Money has evolved into far more than the cash in your wallet or your bank account. And at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, we're devoting an entire stage to that progression. The brand-new Smart Money Stage will be where fintech, payments, and AI collide. From October 13'15 in San Francisco's Moscone Center, you can join leaders from Circle, Robinhood, American Express, Plaid, Airwallex, and many more as they dig into the details of how money is changing. We're talking about how stablecoins and instant payments are reshaping money movement, the ways in which AI agents are being entrusted (or not) with financial decisions, and what it takes to create regulated financial infrastructure built for a global market. We're closing in on the end of our current pricing window ' your chance to save on the best Disrupt prices is ending soon ' so check out our ticket options right here. And if you still need some convincing, let's dive into the Smart Money Stage's programming: Stablecoins and instant payments are changing how money moves around the world. This session looks at how these new payment systems compare to traditional banking infrastructure, where FedNow and private networks fit in, and how regulatory and market changes could shape the future of payments. Hear where these new systems are gaining traction, and which challenges remain....

That is the challenge facing sites run by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which funds the Diamond Light Source ' the national synchrotron facility in Harwell ' as well as other scientific instruments and labs. The remodelling comes amid an overhaul to UK public research funding in line with the government's strategic priorities, and during a rocky period for UK science. The country's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has merged the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology into a larger Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Patrick Vallance, a clinical scientist popular among research leaders, resigned as science minister on 20 July. Chemical engineer Chris McDonald, a member of the UK parliament who had a prior career in industry research, was appointed to the role on 24 July. The Labour government, led by former prime minister Keir Starmer until 20 July, promised that the budget for the country's main research funder, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), would grow from '8.8 billion in 2025'26 to '10 billion in 2029'30. But under this plan, cash for 'curiosity-driven research' ' meaning mostly that led by individual researchers through grants ' would stay roughly flat. By contrast, spending on strategic government priorities, such as artificial intelligence, supporting businesses and investing in talent and infrastructure, including computing resources, would receive most of the increase. AI is slated to get more than '1.6 billion over four years....

This is an ongoing series on investors focused on rebuilding the physical layer. Previous interviews in the series were with ex-Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, founder of Gigascale Capital, and Peter Barrett, a decade-long investor at Playground Global. Schneider Electric has spent nearly two centuries adapting to successive industrial revolutions ' evolving from a 19th century steel and heavy machinery company into a global leader in energy management and automation. Now, through its 1 billion Euro venture fund, SE Ventures, the company is betting that the next transformation will be driven by AI's collision with the physical world, from data centers and power grids to robotics and industrial automation. For Amit Chaturvedy, who joined SE Ventures in 2022 after leading corporate investments at Cisco, AI's biggest opportunities extend well beyond software. As demand for compute strains energy infrastructure and accelerates reindustrialization, the firm is backing startups building the technologies that underpin the AI economy ' investing in everything from data center infrastructure and grid resilience to robotics and industrial AI....

Frontier labs and hyperscalers promise world-shifting innovation. And most deliver it. But, as we're seeing with the Anthropic policy flip-flop and the evolving Hugging Face and OpenAI security incident, they operate without stability. That's deeply concerning because technology organizations that build their entire AI operations and business on top of Anthropic, OpenAI and other paid models need to be able to depend on their reliability. Meanwhile, open-source organizations like OpenClaw and DeepSeek offer cost-free models with similar quality. The difference in price is stark. And the gaps in utility, safety and accessibility that kept the enterprise away are closing fast. This evolving dynamic leaves CTOs, CIOs and engineering leaders with a question: How can we keep reliability up and costs down when it's impossible to predict whether hyperscalers will drop or raise prices of their next models' The answer isn't clear-cut ' yet. But it's never been clearer that engineering leaders need systems that allow their teams to quickly swap models and shift how AI agents work with people and access real data and tools. Building the right foundational layer keeps organizations nimble enough to evolve alongside the industry without cutting corners by chasing the latest trends....