transforming organizations, optimizing corporate data, and adopting AI applications.

Bruno Zhang, CTO of Huawei Cloud, presented insights on how Huawei Cloud is leveraging AI to reshape data centers, infrastructure, and cloud services. He also addressed the construction of an AI-native cloud designed to accelerate intelligence in industries. The “1+N” Pangu assistant system, unveiled by Mr. Zhang, signifies a new era in cloud service interaction. The system includes Pangu Doer, and the myriad use cases in product R&D, data analytics, security, and office collaboration, where Pangu models are trained using the scenario-specific data, know-how, and practices to enhance cloud services and boost efficiency with tailored AI.

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SOURCE HUAWEI CLOUD

Naturals2Go, a leader in the unattended retail, breakroom experience, and vending industry, is unveiling a series of meaningful initiatives designed to foster connection, creativity, and care within its workforce. These initiatives reflect Naturals2Go’s commitment to cultivating an environment where both personal and professional growth are prioritized, helping the quickly growing company hold its position as an organization that simply values its employees with as much care as its customers. It just does business differently.

SAVANNAH, Ga., Sept. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Naturals2Go, a leader in the unattended retail, breakroom experience, and vending industry, is unveiling a series of meaningful initiatives designed to foster connection, creativity, and care within its workforce. These initiatives reflect Naturals2Go’s commitment to cultivating an environment where both personal and professional growth are prioritized, helping the quickly growing company hold its position as an organization that simply values its employees with as much care as its customers. It just does business differently.

Innovation In Action

Naturals2Go is known for innovating the vending industry by offering the only proven program to enhance or improve income, investment, or future wealth through a part-time or full-time vending machine business. They have changed the industry again by developing regional operations centers and a wider range of services.

To do so, Naturals2Go has grown from 20 to 140 employees over the past four years. To help the team stay successful and cared for through this rapid expansion, Naturals2Go executives have introduced three new programs.

These exciting initiatives enhance the quality of life, not just work, for employees — whether they are one of the 100 remote members of the team or in one of the company’s regional operations centers (ROCs).

“You don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, ‘in it’ all the time,” says Heath Falzarano, President of Naturals2Go.

Refresh2Go: This initiative gives employees one additional (paid) Friday each month, at the same time, to step away from work to recharge however they wish.Vision2Go: Every Wednesday, employees have a mandatory day of no meetings — a day dedicated to creative thinking, process improvement, and strategic planning. This initiative helps individuals and teams take a breather from day-to-day demands and see the bigger picture to guide improvements from ideas to efficiencies.Water Cooler Chats: Recognizing the challenges faced by a dispersed workforce, Naturals2Go has also implemented two daily 15-minute water cooler chats. These optional sessions are designed for a social break – a chance to connect with peers they may not even know yet, strengthening the company’s culture and community.

Why These Initiatives Matter

Falzarano emphasizes his personal belief in caring for those in the organization as much as customers: “We get to help people make a really good living while also letting them live a really good life.” This is true for both the company and those who invest in a Naturals2Go business program.

The importance of these initiatives is underscored by industry trends which highlight the growing need for companies to prioritize employee well-being. Falzarano has championed these initiatives at Naturals2Go, believing that a healthy, supported workforce is crucial to the company’s long-term success.

“Encouraging people to just breathe – to step away from work and know you can enjoy what you have without worry – is what we’re trying to do here,” Falzarano explains. “Nothing bad is going to happen by taking care of yourself a bit more. I know we can do what we need to do in less time, more focus, and just feel better.”

About Naturals2Go

Naturals2Go is the leading unattended retail, breakroom experience and vending business opportunity in the United States – a trusted partner helping entrepreneurial-minded professionals grow for over 35 years. Naturals2Go is an innovator in healthy and intelligent vending and is the highest-rated, longest-serving, most awarded Vending Business Opportunity Company in the United States. The company is expanding with regional operations centers across the U.S. and an expanded suite of services plus a commitment to regional investment, local employment, and community impact. Naturals2Go is committed to leading the industry with a forward-thinking approach and a strong company culture.

If you would like more information about Naturals2Go, email kim.page@naturals2go.com or visit Naturals2Go on the Web at www.naturals2go.com.

Media Contact

Kim Page, Naturals2Go, 1 716-247-6621, kim.page@naturals2go.com, https://www.naturals2go.com/

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SOURCE Naturals2Go