Ryanair pilots meet, nursing home investment, and Microsoft backs work on artificial human brain

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

Ryanair pilots will meet trade union officials today to discuss the slow progress of a pay claim they made to the airline. The pay claim is separate to the issues over which pilots at the airline held a series of strikes during last year's peak summer holiday season

Cork-based financial firm BlackBee Investments has announced details of a €250 million healthcare investment fund aimed at creating 1,000 nursing home beds and acquiring a further 750 existing beds.

A fund managed by investor Tristan Capital Partners has acquired two ready-to-go development sites in Dublin for €54.5 million, which it will develop alongside local development partners to deliver 663 new homes to the rental market. It comes as German private bank Berenberg tells clients that the Irish property trade "remains far from over".

Microsoft has pumped $1 billion into Silicon Valley's most ambitious artificial intelligence research group in pursuit of the ultimate AI dream: a vast, artificial human brain that can run on Microsoft's globe-spanning cloud computing system.

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The company behind The Irish Times made an operating profit of €2.61 million in 2018, up 5.2 per cent on the previous year.

In her column this week, Laura Slattery asks if the State should do what some EU members are already doing and introduce levies on subscription video-on-demand companies to boost funding for Irish-produced screen content?

Finally, in our personal finance coverage this week, Fiona Reddan assesses the best car finance deals, while Proinsias O'Mahony advises that if you really want to know the risk appetite of your fund manager, check out their childhood.

Michael McAleer

Michael McAleer

Michael McAleer is Motoring Editor, Innovation Editor and an Assistant Business Editor at The Irish Times