NEW ASPI REPORT: Hyperscale cloud and shared security in the Indo-Pacific: Views from The Strategist | Pentagon: U.S. use AI to suppress dissent | Nationalist AI videos inundate Chinese social media
Plus, 8 women, 4 bedrooms and 1 cause: Breaking A.I.’s glass ceiling
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Australia’s strategic geography, regulatory settings and alliance networks give us a platform to shape how the region adopts, secures and governs hyperscale cloud. ASPI
The U.S. is interested in acquiring machine-learning technology to carry out AI-generated propaganda campaigns overseas. The Intercept
Chinese social media is inundated with a new genre of artificial intelligence-generated videos that reflects the rising nationalism surrounding the country’s military ambitions. Semafor
ASPI
Hyperscale cloud and shared security in the Indo-Pacific: Views from The Strategist
ASPI
James Corera and Malki Opatha
Cloud adoption is part of that same operating system. When Australia supports secure cloud capacity across the region, it is not just enabling better services. It is reinforcing sovereignty. It is embedding rules and relationships that strengthen both us and our neighbours. This collection sets out what that effort could look like. It highlights how countries including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines are integrating cloud into their national security strategies.
Pacific Cyber Week 2025 shows the way forward
The Strategist
Jason Van der Schyff and Jonah Bock
Cybercrime and exploitation pose a unique threat to Pacific islands, where small populations, fragile infrastructure and limited capacity increase their risks. While extra-regional partners already offer cyber capacity building and aid, Pacific Island countries have complained about the poor coordination between them. Because of this concern, the Partners in the Blue Pacific group hosted the inaugural Pacific Cyber Week from 11 to 14 August, continuing and expanding on 2023’s Pacific Cyber Capacity Building Coordination Conference.
🚀 We’re rebuilding ASPI’s China Defence Universities Tracker from the ground up. The major expansion adds richer profiles, rankings powered by the Critical Technology Tracker, new mapping of links to China’s state-owned defence industry, analysis of China–Russia research ties, and data on the surge in dual-use research centres—now covering 180+ entities with faster search. Be first to get early-access invites and launch updates: https://unitracker.aspi.org.au/
Australia
Company turned laptops into covert recording devices to monitor WFH
The Australian Financial Review
David Marin-Guzman
One of the country’s top compliance training companies recorded the conversations of its employees by turning their laptops into covert listening devices while they were at home, in a case that tests the boundaries of workers’ privacy. Victorian police are investigating claims that Safetrac breached the state surveillance laws after chief executive Deborah Coram admitted in legal documents that her company recorded the audio and screens of select members of its staff, who work from home.
Victorian couple sue TikTok for blocking account after allegedly competing in live battles against banned users
The Guardian
Josh Taylor
A Victorian couple is suing TikTok after their account was banned from the social media platform, allegedly for competing in TikTok live battles against banned users. Selim Ozgan and Inci Guven, a married couple, have sued TikTok and its Singaporean subsidiary in the federal court of Australia, alleging that the ByteDance-owned company had unfair contract terms under Australian consumer law.
Robodebt ghosts loom large as AI use increases
Canberra Times
Rachel Jackson and Andrew Brown
The rise of artificial intelligence has led to fears the technology could lead to a repeat of the robodebt scheme, an independent MP has warned. The alarm was sounded at the launch of a bill in federal parliament on Monday, aimed at providing greater protections for those on social security payments. Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said there was a strong temptation for governments to use AI to cut work in social services, but a reliance on badly-designed automation was what led to the unlawful robodebt program in the first place.
Independent MP moves to clean up Robodebt InnovationAus
Defence buys quantum processor from SQC
InnovationAus
Justin Hendry
Silicon Quantum Computing has entered a multimillion-dollar contract with Defence that will see it provide an Australian-made quantum machine learning processor to make sense of large datasets. The Sydney-based startup founded by Michelle Simmons was awarded the contract through the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator’s Emerging and Disruptive Technologies program.
China
Nationalist AI videos inundate Chinese social media
Semafor
J.D. Capelouto
Chinese social media is inundated with a new genre of artificial intelligence-generated videos that reflects the rising nationalism surrounding the country’s military ambitions. The videos tend to follow a similar format: A Chinese soldier from World War II meets a present-day serviceman and is comforted to learn that China has become a global superpower. The AI clips became “part of the state propaganda apparatus” when Beijing-controlled media outlets reposted and promoted them, according to Weibo Watch, a newsletter that tracks Chinese social media trends.
Chinese women exploited in Telegram voyeur rooms urge authorities to act
CNN
“Did you know your videos are leaked?” The message from an anonymous stranger was how Ms. D, a woman in her 20s, learned her ex-boyfriend had leaked her private photos and intimate videos in a private chat on a Chinese language Telegram channel with more than 100,000 subscribers. Countless Chinese women, including minors and relatives of the perpetrators, have had their photos and videos posted on the channel. Many have been insulted in the chat, often in explicit ways, according to screenshots provided by Ms. D, who CNN has agreed not to identify for privacy reasons.
Chinese solar makers' losses deepen as industry vows to end price war
Nikkei Asia
Wataru Suzuki
Major Chinese solar panel makers posted huge losses in the first half of the year due to production overcapacity, as industry players face mounting pressure to cut output amid a U.S. crackdown. The trend has continued from last year, when seven leading manufacturers recorded a combined net loss in 2024 for the first time, as supply from new production investment outpaced demand. Shanghai-listed Tongwei said Friday that its net loss for the January-through-June period widened to 4.96 billion yuan from 3.13 billion yuan in the same period last year.
China’s chip ETFs see premiums spike in sign of market euphoria
Bloomberg
China’s exchange-traded funds that invest in chip stocks are seeing a surge in their premiums, a sign of euphoria building in some corners of the market. The premium on the CPIC SSE STAR Chip Design Thematic ETF jumped to a record 6.2% on Friday, compared to an average of just 0.1% since the fund’s inception. The spike shows how investors have been bidding up the fund, taking prices above the value of its underlying assets. Premiums on the Penghua SSE STAR Chip ETF and the China Universal SSE Science and Technology Innovation Board 50 ETF also rose to above their long-term averages.
USA
Pentagon document: U.S. wants to “suppress dissenting arguments” using AI propaganda
The Intercept
Sam Biddle
The United States hopes to use machine learning to create and distribute propaganda overseas in a bid to “influence foreign target audiences” and “suppress dissenting arguments,” according to a U.S. Special Operations Command document reviewed by The Intercept. The document, a sort of special operations wishlist of near-future military technology, reveals new details about a broad variety of capabilities that SOCOM hopes to purchase within the next five to seven years, including state-of-the-art cameras, sensors, directed energy weapons, and other gadgets to help operators find and kill their quarry. Among the tech it wants to procure is machine-learning software that can be used for information warfare.
Silicon valley launches pro-AI PACs to defend industry in midterm elections
The Wall Street Journal
Amrith Ramkumar and Brian Schwartz
Silicon Valley is putting more than $100 million into a network of political-action committees and organizations to advocate against strict artificial-intelligence regulations, a signal that tech executives will be active in next year’s midterm elections. Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among those helping launch and fund Leading the Future, a new super-PAC network focused on AI, the group told The Wall Street Journal.
America’s newest auto plant Is full of robots. It still needs the human touch.
The Wall Street Journal
John Keilman
At Hyundai Motor Group’s ultramodern new auto plant, robots perform a stunning array of tasks. They move materials, attach doors and do almost all of the welding. Dog-like robots, their snouts laden with cameras, prance across the floor to inspect partially built Ioniq electric vehicles. The factory, which opened near Savannah, Ga., late last year, deploys 750 robots, not counting the hundreds of autonomous guided vehicles that glide across the floor. About 1,450 people work alongside them. That roughly 2-to-1 ratio of humans to robots compares with the U.S. auto-industry average of 7-to-1.
SpaceX wants to launch Starship from Cape Canaveral. Elon Musk’s rivals are not pleased.
The Washington Post
Aaron Gregg
A request by Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its massive Starship rocket more than a hundred times a year from Cape Canaveral is drawing opposition from the company’s rivals, revealing a high-stakes tussle over the company’s growing dominance on Florida’s historic Space Coast. Several competitors have told the U.S. Space Force that their work at nearby launchpads could be disrupted nearly every day of the year as they deal with safety precautions that would be associated with frequent flights of the new SpaceX rocket, according to industry officials and documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
Elon Musk’s xAI joins open-source AI race against China South China Morning Post
Americas
Drones, armoured vehicles part of Canada’s $2B military aid package for Ukraine
CTV News
Craig Lord
Prime Minister Mark Carney says drones, armoured vehicles and other munitions are headed to Ukraine as part of a $2-billion military aid package. Carney first announced the funds in June at the G7 summit in Alberta but outlined the details of where that money will be spent during a surprise visit to Kyiv today. Roughly 40 per cent of the fund will procure urgently needed supplies for Ukraine’s war against Russia, including vehicles, arms and medical equipment.
North Asia
Inside Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance amid rising China tensions
The Australian
Ben Packham
In cyberspace, which relies so heavily on Taiwan’s bleeding-edge technology exports, the self-governed island is fully recognised by the rest of the world. Its internet domain – .tw – is an accepted reality, despite relentless attacks on its bureaucratic fabric by Chinese AI swarms. Not so in the physical world, where Taiwan exists in a parallel universe. Diplomatically isolated at Beijing’s insistence, it is formally recognised as a sovereign state by just 12 countries.
AI push: reform or relapse
The Korea Herald
The Lee Jae Myung government’s new economic blueprint, unveiled Friday, has the sweep of a manifesto: a wholesale “AI transformation” meant to lift the nation out of stagnation and restore growth to 3 percent. The symbolism was not lost on investors. In a year when Korea officially conceded that gross domestic product growth would sink below 1 percent, Lee promised that algorithms, robots and data models would put the country back among the global top five powers. The plan is ambitious, almost defiantly so. Over the next five years, the government will spend 100 trillion won to accelerate AI adoption across manufacturing, logistics, health care and public services.
LG CNS unveils agentic AI to boost corporate productivity The Korea Herald
Jo He-rim
Tokyo releases AI-generated video of Mount Fuji erupting
The Japan Times
Yukana Inoue
Large gray mushroom clouds form the backdrop of the Tokyo skyline as the capital becomes engulfed in smog. Pedestrians walk through the familiar streets of the capital’s Shibuya Ward — except it is blanketed in ash. It is all part of an artificial intelligence-generated video the Tokyo Metropolitan Government released last week to raise awareness of what could happen to the capital if Mount Fuji erupted. This was the first time for AI to be used to encourage further understanding of a potential Mount Fuji eruption and to call for better preparation among Tokyoites.
Southeast Asia
Democracy ‘under threat’ as generative AI distorts information
The Jakara Post
Radhiyya Indra
The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has raised an alarm among experts in Indonesia and across the globe regarding the technology’s long-term impact on democracy, warning officials to immediately take action at the policymaking level to keep AI in check. Academics, experts and government officials gathered on Thursday in the Information Resilience and Integrity Symposium at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta to discuss the evolution of AI and its impact on the state of facts and information online.
Ukraine – Russia
The mysterious shortwave radio station stoking US-Russia nuclear fears
WIRED
A popular shortwave Russian radio station dubbed UVB-76 has been an enigma for decades. But its recent messages have turned it into a tool for Kremlin saber-rattling. Shortly after US president Donald Trump hung up a call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin this spring, an obscure shortwave radio channel, broadcasting from a military base somewhere in Russia, sprang to life.
Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking nuclear plant, causing a fire
Al Jazeera
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone attack on a nuclear plant that has caused a fire and damage to an auxiliary transformer as Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day for the 34th time. Sunday’s attack forced a 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at reactor number three at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, close to the border with Ukraine, according to Russian officials, who added that several power and energy facilities were targeted in the overnight strikes.
Gender & Women in Tech
8 women, 4 bedrooms and 1 cause: Breaking A.I.’s glass ceiling
The New York Times
Natallie Rocha
“A lot of investors, but also founders,” replied Ms. Safronov-Yamamoto, who is working on an A.I. start-up that helps detect medical billing mistakes. Next to them, Chloe Hughes, 21, who is making an A.I. platform for commercial real estate deals, bobbed her head to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Busy Woman” playing in the background. They were part of FoundHer House, a “hacker house” that was established in May and geared specifically toward women.
My ex stalked me, so I joined a 'dating safety' app. Then my address was leaked
BBC
Jacqui Wakefield
Since the breach, the BBC has found websites, apps and even a "game" featuring the leaked data which encourages harassment towards women who had joined the app. The "game" puts the selfies submitted by women head-to-head, instructing users to click on the one they prefer, with leaderboards of the "top 50" and "bottom 50". The BBC could not identify the creator of the website. Users outside of the misogynistic groups were also reposting content deriding the appearance of women on X and TikTok.
Artificial Intelligence
Palantir’s tools pose an invisible danger we are just beginning to comprehend
The Guardian
Juan Sebastian Pinto
The invisible nature of these surveillance structures – and how they influence our lives – is part of the reason the public understanding of what these tools do is so murky. It is also, however, what drew me to work for Palantir as an architecture writer. It was a chance to get to know the digital spaces where many people spend most of their lives today. Working with cloud software in offices, driving new cars in our commutes, doom-scrolling on social media at home – we all feed vast amounts of data to surveillance and targeting programs created by big tech which we often don’t recognize until it’s too late.
Killing by remote control
Al Jazeera
Hind Hassan looks at the military tech that is changing the face of modern warfare: drones and AI. Throughout the unprecedented bombing campaign that has defined Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Palestinians there have lived with a near constant, inescapable sound of drones. It’s a sound that signals death could be close. Hind Hassan tracks how the Israeli military has dramatically increased its use of drones and artificial intelligence to surveil, track and kill Palestinians.
Events & Podcasts
The Sydney Dialogue 2025
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is pleased to announce the Sydney Dialogue, the world’s premier policy summit for critical, emerging and cyber technologies, will return on 4-5 December. Now in its fourth year, the dialogue attracts the world’s top thinkers, innovators and policymakers, and focusses on the most pressing issues at the intersection of technology and security. TSD has become the place where new partnerships are built among governments, industry and civil society, and where existing partnerships are deepened.
Jobs
Defence Strategy Program Coordinator
ASPI
ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program analyses how Australia defends its national interests in an era of intensifying strategic competition. Our research focuses on three areas: understanding Australia’s security environment and regional partnerships; developing military strategy, deterrence concepts, and future force design; and strengthening the defence industrial base, supply chains, and economic resilience. Together, these efforts provide government, industry, and the public with evidence‑based insights to enhance Australia’s defence. The closing date for applications is Thursday 28 August 2025 – an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.
