Ten of the best business stories

Kicking off a week of end-of-year pieces, today we round up the best 10 North East business stories of 2025

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The North East was one of the big winners of Donald Trump's state visit to the UK in September as plans for a £30bn AI growth zone were announced.

The plans will see British firm Nscale working with American technology giants OpenAI and Nvidia to establish Stargate UK. The deal will see AI infrastructure ramped up at Cobalt Park, North Tyneside, adding to the already-announced plans for a major data centre campus at Cambois, near Blyth.

North East mayor Kim McGuinness said the growth zone “places the North East at the forefront of the next technology revolution” and would lead to “thousands of better jobs and new opportunities for local people”.

Sara Davies returns to Crafter's Companion

Dragons’ Den star and North East entrepreneur Sara Davies returned to Crafter’s Companion, the firm she founded as a student, after it went into administration at the start of the year.

Her return helped save most of the jobs at the County Durham company, despite challenging times in the crafting sector. Taking the helm of the company saw Ms Davies step back on some of her TV work.

In August, investment group Maven Capital Partners took control of the firm and Ms Davies handed the managing director job to former CBI regional director Diane Sharp, though she increased her shareholding at the time.

Ups and downs at Nissan

It has been a year of triumphs and challenges for Nissan in what is a challenging global automotive market.

At a global level, Nissan is battling major headwinds and in May it announced that it would close a number of its plants and cut tens of thousands of jobs.