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Omen AI has raised $31 million in a Series A round led by Nava Ventures to develop real-time fluid monitoring systems for data centers. The startup's tiny spectrometer tracks bacterial growth in liquid-cooled chip systems, preventing costly shutdowns that can last five to six hours and cost millions of dollars. Founded in 2024 by 18-year-old CEO Zach Laberge, Omen initially focused on construction equipment before pivoting to data centers six months ago. The device monitors fluid health by detecting bacterial contamination and equipment wear through chemical analysis, eliminating the need for lab-based testing. The company is working with a dozen data center customers, including TensorWave. Total funding since 2024 now stands at $40 million, with participation from CRV, Vanderbilt University and executives from Bridgestone, GM and Johnson Controls.

MANN+HUMMEL launches Global Technology & Innovation Center in Karnataka. MANN+HUMMEL, a global leader in filtration solutions, today announced the launch of its new state-of-the-art Global Technology & Innovation Center in Tumkur, Karnataka, marking a significant milestone in its global growth strategy. Positioned as MANN+HUMMEL's largest development center outside Germany, the facility reinforces India's role as a critical hub for engineering, innovation, and advanced filtration technologies. The Tumkur facility is designed to accelerate global product development and customer-centric innovation by integrating advanced research labs, testing infrastructure, digital engineering, and data analytics under one roof. This unified approach supports next-generation filtration solutions across mobility, industrial applications, and clean air and water purification. As a global innovation engine, the center will enable faster time-to-market and deeper collaboration with customers worldwide, leveraging India's strong engineering ecosystem. Speaking on the occasion, Hasmeet Kaur, President Transportation Division, MANN+HUMMEL Group, said, "The new Global Technology & Innovation Center in India marks a significant milestone in MANN+HUMMEL's global innovation journey. India stands at the forefront of engineering talent and technological advancement, making it a natural choice for our largest development hub outside Germany. This center will not only accelerate our innovation capabilities but also enable us to deliver scalable, sustainable filtration solutions to customers worldwide. It reflects our long-term commitment to shaping a cleaner and healthier future through technology." Sudeesh Karimbingal, Managing Director, MANN+HUMMEL India, said, "The new facility in Tumkur is a testament to India's growing role as a strategic growth and engineering powerhouse for MANN+HUMMEL globally. For over 20 years, our Indian engineering team has been deeply embedded in our global product development. This center transitions India from a support hub to a strategic engineering powerhouse, driving innovation that meets both local and global market needs." As part of MANN+HUMMEL's global sustainability-first approach, the Tumkur facility will focus on developing energy-efficient filtration systems, reducing lifecycle emissions, and advancing circular solutions, including the use of recycled materials and eco-friendly product design. The center will also support the company's efforts in addressing critical environmental challenges such as air quality improvement, water purification, industrial emissions, and access to clean water. In line with its strategy to expand its business footprint in India, MANN+HUMMEL also announced plans to invest in a new facility in Pune, one of the country's fastest-growing industrial hubs. The state-of-the-art site will support both existing and new customers across key segments, including Manufacturing, Automotive (Passenger Cars), Heavy-Duty (On-Road and Off-Road), and Industrial applications, through a fully integrated manufacturing setup for advanced filtration solutions. This will further strengthen the company's ability to deliver high-quality, localized solutions at scale. Together with the Global Technology & Innovation Center in Tumkur, the combined investment across these initiatives is expected to exceed INR 100 crores, reinforcing the company's long-term commitment to India. Currently, MANN+HUMMEL employs around 1,250 people across its India operations and is poised to create an additional 300 to 400 employment opportunities over the next 12 months, further strengthening its local workforce and growth ambitions in the country. With manufacturing operations in Tumkur (Southern India) and Bawal (Northern India), alongside its Global Technology & Innovation Center in Bengaluru, the addition of this third manufacturing footprint in Pune (Western India) establishes MANN+HUMMEL's strong pan-India presence, strategically positioning the company closer to customers, enhancing responsiveness, and enabling faster, more efficient delivery across the country. India is one of MANN+HUMMEL's fastest-growing markets and a key innovation hub, home to some of the company's best engineering talent and more than one-third of its global R&D workforce. Through its continued investments in innovation, manufacturing, and talent development, MANN+HUMMEL aims to accelerate time-to-market, deliver high-impact solutions for customers across industries, and further strengthen its leadership position in filtration technology.

Germany: Accelerated job cuts in the auto and supplier industry. The attack on jobs in the German auto and supplier industry is accelerating. It goes hand in hand with the social cutbacks the government has introduced to citizens' income, healthcare and pensions, and with the squandering of vast sums on rearmament and war. Unless this trend is halted, disaster looms. The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) has increased its forecast for job cuts over the next ten years by 35,000. With 100,000 jobs already lost in the sector since 2019, the association had previously anticipated a further 90,000 job losses by 2035. It has now raised this figure to 125,000. VDA President Hildegard Müller cited a "serious and persistent crisis in the sector" as the reason. However, even this figure is likely to be on the low side, as the VW Group alone has agreed with the works council and the IG Metall trade union to cut 50,000 jobs. At the same time, the number of insolvencies and plant closures in the supplier industry is skyrocketing. The national media barely reports on this development, seeking to prevent cross-company solidarity and the emergence of militant resistance to redundancies. One has to scour the regional newspapers to find such reports. But the situation is devastating. The loss of thousands of jobs has been announced or confirmed since the start of this month alone, that is, in the last two weeks. Many are in smaller towns where there are hardly any alternative jobs. Here is a (by no means) exhaustive list: * The automotive supplier Mahle is closing its plant in Neustadt (Bavaria) for good. Around 350 jobs are affected. Production will be phased out gradually and cease in the first half of 2027. * The auto supplier Preh is cutting a further 280 jobs at its headquarters in Bad Neustadt an der Saale (Bavaria), having already made 420 redundancies last year. Founded in 1919, the company has been part of the China-based Joyson Group since 2011 and employs 6,000 people worldwide. * The insolvent auto supplier Boryszew Kunststofftechnik is closing its plants in Gardelegen (Saxony-Anhalt), which employs 330 people, and Idar-Oberstein (Rhineland-Palatinate), which employs 100, by the end of the year, after failing to find a new investor despite a year-long search. * TE Connectivity will gradually phase out production at its Speyer site (Rhineland-Palatinate) by December 2028; around 630 employees are affected. The Irish group, which develops connectivity and sensor solutions for the transmission of power, signals and data in the auto and other industries, employs 90,000 people worldwide. * Three weeks earlier, filter manufacturer Mann+Hummel had already announced the closure of its plant in Speyer, which employs 600 people. * Auto supplier Moldtecs, which was spun off from Mann+Hummel in 2022, has filed for insolvency. In Sonneberg (Thuringia), 330 jobs are affected. Another facility is located in Bad Harzburg (Lower Saxony). * Sports car manufacturer Porsche is discontinuing its subsidiaries Cellforce Group in Kirchentellinsfurt (Baden-Württemberg), Porsche eBike Performance in Ottobrunn (Bavaria) and Cetitec in Pforzheim (Baden-Württemberg). In total, more than 500 jobs are affected. The companies had been founded to develop high-performance drive batteries for cars and bicycles, as well as software for the VW Group. * The auto supplier Bayrak Technik in Rehburg-Loccum (Lower Saxony) has filed for insolvency for the fourth time in five years. Nearly three hundred employees fear for their jobs. * The auto supplier IAV is withdrawing from Berlin and cutting a total of 1,400 jobs in Germany. Of the 1,250 jobs in Berlin, only a few are to remain and the company premises are being sold off. The developer of software, electronics and vehicle architectures employs 6,600 people worldwide across 25 sites. * The Continental subsidiary ContiTech, which manufactures rubber and plastic products for the auto industry, has agreed with the IG BCE trade union to cut 1,600 of its total 7,700 jobs in Germany. The cuts are part of earlier plans to eliminate 3,000 of 20,000 jobs worldwide. * The Volkswagen Group is considering - as the WSWS has reported - closing four plants in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Neckarsulm, accounting for a total of 40,000 jobs. The company executive presented these proposals to the supervisory board at the end of April. * As mentioned, this is only part of the job cuts that have come to light since the beginning of May. Nor are they limited to the auto and supplier industries; the chemical, pharmaceutical, steel, construction and other sectors are also affected. For instance, the industrial plant manufacturer Festo, based in Esslingen, plans to cut around 1,300 of its 8,200 jobs. The long-established Augsburg-based strip steel manufacturer Eberle, with 250 employees, has filed for insolvency. The Mainz-based biopharmaceutical company BioNTech is halting coronavirus vaccine production in Germany, closing almost all its German production sites and cutting 1,860 jobs. The reasons cited for the destruction of jobs are always the same: high labour costs, high taxes and levies, expensive energy, too many regulations and bureaucracy, Trump's punitive tariffs, competition from China, the switch to electric cars and the use of artificial intelligence. The trade unions agree with the companies' arguments and support one round of cuts after another. They do not defend wages, working conditions and jobs, but instead help plan and organise the attacks while stifling any resistance. They justify these concessions by claiming this is the only way to maintain competitiveness and defend the company's local plant. This is clearly nonsense. A policy based on saving individual plants does not save jobs; it destroys them. It pits the workers in one factory against those in all the others. It divides them by location and country, rather than uniting them. It is this very policy that enables the corporations to carry out their cutbacks in the first place. Such a policy reflects the social position of the trade union bureaucrats and works council leaders, who often earn several times as much as an ordinary worker and are far closer to managers and shareholders than to those they supposedly represent. They swear by the German principle of "co-determination" and "social partnership", but jobs, incomes and social rights can only be defended through the methods of class struggle. This is proven by the entire history of the labour movement and applies particularly to times of crisis such as the present. Jobs are not being destroyed because Germany is uncompetitive compared to other countries, but because the capitalist profit system and the private property on which it is based are no longer compatible with the basic needs of the overwhelming majority of humanity. Car workers in Italy, France, Eastern Europe, the United States and numerous other countries face the same attacks as their colleagues in Germany, often from the very same corporations. Car workers in India and China, where sales are still growing, are brutally exploited. Every concession made by the trade unions in one country encourages the corporations to intensify their attacks worldwide. Advances such as the international division of labour, the use of robots in production and artificial intelligence, which could enormously facilitate work and social life, are being used to increase the wealth of corporations, banks and billionaire oligarchs, while workers lose their jobs and education and healthcare and social systems are dismantled. Trillions are being diverted to rearmament, waging wars and preparing for new ones. Just as was the case a hundred years ago, the struggle for raw materials, markets and world domination is again being waged militarily. US President Trump has shamelessly declared that the invasion of Venezuela and the war against Iran serve to seize their oil. German Chancellor Merz has admitted that Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing the "dirty work for us all" with the genocide of the Palestinians. The Bundeswehr is being built up into Europe's largest military force in order to wage war against Russia for a third time. Jobs can only be defended with a perspective that declares war on this murderous social system. We propose the formation of action committees in which the membership is in charge and in which there is no place for trade union bureaucrats. They must proceed from the principle that workers' rights take precedence over profit interests and defend every job. They must build links with action committees in other factories and other countries and overcome the division of the working class. To this end, the Fourth International (ICFI) has launched the International Workers' Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC). The struggle to defend jobs must be linked to the struggle against militarism and war and their root cause, capitalism. If there is one thing society can no longer afford, it is not, as Chancellor Merz claims, the welfare state, but the billionaire oligarchs, whose fortunes are beyond belief and must be expropriated.