Precitec Acquires Majority Stake in Enovasense: Week in Brief: 01/20/23

Precitec acquired a majority stake in the French startup Enovasense, whose technology measures the thickness of coatings on any substrate. The company’s remaining shares are held by the two founders, Jean Inard Charvin and Geoffrey Bruno, who will continue to lead the company. The deal closed Nov. 30. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Precitec has acquired a majority stake in Enovasense. Courtesy of Precitec.

WATERLOO, Ontario — The government of Canada launched its National Quantum Strategy to help shape the future of quantum technologies in the country and drive job creation. The strategy is backed by an investment of 360 million CAD ($267.3 million) and driven by three missions in key quantum areas: computing hardware and software; communications; and sensors. The missions will be advanced through investments in three pillars: 141 million CAD to support basic and applied research; 45 million CAD to develop, retain, and attract quantum expertise and talent; and 169 million CAD to translate research into scalable commercial products and services.

LULEÅ, Sweden — Mining company LKAB reports that it identified significant deposits of rare earth elements in the Kiruna region of Sweden. The metals are essential for the manufacture of electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other technologies. The company reported mineral resources of rare earth metals exceeding 1 million tons of rare earth oxides and the largest known deposit of its kind in Europe.

CAMBRIDGE, England — Terahertz technology company TeraView formed TeraView US Corp, a wholly owned subsidiary of TeraView Ltd. The company also hired North American-based service and applications engineering employees.

TORONTO — Optical telecommunications technology company POET Technologies developed multi-engine 100G CWDM4 and 100G LR4 chip-on-board solutions for ADVA Optical Networking SE as part of a partnership between the companies. ADVA will use POET’s multi-engine transmit and receive chips in a pluggable solution that places the functionality of four independent 100-Gbit/s interfaces into a single QSFP-DD housing.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will provide $2.3 million in funding for 10 projects that will pair private industry with DOE’s national laboratories to overcome challenges in fusion energy development. The awards are provided through the DOE Office of Science’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program. The projects will be led by researchers at seven private companies: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Energy Driven Technologies LLC, Focused Energy, General Atomics, Princeton Stellarators Inc., Tokamak Energy Inc., and Type One Energy Group. INFUSE solicited proposals from the fusion industry and selected projects for one- or two-year awards between $50,000 and $500,000 each, with a 20% cost share for industry partners. Outyear funding is contingent on congressional appropriations.

TORONTO — Xanadu, a developer of photonic quantum computing, and Rolls-Royce are co-developing quantum algorithm tooling for PennyLane, Xanadu’s open-source quantum computing software widely used for quantum machine learning, chemistry, and optimization. The first project will develop quantum software functionality tailored for Quantum Singular Value Transformation, or QSVT, in PennyLane to help Rolls-Royce accelerate its research into quantum algorithms for aerospace applications. QSVT is a modern paradigm for quantum algorithms that enables innovative methods for employing quantum computers to explore a variety of problems of interest.

HAIFA, Israel — Elbit Systems signed an approximately $95 million contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply and maintain electro-optical systems for the Israeli Defense Forces infantry. The contract will be performed over a period of 10 years. As part of the contract, Elbit Systems will supply long-range deployable observation systems and tactical target acquisition systems.

EWING, N.J. — Universal Display Corp. established an OLED evaluation agreement with Seiko-Epson Corp. Under the agreement, Universal Display will supply its proprietary phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to Epson for AR/VR display applications. Details and financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Machine Solutions Inc., a provider of advanced equipment and services for the medical device market, acquired Vela Technologies Inc. Vela designs and manufactures proprietary 3D ultraviolet curing equipment used for medical devices, as well as in industrial applications. Through the acquisition, Machine Solutions will expand the medical device manufacturing automation technologies offered by its brands, including Intec Automation, which it acquired last month.