Trump freezes export controls to secure trade deal with China | Russia counters Ukrainian drones by turning off mobile internet | UN tech chief: 'Global approach' to AI regulation urgently needed
Plus, women's dating app Tea reports 72,000 images stolen in security breach
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The US has frozen restrictions on technology exports to China to avoid hurting trade talks with Beijing and help President Donald Trump secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The commerce department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which runs export controls, has been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China. Financial Times
Katya’s phone suddenly refused to provide the basics she needed to drive home to Moscow from St. Petersburg. She, her partner and countless others were unable to go online, cut off from their apps for things like maps, banking, paying road tolls and buying fuel. Russia’s mobile internet networks now have frequent blackouts because of the war with Ukraine. The New York Times
The world urgently needs to find a global approach to regulating artificial intelligence, the United Nations’ top tech chief said this week, warning that fragmentation could deepen risks and inequalities. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union agency, said she hoped that AI “can actually benefit humanity.” South China Morning Post
ASPI
Mapping a decade’s worth of hybrid threats targeting South Korea
The Strategist
Fitriani, Shelly Shih and Alice Wai
While Australia is coming to terms with the realities of hybrid threats, South Korea has long been on the front line. Reflecting its formal state of war with North Korea, South Korea has endured decades of grey-zone provocations, including infiltration attempts, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. However, the hybrid threat landscape confronting South Korea is evolving in both intensity and complexity—just as it is for the broader Indo-Pacific. For South Korea, it now extends beyond North Korea’s traditional campaigns to encompass state actors such as China, emerging technologies such as AI, and threats including intellectual property theft.
Nurture, sustain innovation to make Australian intelligence ‘match fit’
The Strategist
Chris Taylor
Australia’s intelligence agencies must adapt to stay match fit as international contest intensifies. Even with recent transformational investments, the business model of the national intelligence community is being challenged, including how the NIC collects and analyses intelligence, and provides the material impactfully to busy customers. Meeting this challenge requires technology solutions, effective partnerships and, crucially, persistent and sustainable innovation.
Australia
WiseTech announces new chief executive, replacing billionaire co-founder Richard White
The Nightly
Derek Rose
Australia’s biggest technology company has named a new chief executive as it looks to move on from distracting governance issues involving its billionaire co-founder. WiseTech Global on Monday named Zubin Appoo as its next chief executive, succeeding interim boss Andrew Cartledge, who is retiring at the end of the year. Mr Appoo was a senior executive at the cloud logistics platform from 2004 and 2018, and the company said he had a foundational role in its rapid growth during that time.
Australia’s battery scientist Guo Zaiping joins CityU in Hong Kong as energy material chair
South China Morning Post
Shi Huang
World leading Chinese scientist Guo Zaiping, who specialises in the field of batteries, has taken up a prestigious new role at City University of Hong Kong after a two-decade career in Australia. The university said she had been appointed as chair professor of energy materials earlier this month. The university’s materials science programme is ranked number one in Hong Kong and number seven in the world, according to the latest USNEWS University Rankings.
China
Chinese AI firms form alliances to build domestic ecosystem amid US curbs
Reuters
Liam Mo and Brenda Goh
China's artificial intelligence companies have announced two new industry alliances, aiming to develop a domestic ecosystem to reduce dependence on foreign tech as they seek to cope with U.S. export restrictions on advanced Nvidia chipsets. The "Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance" brings together Chinese developers of large language models and AI chip manufacturers. The conference also showcased a slew of new products, such as an AI computing system from Huawei that experts believe rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as well as consumer-friendly products such as several kinds of digital AI glasses.
China’s tech hub Shenzhen mandates leniency for innovators whose state-funded projects fail
South China Morning Post
Phoebe Zhang
Authorities in China’s southern tech hub of Shenzhen have called for leniency towards innovators whose government-funded projects fail or do not pass evaluation. The first policy statement of its kind from the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission comes as China aims to cement the city’s status as a hi-tech powerhouse and reduce reliance on foreign technology amid a sustained strategic rivalry with the United States. The new rules applied to all universities, hospitals and companies that undertake technical innovation with government financial aid, the commission said in a statement on its website last Monday.
Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less
MIT Technology Review
Caiwei Chen
Just two years ago, Lorraine He, now a 24-year-old law student, was told to avoid using AI for her assignments. At the time, to get around a national block on ChatGPT, students had to buy a mirror-site version from a secondhand marketplace. Its use was common, but it was at best tolerated and more often frowned upon. Now, her professors no longer warn students against using AI. Instead, they’re encouraged to use it—as long as they follow best practices.
USA
Donald Trump freezes export controls to secure trade deal with China
Financial Times
Demetri Sevastopulo
The US has frozen restrictions on technology exports to China to avoid hurting trade talks with Beijing and help President Donald Trump secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The commerce department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which runs export controls, has been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China, according to eight people, including current and former US officials.
Trump’s retreat on China chip ban triggers policy spat
The Washington Post
Eva Dou
Democratic lawmakers took Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his team to task for “the administration’s abrupt and inexplicable decision to reverse course and allow the sale of certain advanced semiconductors” to China, reflecting concerns within both parties that the administration’s concessions in trade talks could have longer-term security ramifications.
Allianz Life says ‘majority’ of customers’ personal data stolen in cyberattack
TechCrunch
Zack Whittaker
U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, financial professionals, and employees during a mid-July data breach. When reached by TechCrunch, Allianz Life spokesperson Brett Weinberg confirmed the breach.
Quishing' scams dupe millions of Americans as cybercriminals exploit QR codes
NBC News
Kevin Williams
QR codes were once a quirky novelty that prompted a fun scan with the phone. Early on, you might have seen a QR code on a museum exhibit and scanned it to learn more about the eating habits of the woolly mammoth or military strategies of Genghis Khan. During the pandemic, QR codes became the default restaurant menu. However, as QR codes became a mainstay in more urgent aspects of American life, from boarding passes to parking payments, hackers have exploited their ubiquity.
Is AI the exception to ‘America First’?
POLITICO
Daniella Cheslow
The AI Action Plan that President Donald Trump rolled out last week contained quite an Easter egg for globalists. In many ways, the 28-page document was very much in line with Trump’s swaggering, chest-puffing attitude toward foreign policy. It took an “America First” approach that rhetorically paralleled the administration’s punishing tariff threats, withdrawal from “woke” UNESCO and drive-by references to “the evil of globalism.” But packed into the AI plan’s pages — page 20, to be exact — was a pivot: a call to forge “an enduring global alliance” on the technology.
North Asia
Samsung to produce Tesla’s next-gen AI chips in $16.5b foundry breakthrough
The Korea Herald
Jo He-rim
Samsung Electronics will be producing Tesla’s next-generation artificial intelligence chip, known as AI6, under a record-breaking $16.5 billion contract deal. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a social media post Monday that Samsung’s chip manufacturing facility in Texas will be dedicated to producing his company’s chips. His post on X came shortly after Samsung announced a foundry deal, disclosing only that the customer is a “global conglomerate.”
Samsung to supply Tesla with AI chips in $16.5bn deal
Financial Times
Christian Davies and Song Jung-a
Samsung Electronics has won a $16.5bn order to produce Tesla’s next generation of custom artificial intelligence chips, raising hopes of a turnaround in the South Korean tech giant’s struggling contract chipmaking business.
Hanwha Aerospace gets tech transfer for South Korea’s Nuri rocket
Asia Pacific Defence Reporter
Hanwha Aerospace has signed a technology transfer agreement with the stated-funded Korea Aerospace Research Institute for the KSLV-II (Korea Space Launcher Vehicle-II) also called Nuri, Korea’s first indigenously developed space launcher. This tech transfer underscores Hanwha’s commitment to cultivating the space industry as a primary future growth engine, complementing its established leadership in the defence sector. This landmark deal marks the first time that the complete lifecycle technology for the KSLV-II – encompassing design, manufacturing, and launch operations – has been transferred to the private sector in South Korea.
Southeast Asia
Nation Group hit by 200 million cyberattacks in Cambodian IO campaign
The Nation
Since the outbreak of the Thai–Cambodian border conflict on 23 July 2025, Nation Group—as a professional media institution comprising more than ten affiliated outlets—has remained committed to accurate, ethical reporting guided by journalistic standards and a strong respect for human rights. However, over the past three days, Nation Group has come under severe cyberattack originating from Cambodian users, targeting particularly The Nation Thailand and Thai News across both website and social media platforms.
State-sponsored hackers eye Singapore’s businesses for cyber ransom payoffs
The Straits Times
Krist Boo
State-sponsored hackers are increasingly targeting Singapore companies – not just to steal corporate secrets or to disrupt business operations, but also for profits. Singapore firms are not helping, by being more likely than their global peers to pay up without negotiating ransom amounts, and to stay silent after suffering a breach.
Ukraine – Russia
Russia counters Ukrainian drones by turning off Russians’ mobile internet
The New York Times
Nataliya Vasilyeva and Alina Lobzina
Katya’s phone suddenly refused to provide the basics she needed to drive home to Moscow from St. Petersburg. She, her partner and countless others were unable to go online, cut off from their apps for things like maps, banking, paying road tolls and buying fuel. There was no warning, no hint how widespread the outage was, no clue how long it would last — but it wasn’t a surprise, either. Russia’s mobile internet networks now have frequent blackouts because of the war with Ukraine.
Russia’s Aeroflot cancels flights after pro-Ukraine hackers claim cyber-attack
The Guardian
Dan Milmo
The Russian airline Aeroflot was forced to cancel dozens of flights on Monday after a pro-Ukraine hacking group with a track record of claiming responsibility for hacking targets in Russia said it had carried out a cyber-attack. Aeroflot did not provide further details about the cause of the problem or how long it would take to resolve, but departure boards at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport turned red as flights were cancelled at a time when many Russians take their holidays.
Europe
Brussels accuses China's Temu of breaking EU digital rules
Financial Times
Laura Dubois
Brussels has accused Chinese ecommerce group Temu of breaching the bloc’s landmark digital rules by failing to do enough to prevent the sale of illegal products on its platform. In preliminary findings published on Monday, the European Commission said its probe had revealed “a high risk” of EU consumers encountering illegal products on Temu’s site.
French defence firm Naval Group investigates cyber leak
Financial Times
Ian Johnston
French defence company Naval Group said it has been hit by cyber attackers who claim to have accessed sensitive data relating to its submarines and frigates. The ship and submarine maker said on Saturday evening that it had been the target of a “reputational attack” by hackers in a “context marked by international, business and informational tensions”. No ransom demand has been made.
Middle East
Iran-Israel AI war propaganda is a warning to the world
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Mahsa Alimardani and Sam Gregory
On June 23, 2025, WITNESS received a WhatsApp video showing clouds of smoke billowing from Evin prison in Tajrish, Iran. Filmed from a nearby apartment, the communication carried a stark message: “They are trying to open Evin.” The infamous prison—a site of torture, killing, and confinement of dissidents, journalists, and activists—had been bombed. Israeli officials deemed the strike “symbolic,” a gesture against the Islamic Republic’s repression. For many Iranians, shattering the gates of Evin seemed to be a resonant symbol of hope for the freedom of the nation’s best and brightest long held behind its walls.
Iran’s plan to abandon GPS is about much more than technology
Al Jazeera
Jasim Al-Azzawi
For the past few years, governments across the world have paid close attention to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There, it is said, we see the first glimpses of what warfare of the future will look like, not just in terms of weaponry, but also in terms of new technologies and tactics. Most recently, the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran demonstrated not just new strategies of drone deployment and infiltration but also new vulnerabilities. During the 12-day conflict, Iran and vessels in the waters of the Gulf experienced repeated disruptions of GPS signal.
Africa
Unleashing the AI jobs revolution in Africa
Rest of World
Samuel Alemayehu
The conversation about artificial intelligence in Africa is currently dominated by a single, terrifying narrative: The U.S. and China control over 90% of the world’s AI computing power, leaving Africa at risk of becoming a “digital colony.” That would make the continent dependent on AI infrastructure and models built elsewhere. The problem is real, and the conventional solution calls for a supply-side road map: building more data centers, training more data scientists, and creating more AI research hubs to build the engine of a new economy.
Gender & Women in Tech
Women's dating app Tea reports 72,000 images stolen in security breach
Reuters
Anusha Shah
Tea, an app that lets women anonymously comment and review dates with men, said, opens new tab it has suffered a data breach, with hackers gaining access to 72,000 user images. A Tea spokesperson confirmed the hack to Reuters on Saturday, saying they had detected "unauthorized access to our systems" and about 72,000 images had been exposed, including 13,000 selfies and photo identifications submitted for account verification purposes, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages.
Breaking barriers in cybersecurity: A conversation with WiCyS’s Executive Director
Security Magazine
Rachelle Blair-Frasier
Every year, Security magazine takes a moment to spotlight the incredible women making waves in the physical and cybersecurity world through our Women in Security program. These professionals are more than just leaders — they’re innovators, change makers, and a driving force behind some of the most critical security strategies today. Be sure to check out this year’s honorees. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Lynn Dohm, Executive Director of nonprofit organization Women in Cybersecurity.
Big Tech
William J. Rutter, biotech pioneer of gene-based medicine, dies at 97
The New York Times
Trip Gabriel
William J. Rutter, a scientist who helped create the modern biotechnology industry as a founder of a company that turned breakthroughs from academic labs into commercial medicines, including the first genetically engineered vaccine and a therapy for multiple sclerosis, died on July 11 at his home in San Francisco. He was 97. His daughter, Cindy Rutter, said the cause was complications of urothelial carcinoma, a cancer of the urinary system.
Artificial Intelligence
‘Global approach’ to AI regulation urgently needed, UN tech chief says
South China Morning Post
The world urgently needs to find a global approach to regulating artificial intelligence, the United Nations’ top tech chief said this week, warning that fragmentation could deepen risks and inequalities. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union agency, said she hoped that AI “can actually benefit humanity.” But as concerns mount over the risks posed by the fast-moving technology – including fears of mass job losses, the spread of deepfakes and disinformation, and society’s fabric fraying – she insisted that regulation was key.
The high-schoolers who just beat the world’s smartest AI models
The Wall Street Journal
Ben Cohen
The smartest AI models ever made just went to the most prestigious competition for young mathematicians and managed to achieve the kind of breakthrough that once seemed miraculous. They still got beat by the world’s brightest teenagers. Every year, a few hundred elite high-school students from all over the planet gather at the International Mathematical Olympiad. This year, those brilliant minds were joined by Google DeepMind and other companies in the business of artificial intelligence. They had all come for one of the ultimate tests of reasoning, logic and creativity.
Unions to demand employers be forbidden from using AI for ‘mass redundancies’
The Sydney Morning Herald
Olivia Ireland
The Australian Council of Trade Unions will demand that employers guarantee workers’ job security before introducing artificial intelligence into their businesses in a bold proposal that will inflame tensions before the Albanese government’s productivity roundtable next month. The council’s assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell will use a speech on Tuesday to send a message that the union movement expects Labor to push through legislation to bar the use of AI at businesses that cannot reach agreements with their employees.
AI is transforming the lives of neurodivergent people
IT News
Hani Richter
For Cape Town-based filmmaker Kate D’hotman, connecting with movie audiences comes naturally. Far more daunting is speaking with others. D’hotman has autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder , which can make relating to others exhausting and a challenge. However, since 2022, D’hotman has been a regular user of ChatGPT, the popular AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI, relying on it to overcome communication barriers at work and in her personal life.
The unnerving future of AI-fueled video games
The New York Times
Zachary Small
It sounds like a thought experiment conjured by René Descartes for the 21st century. The citizens of a simulated city inside a video game based on “The Matrix” franchise were being awakened to a grim reality. Everything was fake, a player told them through a microphone, and they were simply lines of code meant to embellish a virtual world. Empowered by generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, the characters responded in panicked disbelief. The unnerving demo, released two years ago by an Australian tech company named Replica Studios, showed both the potential power and the consequences of enhancing gameplay with artificial intelligence.
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.
Flooding the Twilight Zone: Can the sensible centre resist the onslaught of extremist conspiracy theories? With Julia Ebner
ASPI
Julia Ebner is a leading researcher in the area of extremism, radicalisation and conspiracy theories. She’s spent time undercover among incels, anti-vaxxers and neo-nazis, and combines this brave reportage with a deep understanding of politics. In this episode, Julia explains the unsettling trend of kooky and dangerous ideas making their way into the political mainstream, as fringe ideas are repackaged as successful populist weapons. She talks about conspiracy theories such as QAnon, the idea of “identity fusion” which brings together people with a wide range of anti-establishment grievances, the psychology behind conspiracy myths, the anxieties that modern society creates, and the state of US politics.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.
