UK: Supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) supplier CemBlend and clay producer Hepworth Clay have launched a calcined clay product called HepCem. The partnership will make the SCM commercially available to cement and concrete producers in the UK at scale, as well as supplying bespoke blends of the material. It has been accredited by the Construction Products Certification (CPC) scheme, confirming conformity with the standard BS 8615-1:2019+A1:2026.

CemBlend director Simon Boulter said, "We’re all about identifying innovative materials and developing the blended solutions that can bring them into mainstream construction.” He continued, "HepCem is a great example of British manufacturing innovation. It has enormous potential to help reduce carbon emissions, provide an alternative to increasingly constrained supplies of traditional SCMs and strengthen UK construction supply chains.”

HepCem’s promoters say that it can also be incorporated into ternary and quaternary blended systems alongside other constituents, including limestone, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and pulverised fuel ash (PFA). This flexibility opens up a wide range of potential applications, including precast and structural concrete, infrastructure projects, mass concrete and other lower-clinker systems. HepCem can also be added separately at the batching plant and used in cement-combination routes under BS 8500, including CEM II/A-Q, CEM II/B-Q and calcined-clay/limestone combinations, subject to the relevant specification requirements.

Daniel Hannappel, CEO of Hepworth Clay, said: “It’s a material engineered from purpose-selected clay under carefully controlled conditions, so producers can rely on consistent quality and predictable performance in every batch.”

CemBlend sells a portfolio of lower-carbon materials and it specialises in bespoke powder blending and the development of low-carbon and clinker-free cement solutions.

Germany: Schneider Electric has announced a strategic collaboration with microchip designer NVIDIA and software developer HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) to apply artificial intelligence in the real world in so-called ‘Physical AI.’ The companies want to bring AI closer to industrial operations by embedding the algorithms directly within the physical environments they will be deployed within. They have launched the ‘Industrial AI Agents at the Edge’ range of products as part of this process.

This includes the HPE Private Cloud AI software product that is a collaboration between HPE and NVIDIA. The companies say they are using this product with Schneider Electric’s operational technology expertise to enable organisations to securely deploy and scale AI applications in industry. They aim to allow companies to bring real-time data closer to operations while being mindful of data sovereignty, cybersecurity and AI consumption costs. Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure Industrial Insights apps can also allow customers to deploy, manage and govern multiple Industrial AI Agents through a single environment, simplifying lifecycle management, security oversight and control of operations and infrastructure. CMPC Chile has been using Schneider Electric’s OTMS over the past three years to monitor the health and availability of control systems across its continuous pulp and paper operations.

Gwenaelle Huet, Executive Vice President, Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric said “The next generation of industrial innovation will be driven by intelligence embedded directly into industrial operations." She continued, "Together with NVIDIA and HPE, we are bringing together expertise in automation, AI and edge computing to help customers transform operational data into action, improving resilience, efficiency, cybersecurity and sustainability while laying the foundation for more autonomous industrial operations."

Portugal: Cimpor’s plant at Alhandra has been recognised as the oldest cement in the world to have continuous operations by Guiness World Records. The plant was originally founded in 1894 and it has remained operational ever since. In 2026 the unit has a production capacity of 2.8Mt/yr and it has 150 employees. Throughout its history, several generations of families have worked at the plant. The company says that this has contributed to its “strong relationship with the local community and to the economic and industrial development of the region.”

The cement plant become a part of Cimpor in 1976. That company and the Alhandra cement plant were acquired by Taiwan-based TCC Group in 2024.

Türkiye: The Turkish Competition Board has conditionally cleared conglomerate Arsem Madencilik Enerji to acquire Kars Çimento, following a Phase II review of the deal opened on 25 September 2025. Kars Çimento, a subsidiary of Italy-based Cementir, operates the 0.6Mt/yr plant near Kars in Northeastern Türkiye. Cementir completed its sale of Kars Çimento to a subsidiary of Arsem Madencilik Enerji in late 2025.

The board reported that the companies’ combined market shares exceed 85% in certain districts. Arsem Madencilik Enerji has committed to limit price rises, increase employment at the Kars plant by 10% and maintain the plant’s capacity utilisation at no less than 90%.