Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres | Chinese cyber agency rejects US hacking claims in new report | UK secures £6.3bn investment in critical data centres
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Google has partnered with Kairos Power to use small nuclear reactors for powering its AI data centers, starting this decade. The agreement supports clean, reliable energy for AI technologies. With increasing energy demands, tech companies are turning to nuclear power to reduce emissions and meet energy needs efficiently. BBC
China's cybersecurity agency rejected US and Microsoft's claims that Chinese hackers were behind the Volt Typhoon attack on US networks. Calling it a "political farce," China cited insufficient evidence. The report accused US intelligence of using tools to mislead and frame China in cyberattacks. Bloomberg
Four major US tech firms, including CyrusOne, ServiceNow, Cloud HQ, and CoreWeave, are investing in UK data centres, boosting AI development and economic growth. These investments, announced at the International Investment Summit, total over £25bn, creating jobs and expanding the UK's AI and machine learning capabilities. Innovation News Network
The World
The deep-sea 'emergency service' that keeps the internet running
BBC
William Park
Over the following decades, as the global web of deep-sea cables expanded, their repair and maintenance resulted in other surprising scientific discoveries – opening up entirely new worlds and allowing us to spy on the seabed like never before, while also allowing us to communicate at record speed. At the same time, our daily lives, incomes, health and safety have also become more and more dependent on the internet – and ultimately, this complex network of undersea cables. So what happens when they break?
The battle over who controls the Internet
The NewYork Times
Jack Nicas and Paul Mozur
For years, the battle between governments and tech giants has played out behind the scenes. We are witnessing an important shift in the yearslong struggle over who controls the internet. Governments are becoming more demanding, just as some tech leaders seek to promote themselves as free-speech martyrs.
Australia
How a news levy on big tech could save Australian journalism
The New Daily
Terry Flew
It was claimed the internet would overcome the domination of traditional media by few players as it was easy for new providers to use an existing network to create content for global audiences. A recent study of media concentration in Australia finds this has not been the case.
Inside the moral panic at Australia’s ‘first of its kind’ summit about kids on social media
Crikey
Axel Bruns
A curious event took place in Sydney and Adelaide last week. The New South Wales and South Australian state governments hosted a joint “social media summit” billed as the “first of its kind”. The premiers fulsomely introduced the event as an opportunity to discuss “the positive and negative impacts” of social media on young people in Australia and consult on new approaches to regulating social media platforms.
China
Chinese cyber agency rejects US hacking claims in new report
Bloomberg
China’s cybersecurity agency again rejected claims by the US and Microsoft Corp. from earlier this year that Chinese hackers were behind a high-profile attack on critical American computer networks known as Volt Typhoon. Calling the claims a “political farce” orchestrated by Washington, China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said in a report released Monday that more than 50 cybersecurity experts from around the world agreed that there was insufficient evidence to link Volt Typhoon to Beijing.
Made in China 2025: how China thrives despite tech sanctions
CommonWealth Magazine
Silva Shih, Yixuan Lin
Beijing’s Made in China 2025 initiative has scored successes on many fronts despite technology restrictions imposed by the West. But China still lags far behind on semiconductors and generative AI, gaps that its leaders are finding to be hard to bridge.
Can China find a way around US restrictions on hi-tech computer chips?
The Star
Ji Siqi
The story of how Chinese scientists overcame technological containment efforts by the Soviet Union and the United States to develop nuclear weapons in the 1960s has long been a textbook staple in China, but analysts caution that today’s hi-tech hurdles could be harder to surmount. Until recently, a return to such technological isolation seemed inconceivable to younger Chinese brought up during an era of globalisation.
Chinese think tank recommends Nvidia chips for data centres, warning of high transfer costs
South China Morning Post
Che Pan
A government-backed think tank has suggested that data centres in mainland China should choose Nvidia chips, warning of the high costs involved in shifting to domestic solutions. “If the conditions allow, [data centres] can choose [Nvidia’s] A100 and H100 high-performance computing units. If the need for computing power is limited, they can also choose H20 or alternative domestic solutions,” the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology said in a report on China’s computing power development issued on Sunday.
USA
US weighs capping exports of AI chips from Nvidia and AMD to some countries
South China Morning Post
Bloomberg
Biden administration officials have discussed capping sales of advanced AI chips from Nvidia and other American companies on a country-specific basis, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would limit some nations’ artificial intelligence capabilities.
Southeast Asia
WhatsApp vigilantes in India are converting Christians by force
BBC
Parth MN
How far-right Hindu nationalists use WhatsApp to target Christian families when they’re most vulnerable — by preventing them from burying their dead.
Vietnam plans to convert all its networks to IPv6
The Register
Laura Dobberstein
Vietnam will convert all local networks to IPv6, under a sweeping digital infrastructure strategy announced last week.The plan emerged in Decision No. 1132/QD-TTg – signed into existence by permanent deputy prime minister Nguyen Hoa Binh – and defines goals for 2025 and 2030. By 2025, the nation intends to connect two new submarine cables – an important local issue. Earlier this year, internet speeds slowed when three of the five cables connecting the country broke. Also by 2025, the country wants "universal" fiber-to-the-home, 5G services in all cities and industrial zones, and work to have commenced on an unspecified number of datacenters capable of running AI applications and operating with power usage effectiveness index of less than 1.4.
Europe
EU taps Taiwan for 6G development as competition with China grows
Digitimes
Bryan Chuang and Vyra Wu,
Thanks to the strategic efforts of telecom giants like Huawei, China has made rapid advances in 5G, building an expansive patent portfolio across network infrastructure. As the industry eyes the 6G era, collaboration between the US, EU, Japan, and South Korea is becoming critical. Taiwan, with its notable progress in 5G Open Radio Access Network backed by government support, is now positioned as a strong partner for US and EU 6G concept validation efforts.
UK
UK secures £6.3bn investment in critical data centres
Innovation News Network
Four major US tech firms have committed to investing in UK data centres, fuelling Britain’s economic growth and spurring AI development. The investments, announced as part of today’s International Investment Summit, will take the total investment in UK data centres to over £25bn since this government took office, demonstrating the government’s continuous effort to drive growth by partnering with businesses.
Middle East
Head of Saudi tech institute pledges to limit China AI collaboration
Financial Times
Malcolm Moore and Ahmed Al Omran
The new head of Saudi Arabia’s premier academic institution has promised to stop any artificial intelligence collaboration with China that could jeopardise the university’s access to US-made chips. Professor Sir Edward Byrne, who became head of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) last month, said he would prioritise relationships with “the areas I know best, which are the UK, Europe and the US” and ensure that researchers at Kaust have access to the AI technology they need to carry out their work.
Africa
Why there's a rush of African satellite launches
BBC
Chris Baraniuk
One by one, the satellites – each of them encrusted with a hodge-podge of solar panels and other gizmos – detached from their mothership. They had blasted off from Earth just an hour earlier, on 16 August. The 116 satellites onboard the launch vehicle were mostly designed and built by Western nations and businesses – but one of them was different.
Big Tech
Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres
BBC
João da Silva
Google has signed a deal to use small nuclear reactors to generate the vast amounts of energy needed to power its artificial intelligence data centres. The company says the agreement with Kairos Power will see it start using the first reactor this decade and bring more online by 2035. The companies did not give any details about how much the deal is worth or where the plants will be built. Technology firms are increasingly turning to nuclear sources of energy to supply the electricity used by the huge data centres that drive AI.
Artificial Intelligence
Deepfake romance scam raked in $46 million from men across Asia, police say
CNN
Jessie Yeung
She appeared to be a beautiful woman and in the minds of men across Asia, the video calls they spoke on confirmed their newfound love was real. But Hong Kong police say the men had fallen prey to a romance scam that used deepfake artificial intelligence to lure its victims into parting with more than $46 million. In a news conference Monday, police in the Asian financial hub announced the arrests of more than two dozen members of the alleged scam ring, which they say targeted men from Taiwan to Singapore and as far away as India.
Atlassian says AI time savings about ‘focused effort’, not working less
The Australian
Jared Lynch
Time saved using artificial intelligence tools should be viewed as creating more space for “focused effort” rather than working less, Atlassian’s head of AI says. Employees who are using AI-powered assistants, such as Microsoft’s Copilot, say they are saving about 20 hours a month on average. But a “tug of war” has erupted on how best to share that benefit. Managers want AI to help lift flatlining productivity, while staff are seeking more work/life balance.
Millions of people are using abusive AI ‘Nudify’ bots on Telegram
WIRED
Matt Burgess
In early 2020, deepfake expert Henry Ajder uncovered one of the first Telegram bots built to “undress” photos of women using artificial intelligence. At the time, Ajder recalls, the bot had been used to generate more than 100,000 explicit photos—including those of children—and its development marked a “watershed” moment for the horrors deepfakes could create. Since then, deepfakes have become more prevalent, more damaging, and easier to produce.
Amazon, Databricks strike five-year deal around AI chips
The Wall Street Journal
Belle Lin
Amazon and startup Databricks struck a five-year deal that could cut costs for businesses seeking to build their own artificial-intelligence capabilities. Databricks will use Amazon’s Trainium AI chips to power a service that helps companies customize an AI model or build their own. Amazon says customers pay less to use its homegrown chips compared with the competition, such as Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs, which dominate the AI chip market.
Pony.ai teams up with Alibaba’s Amap unit to expand robotaxi service in China
South China Morning Post
Ben Jiang
Chinese autonomous driving start-up Pony.ai has teamed up with Alibaba Group Holding’s online mapping unit Amap in an accelerated push to roll out robotaxis as the driverless taxi market heats up in China. Pony.ai said its robotaxi fleet operating in the pilot zone in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, capital of China’s southern Guangdong province where it is based, is now accessible from Amap, the Alibaba-backed online mapping service that also doubles as a ride-hailing platform, according to a post published to its official WeChat public account on Monday. Alibaba owns the Post.
The U.S. defense and homeland security departments have paid $700 million for AI projects since ChatGPT's launch
Fortune
Kali Hays
U.S. defense and security forces are stocking up on artificial intelligence, enlisting hundreds of companies to develop and safety test new AI algorithms and tools, according to a Fortune analysis.In the two years since OpenAI released the ChatGPT chatbot, kicking off a global obsession with all things AI, the Department of Defense has awarded roughly $670 million in contracts to nearly 323 companies to work on a range of AI projects. The figures represent a 20% increase from 2021 and 2022, as measured by both the number of companies working with the DoD and the total value of the contracts.
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