US lifts chip design export controls to China | Microsoft cuts 9,000 jobs amid AI shift | Australia and India team up on undersea surveillance
Microsoft shuts down 3,000 North Korean IT email accounts
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The US said it had lifted export controls on certain chip design software to China, according to statements from Siemens, Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems. Three of the world’s largest electronic design automation software developers have been informed by the US government that sales of their products to China would no longer require special approval. South China Morning Post
Microsoft will lay off nearly 4% of its workforce, in the latest job cuts as the tech giant looks to rein in costs amid hefty investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Reuters
Australia and India will work together on a collaborative research project aimed at enhancing undersea surveillance capabilities, marking the first science and technology pact between the nations. InnovationAus
ASPI
Canada’s Hikvision ban can inspire wider collective action
ASPI
Justin Bassi and James Corera
Canada has just made a great step forward in minimising the security risk from China. Now Australia should step forward and propose to work with Canada to create international, harmonised arrangements to protect critical infrastructure. Canada’s move, implemented by Industry Minister Melanie Joly on 28 June on national security grounds, was to direct Chinese surveillance camera maker Hikvision to cease operations in Canada. This commendable action should now be a basis for collective security effort across the Five Eyes, Quad, G7 and NATO.
Australia
Australia and India to work together on undersea surveillance
InnovationAus
Trish Everingham
Australia and India will work together on a collaborative research project aimed at enhancing undersea surveillance capabilities, marking the first science and technology pact between the nations. The three-year initiative focuses on improving submarine detection and autonomous underwater vehicle tracking through advanced technologies.
After Louis lost $109k to scammers, banks are finally combatting the 'flaw' the scammers used
ABC News
Geraden Cann
Louis May lost his $109,000 first home deposit to scammers. Now Australia's banks are taking measures against the security flaw the scammers used, via a system called "Confirmation of Payee". An advertising campaign will be run to educate Australians on how the new system can help them recognise and avoid paying scammers.
China
Mainland Chinese digital yuan partner to develop stablecoin tech in Hong Kong
South China Morning Post
Hannah Wang
A Beijing-based fintech services provider, which has provided billing systems for China’s digital yuan, has signed a strategic partnership with a Hong Kong firm to tap stablecoin and virtual asset business opportunities, in the latest sign of mainland interest in the city’s recent moves to license cryptocurrency issuers. Shenzhen-listed North King Information Technology said on Wednesday that it had struck a deal with Hong Kong-listed GoFintech Quantum Innovation to develop infrastructure to support the ecosystem for stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, as well as tokenised real-world assets.
China is building an entire empire on data
The Economist
China’s planners see data as a factor of production, alongside labour, capital and land. Xi Jinping, the president, has called data a foundational resource “with a revolutionary impact” on international competition. The scope of this vision is unparalleled, affecting everything from civil liberties to the profits of internet firms and China’s pursuit of the lead in artificial intelligence.
USA
Tech war: US lifts export control of chip design software to China
South China Morning Post
Coco Feng and Ann Cao
The US said on Thursday it had lifted export controls on certain chip design software to China, according to statements from Siemens, Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems. Three of the world’s largest electronic design automation software developers have been informed by the US government that sales of their products to China would no longer require special approval, signalling a further easing of bilateral tensions.
Chip software makers say US restrictions on sales to China lifted
Financial Times
Thomas Hale and Christian Davies
The three largest developers of chip design software have said the US has removed recent restrictions on sales in China, as a trade deal between Washington and Beijing takes effect. Siemens, Synopsys and Cadence, which between them account for the majority of China’s market for so-called electronic design automation software, said they had been notified by the US government that export restrictions introduced in May were no longer in place.
Trump’s defiance of TikTok ban prompted immunity promises to 10 tech companies
WIRED
Paresh Dave
US attorney general Pam Bondi has told at least 10 tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, that they have “incurred no liability” for supporting TikTok despite the federal ban on providing services to the popular video-sharing app, according to letters disclosed on Thursday. Under orders from President Donald Trump, Bondi has refused to enforce a law passed by Congress last year that classifies TikTok as a national security risk because of its ties to China and bars companies from distributing the app to US consumers.
Virginia county says April ransomware attack exposed employee SSNs
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Government employees working for the county of Gloucester in Virginia had Social Security numbers and other sensitive data stolen during a ransomware attack in April. The county sent 3,527 current and former employees notices this week warning that their personal information was accessed by hackers who breached county systems on April 22.
How Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' will make China great again
The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
The Chinese simply can’t believe their luck: that at the dawn of the electricity-guzzling era of artificial intelligence, the US president and his party have decided to engage in one of the greatest acts of strategic self-harm imaginable. They have passed a giant bill that, among other craziness, deliberately undermines America’s ability to generate electricity through renewables — solar, battery and wind power in particular.
RFK Jr.’s plan to put ‘AI’ in everything is a disaster
The Verge
Lauren Leffer
In a 92-minute interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday, RFK Jr. drilled down on his vision for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Artificial intelligence — arguably, a uselessly vague umbrella term — came up multiple times. As the head of HHS, Kennedy said his federal department is undergoing an “AI revolution.” He implored viewers to “stop trusting the experts,” as highlighted by Gizmodo, and, presumably, put their trust into AI instead of decades of scientific consensus.
Americas
Cyberattack on Brazil tech provider affects reserve accounts of some financial institutions
Reuters
Marcela Ayres
Brazil's central bank said on Wednesday that technology services provider C&M Software, which serves financial institutions lacking connectivity infrastructure, had reported a cyberattack on its systems. The bank did not provide further details of the attack, but said in a statement that it ordered C&M to shut down financial institutions' access to the infrastructure it operates.
North Asia
South Korea's Lee says deadline deal on US tariffs will be 'difficult'
Nikkei Asia
Steven Borowiec
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said Thursday that it will likely be "difficult" to reach an agreement with the U.S. on looming tariffs by next week's deadline but added that he is pursuing a "win-win outcome" as he endeavors to restore economic vigor to his country threatened by trade tensions and a downturn in consumption.
Southeast Asia
Clearer policies needed in the use of AI in the education sector
GovInsider
Clare Lin
The recent controversy regarding the use of artificial intelligence by students at the Nanyang Technological University has rekindled the debate on what constitutes fair use of AI and generative AI tools in the academic environment. To understand the issue better there is a need to have a look at the bigger picture of how AI and GenAI is revolutionising the education sector in Singapore and elsewhere.
Ukraine - Russia
Russia jails man for 16 years over pro-Ukraine cyberattacks on critical infrastructure
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
A Russian court has sentenced a man to 16 years in a high-security penal colony for launching cyberattacks that disrupted critical infrastructure, authorities said on Wednesday. Andrei Smirnov, a resident of the Siberian city of Belovo, was detained in October 2023 and charged with treason. Prosecutors said he held pro-Ukrainian views and joined a hacker group allegedly acting in the interests of Ukrainian intelligence.
Europe
China-linked attacker hit France’s critical infrastructure via trio of Ivanti zero-days last year
CyberScoop
Matt Kapko
Multiple critical infrastructure sectors were hit last year during an attack spree in France via a trio of zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance devices, the country’s cybersecurity agency said in a report released Tuesday. French authorities attribute the attacks to UNC5174, a former member of Chinese hacktivist collectives likely working as a contractor for China’s Ministry of State Security, according to Mandiant.
Africa
Interpol identifies West Africa as potential new hotspot for cybercrime compounds
The Record by Recorded Future
Joe Warminsky
West Africa could be developing into a hub for scam centers, Interpol says, and other regions also are showing an uptick in such activity, mirroring a cybercrime trend that began in Southeast Asia. In a brief report posted this week, the international police agency says new scam centers have been identified recently in the Middle East and Central America as well as West Africa, echoing a UN warning from April.
Middle East
Military force may have delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions – but history shows that diplomacy is the more effective nonproliferation strategy
The Conversation
Stephen Collins
While the US military’s strikes on Iran on June 21, 2025, are believed to have damaged the country’s critical nuclear infrastructure, no evidence has yet emerged showing the program to have been completely destroyed. In fact, an early US Defense Intelligence Agency assessment surmised that the attack merely delayed Iran’s possible path to a nuclear weapon by less than six months.
Big Tech
Microsoft to cut about 4% of jobs amid hefty AI bets
Reuters
Microsoft will lay off nearly 4% of its workforce, the company said on Wednesday, in the latest job cuts as the tech giant looks to rein in costs amid hefty investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company, which had about 228,000 employees worldwide as of June 2024, had announced layoffs in May, affecting around 6,000 workers. It was planning to cut thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, Bloomberg News reported last month.
Microsoft shuts down 3,000 email accounts created by North Korean IT workers
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Microsoft said it suspended 3,000 Outlook and Hotmail email accounts it believed were created by North Korean IT workers as part of a larger effort to help companies address the costly scheme. The tech giant said it has spent years monitoring North Korea’s campaign to get its citizens hired in IT roles at US companies and recently saw changes in how the campaign operates. North Korean IT workers now use artificial intelligence heavily to “replace images in stolen employment and identity documents and enhance North Korean IT worker photos to make them appear more professional.”
TikTok Shop cuts more US jobs as Trump’s ban deadline looms
South China Morning Post
TikTok is cutting more workers from its US e-commerce division, TikTok Shop, the third round of lay-offs for that team since April. “As the TikTok Shop business evolves, we regularly review our operations to ensure long-term success,” a representative for the video-sharing app said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ve made the difficult decision to adjust parts of our team to better align with strategic priorities.
Tesla’s energy storage business gets sucked into the company’s downward spiral
TechCrunch
Tim De Chant
Even Tesla’s energy storage business, which has been a small, yet notable bright spot, can’t escape the cloud that’s hanging over the company. For the second consecutive quarter, deployments of its Powerwall and Megapack stationary storage products have declined, according to stats released by Tesla. In the second quarter of this year, the company installed 9.6 gigawatt-hours of storage, down 0.8 gigawatt-hours from the first quarter.
AOS settles with US over unauthorized shipments to China's Huawei
Reuters
Karen Freifeld
Alpha and Omega Semiconductor has agreed to pay $4.25 million to settle with the U.S. Department of Commerce for shipping items to China's Huawei Technologies in violation of export regulations, according to a department order posted on Wednesday. AOS engaged in prohibited conduct by forwarding 1,650 power controllers, smart power stages and related accessories to Huawei without authorization in 2019, the year Huawei was added to a restricted U.S. trade list, the order said.
Artificial Intelligence
X will let AI bots fact-check posts. It isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
The Washington Post
Will Oremus and Andrea Jimenez
Elon Musk’s X said this week it will begin allowing developers to create AI agents that can propose debunking as part of its Community Notes program. But don’t worry, said Keith Coleman, X’s vice president of product: Humans will still be in charge. And some misinformation experts say the idea isn’t as fantastical as it might sound — though they do have some concerns.
Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories
The Guardian
Robert Booth
A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned. Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication. The notes have previously been written by humans.
Baidu launches AI video generator, overhauls search features
Reuters
China's Baidu on Wednesday launched an AI-driven video generator for businesses as well as a major upgrade to its search engine. The image-to-video model, called MuseSteamer, is capable of generating videos up to 10 seconds long and comes in three versions - Turbo, Pro and Lite.
OpenAI to rent more computing power from Oracle data centres as part of Stargate deal
South China Morning Post
OpenAI has agreed to rent a massive amount of computing power from Oracle data centres as part of its Stargate initiative, underscoring the intense requirements for cutting-edge artificial intelligence products. The AI company will rent additional capacity from Oracle totalling about 4.5 gigawatts of data centre power in the US.
ChatGPT referrals to news sites are growing, but not enough to offset search declines
TechCrunch
Sarah Perez
Referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers are growing, but not enough to counter the decline in clicks resulting from users increasingly getting their news directly from AI or AI-powered search results, according to a report from digital market intelligence company Similarweb. Since the launch of Google’s AI Overviews in May 2024, the firm found that the number of news searches on the web that result in no click-throughs to news websites has grown from 56% to nearly 69% as of May 2025.
Meta adds startup founder Gross to new AI superintelligence lab
Bloomberg
Shirin Ghaffary and Kurt Wagner
Daniel Gross, the former chief executive officer and co-founder of artificial intelligence startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., is joining Meta Platforms Inc.’s new superintelligence lab focused on AI. Gross will work on AI products for the superintelligence group. Meta just restructured its AI unit and has gone on a major hiring spree to recruit industry experts to develop AI technology that will match or exceed human-level competency, known as superintelligence.
CEOs start saying the quiet part out loud: AI will wipe out jobs
The Wall Street Journal
Chip Cutter and Haley Zimmerman
CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs. Now they are giving predictions of how deep those cuts could go. “Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the US,” Ford Motor Chief Executive Jim Farley said in an interview last week with author Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind.”
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.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.
For more on China's pressure campaign against Taiwan—including military threats, interference and cyberwarfare, check out ASPI’s State of the Strait Weekly Digest.