Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 27 January 2026, the Government of Quebec via Investissement Québec announced a CAD 40 million equity (preferred shares) investment in Vention, a Montreal-based industrial-automation and physical-AI software/hardware platform, as part of a CAD 150 million total financing round. Co-investors in the round included NVentures (NVIDIA's venture arm), Desjardins Capital, and Fidelity Investments Canada. The province frames the investment as building a Canadian-headquartered global leader in robotics/automation software rather than as a trade-restrictive measure.

The British Business Bank (BBB), the UK government's state-owned economic development bank, committed GBP 25 million in direct equity to Kraken Technologies, announced 20 January 2026 — the Bank's largest direct investment in a private company to date. Kraken is an AI-driven energy and utilities operating system, licensed to utilities serving over 70 million customer accounts worldwide, and is being spun out of Octopus Energy Group in a transaction that raised c. USD 1 billion from investors including D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity International, Durable Capital Partners and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board's Teachers' Venture Growth, valuing Kraken at USD 8.65 billion. Business Secretary Peter Kyle framed the stake as keeping a strategically important UK-founded scale-up anchored domestically, part of a wider package under the Modern Industrial Strategy.

China's Ministry of Finance, NDRC, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, People's Bank of China and National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly issued Cai Jin [2026] No. 4 on 2026-01-19, establishing a central-fiscal loan interest-subsidy scheme for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) operating in 14 designated industrial-chain and emerging-industry sectors. Eligible loans originated from 2026-01-01 receive a 1.5-percentage-point annual interest subsidy for up to two years, capped at RMB 50 million in principal per enterprise (maximum subsidy RMB 1.5 million per enterprise). The policy is tentatively set to run one year with a possible extension.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) awarded a AUD 18.07 million grant to energy retailer Flow Power under the "Driving the Nation Program" to build the "Flow Power Highway" — a minimum 10-site, up to 84-charger ultrafast battery-electric-vehicle (BEV) charging network across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, delivering 29.4 MW of total charging capacity. The AUD 18.07 million grant leverages a AUD 70.23 million total project value, with Flow Power partnering UK charge-point operator GRIDSERVE (via its GIGATONS venture) for hardware, software and analytics. Announced 10 December 2025 alongside two smaller ARENA EV-infrastructure grants (Essential Energy AUD 2.3m for regional NSW chargers; UTS/RACE for 2030 CRC AUD 1.09m for a national vehicle-grid-integration network).

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Australia's AUD 15 billion sovereign industrial-financing vehicle, committed AUD 100 million (~USD 66 million) of senior secured debt to Intellihub, a Sydney-based smart-meter and grid-data operator managing over 3.3 million meters nationally, announced 2 December 2025. The debt tranche sits inside a broader AUD 3.1 billion debt funding package and is earmarked for continued smart-meter rollout and upgrades to Intellihub's Evergen energy-management software, which supports virtual power plant and demand-response operations. NRFC classifies the deal as its first deployment in the Renewables and Low Emissions Technology priority area, framing it as decarbonisation-enabling grid infrastructure rather than a greenfield manufacturing build.

The European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, invested EUR 20 million (~USD 23.1 million) on 6 November 2025 in TIN Capital's European Cyber Tech Fund V, a growth-equity vehicle backing European cybersecurity scale-ups. EIF's participation is supported under the European Commission's InvestEU programme; alongside Invest-NL and private investors, the fund closed at over EUR 80 million. The EIF frames the investment as strengthening Europe's digital security and autonomy amid incoming EU cybersecurity regulation (NIS2, the Cybersecurity Act, DORA). Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked financial investment-support intervention.

On 17 October 2025 Türkiye's Ministry of Industry and Technology opened the "HIT-Quantum" call, a USD 300 million support tranche under the HIT-30 High Technology Investment Programme (see `2024-07-26-turkiye-hit-30-high-technology-investment-programme`), aimed at building high-capacity infrastructure for quantum computing services, a scalable quantum hardware/software ecosystem for research centres, universities and the private sector, and skilled-workforce development. The call was announced alongside three parallel HIT-30 sector calls — a USD 1.6 billion "HIT-AI" call (see `2025-10-17-turkiye-hit-ai-cloud-infrastructure-call`), a USD 1.5 billion "HIT-Data Centre" call (see `2025-10-17-turkiye-hit-data-centre-call`), and a USD 1 billion "HIT-Industrial Robot" call (see `2025-10-17-turkiye-hit-industrial-robot-call`). Global Trade Alert logs this single government call as three separate "interventions" (financial grant, state loan, and tax/social-insurance relief) under state act 95017.

The European Investment Bank, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business, and Endesa SA agreed a EUR 650 million financing package on 29 September 2025 to modernise, digitalise and reinforce Endesa's electricity distribution network across six Spanish autonomous communities during 2025-2027. The package comprises a EUR 500 million loan channelling NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan funds through Spain's Autonomous Resilience Fund (FRA), plus a EUR 150 million EIB own-funds loan representing the first tranche of a EUR 500 million facility already approved by the Bank. Financing covers smart meters, advanced transformers, grid digitalisation software, new substations and underground cabling, with over half the investment targeted at economically disadvantaged regions.

On 22 August 2025 South Korea's National R&D Program Evaluation Steering Committee, convened by MOTIE, finalized an exemption from the mandatory preliminary feasibility study (예비타당성조사 면제) for the "K-On-Device AI Semiconductor Technology Development" project, clearing the roughly KRW 689.15 billion (approx. USD 496 million) program to proceed toward FY2026 budget allocation without the standard multi-year vetting delay. The project funds full-stack development — custom AI chip design, software, and modules — across four demand-anchored industries: automotive (Hyundai Motor), IoT/home appliances (LG Electronics), machinery/robotics (Doosan Robotics, Daedong), and defense (Korea Aerospace Industries). MOTIE structured the program so end-user demand companies participated directly in project planning, pairing them with domestic fabless design and foundry manufacturing firms to build a domestic on-device AI semiconductor ecosystem, ahead of full budget confirmation and formal program launch.

On 20 August 2025 the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), a federal Crown corporation, launched the Industrial Innovation Venture Fund II (I²VF II) with a CAD 200 million (USD 144.4 million) commitment to back early-stage, high-growth companies developing productivity technologies for advanced manufacturing, mining and extractive industries, and agriculture/food. The fund expands on Fund I (2019, 20+ portfolio companies) with a widened focus on critical minerals alongside robotics, automation, applied AI and industrial software. BDC frames the fund as a response to Canada's productivity gap, which EVP Geneviève Bouthillier described as "especially acute in sectors like manufacturing, mining, and agriculture."

The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Zone (BDA / Yizhuang) Management Committee issued Jingjiguanfa [2025] No. 15, "Several Measures on Promoting Quantum Technology and Industry Development in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Zone," on 2025-07-14, effective immediately and in force through 2027-12-31. The package spans ten support lines covering the full quantum stack (computing hardware/software, communications, sensing): up to RMB 2,000,000 one-off support for disruptive early-stage R&D projects, R&D-investment matching at 20% of an enterprise's prior-year R&D spend capped at RMB 5,000,000, 1:1 matching up to RMB 30,000,000 for enterprises undertaking state/municipal quantum research tasks, RMB 500,000 per product for new-technology/product certifications, up to RMB 100,000 per flagship application-demonstration project, up to RMB 30,000,000/year (three years max) for quantum-computing cloud platforms and compute centers, up to RMB 5,000,000/year (three years max) for operating industry-ecosystem platforms, rent subsidies up to RMB 1.5/sqm/day (max 2,000 sqm, three years), and talent, financing ("patient capital"/future-industry guidance fund), and international- cooperation support. The zone targets an internationally influential quantum industry cluster by 2027.

On 10 July 2025 the Huairou District Economic and Information Technology Bureau (Beijing) issued Huaijingxinfa [2025] No. 35, district-level support measures to promote high-quality development of the advanced manufacturing and software/information-technology services industries, implementing the district's broader high-quality-development guiding opinions (Huaizhengfa [2024] No. 16). The measures cover 13 support categories (R&D, technology upgrading, standards/certification, "specialized, refined, unique and new" (专精特新) enterprise recognition, among others), with individual awards decided case-by-case through an application and government-approval process rather than a disclosed schedule of fixed amounts. A follow-on December 2025 notice solicited enterprise applications for the 2025 award cycle under this same document.

The Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (ROC) passed amendments to Article 10-1 of the Statute for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例) on third reading on 18 April 2025, promulgated by Presidential Decree on 7 May 2025 and effective for qualifying expenditures incurred from 1 January 2025. The amendment expands the scope of the existing Article 10-1 investment tax credit — previously covering hardware, software, technology, or technical services for smart machinery, 5G network deployment, and cybersecurity — to additionally cover (i) AI products or services and (ii) energy-conservation and carbon-reduction initiatives. The maximum eligible expenditure cap per company per taxable year is doubled from NT$1bn to NT$2bn, and the implementation period is extended through 31 December 2029. Secondary legislation operationalising the amended categories was jointly issued by MOEA and MOF on 27 November 2025 as the "Regulations Governing Tax Credits Claimed for Investments in Smart Machinery, 5G Networks, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Products or Services, and Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction." This is Taiwan's first AI-and-green-tech investment tax credit mechanism in the general-industrial framework, distinct from Article 10-2 (the chip-specific R&D + advanced-equipment credit, "Taiwan Chips Act").