The global data centre specialist says demand is expected to continue in its key market

Profits and staff numbers have both grown significantly at Tyneside-based Black and White Engineering, new accounts show.

The Newcastle firm, which has operations around the world, says the global data centre market – its key focus – is expanding at pace and with all signs pointing to more activity in the years to come. Black and White saw its turnover rise from £36m to £55.8m in the year to the end of October 2025, with operating profits soaring from £2.2m to £7.7m.

It follows significant expansion for the firm, which last year acquired Irish consulting engineering business Homan O’Brien, and upgraded offices in Dubai, London and Singapore, as well as opening an outpost in Frankfurt. That has meant Black and White’s workforce has grown by 51% to 236.

A breakdown of the year’s turnover shows most was derived from work in the UK and Europe. With more than 100 staff in the UAE, and a number of key portfolio projects in the Middle East, the firm said it had followed advice from the UAE government and was working from home with no issues reported as a result of the Iran conflict.

Writing in the accounts, director Steven Horn said the business is on track to meet long term goals and targets. He said: “We are making continued progress with our investments in people and infrastructure, continuing the enhancement of our systems and teams in IT, human resources and finance. The B&W expansion into new areas such as civil structural engineering, design management as well as a number of other specialist areas continues at pace and will continue in the years to come.

“Our current business performance year to date suggests we will continue to meet our global revenue targets and business initiatives .Global expansion continues with an office opened in Frankfurt in the year with Dubai, London and Singapore all moving to larger offices. B&W entered Ireland through the acquisition of Homan O’Brien, a highly regarded Dublin-based MEP consultant in March 2025.

“That business is now fully integrated, growing and focused on data centre projects and clients as part of the one global team. We continue to set up new business entities to meet our ability to trade in multiple countries across the globe, following key clients.”

Mr Horn added: “Our brand and technical offering continues to evolve and is very well received in the market place. This is the direct result of our people, our delivery model, quality of product and client-focused approach. Our aim is to be the datacentre consultant of choice for our clients and continue to win repeat business in addition to increasing our client base year-on-year.”

The Wind Academy’s director Geoff Briggs called it a “significant step forward” for his business

A Blyth training provider to the growing offshore energy sector its plotting its own expansion after securing funding.

The Wind Academy, which specialises in vocational courses for renewables industry, is set to extend its facilities at the Port of Blyth following the injection of more than £42,000 from the Business Growth Fund. It will support training infrastructure for wind turbine technicians working on offshore and onshore developments.

The Academy’s growth ambition is led by director Geoff Briggs and business development manager, Olly Hassan, who are broadening its training capacity and industry partnerships.

Mr Briggs said: “This funding is a significant step forward for the Wind Academy. It allows us to invest directly in our training facilities and ensure we are delivering high-quality, industry-ready training for the offshore and onshore wind sectors.

“As demand for renewable energy skills continues to rise, this support helps us grow sustainably and create real opportunities for people in the region.”

The Business Growth Fund support was delivered through Business Northumberland. Coun Richard Wearmouth, cabinet member for regeneration at Northumberland County Council, said: “The Wind Academy is playing an important role in developing the skills needed for the future of renewable energy. This funding will help the business grow, invest in its facilities and continue supporting the region’s low-carbon economy.”

Jon Paul Heron, business advisor at UMi, who helped guide the process, added: “It’s been a pleasure supporting the Wind Academy on its growth journey. This investment will help strengthen its position as a key training provider for the wind sector and support long-term economic growth in Northumberland.”

The Wind Academy is based out of the Energy Central learning hub at the Port of Blyth, which has recently announced its own major expansion programme in a bid to capture more work in offshore wind. Bosses this week set out a £100m vision which includes reclaiming up to three hectares of land from the River Blyth estuary at the port’s Battleship Wharf terminal.

The additional space and facilities will be marketed at wind farm developers and operators amid an expected influx of North Sea energy projects. The North East is well placed to benefit from the Government’s next offshore lease auction that could take place in 2027 and could feature predominantly sites off the region’s coast.

That round could bring another 6GW of wind energy to the UK though it is unlikely that turbines will be in place and turning before the 2030s.

Dominic Barton

Good afternoon to everyone here in Perth, and good morning to all of those joining us from London, and welcome also if you are tuning in virtually. As Chair of Rio Tinto, I have the privilege of welcoming you to our 2026 Annual General Meetings. This year, in keeping with our focus of embedding stronger, sharper and simpler ways of working across the business, we are holding the Rio Tinto plc and the Rio Tinto Limited AGMs contemporaneously.

Our meetings are linked audiovisually, so all shareholders can participate in a joint discussion as provided for under Rio Tinto plc’s Articles of Association and Rio Tinto Limited’s constitution. As you know, AGMs are an opportunity for open conversations and for deepening understanding. They allow us as a Board to hear from you and to respond to the topics you are interested in.

And next year, our directors will be present in person at the plc AGM in London with a limited AGM held contemporaneously in Australia. And we plan to continue this arrangement for future AGMs with our directors alternating their physical attendance annually. This naturally builds on our regular engagement with investors throughout the year. In fact, over the last 2 months, I’ve met personally with shareholders representing more than 1/4 of Rio Tinto plc’s issued capital and 1/3 of Rio Tinto Limited’s issued capital.

By Jim Iuorio

Prior to November 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) was something most people associated with futuristic movies. Then OpenAI released ChatGPT, and everything changed. AI was no longer an invisible algorithm quietly powering the world’s most sophisticated companies. Suddenly, the average person could use it to write code, compose poems, edit articles and much more.

The adoption was staggering. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history at the time, and it has never looked back. Over the next three years, AI became the single most dominant investment theme on Wall Street, working its way into business models across every sector of the economy.

But is it a good thing? That seems to depend on who you ask.

The general consensus is that powerful emerging technology ultimately benefits society and raises our standard of living. The transition, however, can be rocky. There is a growing perception that AI may already be stifling traditional job growth, as companies slow hiring in anticipation of reducing their need for employees. While that has far-reaching implications across the economy, I want to focus on one area: lending rates and mortgages in particular.

A Housing Market Already Under Stress

The housing market has been a serious concern and a source of heated debate for the past five years. In 2021, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat sky-high inflation. In roughly one year, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage went from under 3% to well over 7%.

Raising rates to fight inflation is designed to address the problem from the demand side. The theory in housing seems fairly straightforward: if money is more expensive to borrow, buyers will be less aggressive in pursuing new homes.

But that is not quite what happened. Most housing analysts now conclude that raising mortgage rates so dramatically, after such a prolonged period of historic lows, effectively froze the supply of homes that would normally come to market. If someone is sitting on a 3% mortgage, there is little incentive to trade it in for a 7% one. Combined with a decrease in new builds, housing inventory dried up and prices rose even higher.

So Where Do Mortgage Rates Come From?

Before exploring how AI might affect mortgage rates, it helps to understand what drives them in the first place.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage is actually held for about 12 years. Because of that, mortgage rates closely track the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield, which is the nearest matching maturity. Historically, the spread between the 10-year yield and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate averages around 180 basis points. In plain terms, if the 10-year Treasury yield is sitting at 4%, one would expect the 30-year fixed rate to be somewhere around 5.8%.

That spread exists for two reasons. First, a mortgage carries default risk that a U.S. Treasury bond simply does not. Second, there are real servicing and administrative costs baked into every mortgage. AI could potentially affect both the Treasury yield side of the equation and the factors that create the spread. Here are a few potential ways those scenarios might play out.

Scenario 1: AI Sparks Deflation, Rates Fall

If the biggest economic impact of AI turns out to be massive productivity gains spread across most sectors of the economy, the effect could be deflationary. We saw something similar play out in the 1990s with the internet. Many economists give Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker full credit for reducing inflation in the early 1980s, but a compelling case can be made that the maturation of the internet was a significant deflationary force in its own right.

It is also worth noting that slower job growth, one of the more visible side effects of AI adoption, would likely further dampen consumer spending and add another layer of downward pressure on prices. Disinflation (where prices rise, but slowly) or outright deflation (where prices decline) makes owning long-duration bonds more attractive, which pushes yields lower. History also tells us that the Fed tends to cut short-term rates when disinflation becomes a concern, pulling yields lower across the entire curve. The end result of this scenario would likely be meaningfully lower mortgage rates.

Scenario 2: AI Fuels a Boom, Rates Rise

Alternatively, the AI revolution could ignite a massive domestic economic expansion. In that environment, investment money might flow out of the relative safety of U.S. Treasuries and into higher-returning opportunities in the market. That rotation could push bond prices down and yields up. If the economic boom also generates demand-driven inflation, it would only accelerate the selling pressure on bonds. In this scenario, mortgage rates could move higher.

Scenario 3: AI Compresses the Spread

This scenario gets less attention but may be the most interesting. Even if Treasury yields stay right where they are, AI could narrow the spread between the 10-year yield and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate.

It is possible that AI will improve risk assessment while simultaneously reducing the servicing and administrative costs embedded in the mortgage process. If one assumes that 30% to 50% of that 180 basis point spread is administrative in nature, cutting those costs in half with AI would not be a trivial result. Borrowers could see meaningfully lower rates even in a flat-rate environment, simply because the cost of originating and managing a mortgage comes down.

Where the Evidence Points

No one can say with certainty which of these scenarios will dominate, and it is entirely possible that elements of all three play out simultaneously. However, many analysts seem to believe the weight of evidence points toward lower rates.

For market participants looking to manage this uncertainty, Mortgage Rate futures offer a way to hedge mortgage servicing rights and pipeline risk that can be associated with a changing rate environment. The contract is based on the Optimal Blue Mortgage Market Index, which tracks real-time rate lock data from over one-third of U.S. residential mortgage originations.

The combination of AI-driven productivity gains, the deflationary pressure of a slower labor market and the prospect of leaner mortgage operations creates a compelling case that mortgage rates are more likely to fall than rise over the coming years. For prospective homebuyers who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for relief, that may finally be the light at the end of a very long tunnel.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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By Jennifer Nash

The S&P 500 capped the week off with another record high, flirting with the 7,400 milestone. With a 2.3% weekly gain, the index has now climbed for six consecutive weeks, matching its longest winning streak since October