World Summit on the Information Society

Global cooperation and bold ideas at WSIS+20 drive digital trust and cybersecurity resilience

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) The WSIS+20 Leaders’ Talk on ‘Towards a safer connected world’ brought together ministers, regulators, and experts from across the globe to share concrete strategies for strengthening digital trust and cyber resilience. Held in Geneva and moderated by Lucien Castex, the session spotlighted multistakeholder collaboration as the cornerstone of effective cybersecurity in a connected world. – https://dig.watch/updates/global-cooperation-and-bold-ideas-at-wsis20-drive-digital-trust-and-cybersecurity-resilience

WSIS+20 spotlights urgent need for global digital skills

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) The WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva brought together global leaders to address the digital skills gap as one of the most urgent challenges of our time. As moderator Jacek Oko stated, digital technologies are rapidly reshaping work and learning worldwide, and equipping people with the necessary skills has become a matter of equity and economic resilience. Dr Cosmas Zavazava of ITU emphasised that the real threat is not AI itself but people being displaced by others who know how to use it. ‘Workers risk losing their jobs, not because of AI, but because someone else knows how to use AI-based tools,’ he warned. – https://dig.watch/updates/wsis20-spotlights-urgent-need-for-global-digital-skills

Governance and Legislation

California lawmaker behind SB 1047 reignites push for mandated AI safety reports

(TechCrunch – 9 July 2025) California State Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday introduced new amendments to his latest bill, SB 53, that would require the world’s largest AI companies to publish safety and security protocols and issue reports when safety incidents occur. If signed into law, California would be the first state to impose meaningful transparency requirements onto leading AI developers, likely including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI. – https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/california-lawmaker-behind-sb-1047-reignites-push-for-mandated-ai-safety-reports/

Three nations outline cyber law views ahead of UN talks

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) In the lead-up to the concluding session of the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on ICTs, Thailand, New Zealand, and South Korea have released their respective national positions on the application of international law in cyberspace, contributing to the growing corpus of state practice on the issue. – https://dig.watch/updates/three-nations-outline-cyber-law-views-ahead-of-un-talks

US Cyber Command proposes $5M AI Initiative for 2026 budget

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) US Cyber Command is seeking $5 million in its fiscal year 2026 budget to launch a new AI project to advance data integration and operational capabilities. While the amount represents a small fraction of the command’s $1.3 billion research and development (R&D) portfolio, the effort reflects growing emphasis on incorporating AI into cyber operations. The initiative follows congressional direction set in the fiscal year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which tasked Cyber Command and the Department of Defense’s Chief Information Officer—working with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, DARPA, the NSA, and the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering—to produce a five-year guide and implementation plan for rapid AI adoption. – https://dig.watch/updates/us-cyber-command-proposes-5m-ai-initiative-for-2026-budget

Italy’s Piracy Shield sparks EU scrutiny over digital rights

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) Italy’s new anti-piracy system, Piracy Shield, has come under scrutiny from the European Commission over potential breaches of the Digital Services Act. The tool, launched by the Italian communications regulator AGCOM, allows authorities to block suspicious websites within 30 minutes — a feature praised by sports rights holders for minimising illegal streaming losses. However, its speed and lack of judicial oversight have raised legal concerns. Critics argue that individuals are denied the right to defend themselves before action. – https://dig.watch/updates/italys-piracy-shield-sparks-eu-scrutiny-over-digital-rights

YouTube prepares crackdown on ‘mass-produced’ and ‘repetitive’ videos, as concern over AI slop grows

(TechCrunch – 9 July  2025) YouTube is preparing to update its policies to crack down on creators’ ability to generate revenue from “inauthentic” content, including mass-produced videos and other types of repetitive content — things that have become easier to generate with the help of AI technology. On July 15, the company will update its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) Monetization policies with more detailed guidelines around what type of content can earn creators money and what cannot. – https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/youtube-prepares-crackdown-on-mass-produced-and-repetitive-videos-as-concern-over-ai-slop-grows/

AI Copyright Wars Threaten U.S. Technological Primacy in the Face of Rising Chinese Competition

(Bill Drexel – Just Security – 8 July 2025) Copyright law—a byzantine world in which millions ride on whether ‘Ice Ice Baby’ sounds too much like ‘Under Pressure’—rarely has much to say about geopolitics. But two pivotal AI copyright court decisions last week, the first in a slew of prominent lawsuits, will have enormous implications for the U.S. competition with China for technological primacy. Finding a resolution that would satisfy the concerns of both copyright holders and national security experts is difficult enough under ordinary circumstances. But the fact that copyright laws were made for the era of the printing press, rather than the AI revolution, further compounds that challenge. As courts struggle to apply decades-old laws to the world’s fastest-moving technology, hasty judgements risk ceding AI leadership—and future intellectual property (IP) norms—to Beijing. In late June, federal judges in San Francisco delivered two major rulings in cases against leading AI lab Anthropic and tech giant Meta, respectively. In a major win for AI developers, both judges agreed that the way cutting-edge AI models use copyrighted information they are built on differs enough from the source material to constitute “fair use,” a carve-out that allows the copying of copyrighted material for limited purposes. But both had reservations: one questioned how pirated books were handled in the training process, and the other ominously suggested that future trials may find “most cases” of using copyrighted materials to build AI systems illegal due to market harms the resulting tools might cause. – https://www.justsecurity.org/116339/ai-copyright-wars-us-china/

Notice of the Xiamen City Data Administration on the Announcement of the List of Artificial Intelligence Application Scenario Opportunities

(Center for Security and Emerging Technology – 8 July 2025) The following document is one example of how Chinese local governments propose to use AI in their work. The document, from Xiamen City in southeast China, lists over 100 potential AI use cases for the city government and its subordinate district governments, and includes contact information for each use case, presumably so that AI companies can more easily make sales pitches to fulfill these requirements. Most of the use cases involve using large AI models—a few specifically recommend DeepSeek—to spot patterns and anomalies in bulk data, mostly for innocuous purposes, such as catching errors and omissions in paperwork or helping teachers grade assignments. However, several use cases, mainly at the district government level, aim to use AI technology for China’s surveillance state or for predictive policing, including incorporating AI into the “Sharp Eyes” mass surveillance camera program and into aerial surveillance by automated drones. – https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/xiamen-government-ai-use-cases/

Entity-Based Regulation in Frontier AI Governance

(Dean W. Ball and Ketan Ramakrishnan – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – 7 July 2025) At the heart of frontier artificial intelligence (AI) policy lies a key debate: Should regulation focus on the core technology itself—AI models—or on the technology’s uses? Advocates of use-based AI regulation argue that it protects innovation by giving model developers the freedom to experiment, free from burdensome licensing regimes and thickets of technical standards. Advocates of model-based regulation, on the other hand, argue that their approach concentrates the compliance burden on developers while granting users of AI the latitude to deploy the technology as they see fit, thus aiding technology diffusion in the long run. – https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/06/artificial-intelligence-regulation-united-states?lang=en&utm_source=carnegieemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=announcement&mkt_tok=ODEzLVhZVS00MjIAAAGbjnV64xNohlCjl1zX4tqIlCs-CLSrBl0NO1jjGkFqyG3u1DmRyvOxgwqU6-LvqwG2b3Jh9z3b8KLxL2sd3YcnsWAaF6erkcGZsbVNfvp7l4sx

Geostrategies

EU Selects SUPREME Consortium to Scale Up Industrial Production of Superconducting Quantum Chips

(Quantum Computing – 9 July 2025) The EU-backed SUPREME project, coordinated by Finland’s VTT, aims to industrialize superconducting quantum chip fabrication over six years by creating stable, high-yield manufacturing processes accessible to European academia and companies. The consortium of 23 partners across eight EU Member States will develop and validate core technologies such as Josephson junctions, 3D qubit integration, and hybrid quantum devices via pilot line demonstrators for quantum computing, sensing, and communications. With support from the Chips Joint Undertaking, the first phase of SUPREME is expected to launch in early 2026, with the first stable quantum chip fabrication processes available to external users in 2027 via process design kits. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/07/09/eu-selects-supreme-consortium-to-scale-up-industrial-production-of-superconducting-quantum-chips/

Quandela And Mila Develop Hybrid Artificial Intelligence And Quantum Computing Technologies

(Quantum Insider – 9 July 2025) Quandela and Mila have partnered to advance quantum machine learning by combining photonic quantum computing with artificial intelligence research. The collaboration will focus on benchmarking QML models, identifying potential quantum advantages, solving training challenges, and validating results through simulations and real hardware. The partnership supports Quandela’s expansion in Canada, following the deployment of a quantum computer in Sherbrooke and reinforcing its engagement with the country’s innovation ecosystem. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/07/09/quandela-and-mila-develop-hybrid-artificial-intelligence-and-quantum-computing-technologies/

Groq opens AI data centre in Helsinki

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) Groq has opened its first European AI data centre in Helsinki, Finland, in collaboration with Equinix. The facility offers European users fast, secure, and low-latency AI inference services, aiming to improve performance and data governance. The launch follows Groq’s existing partnership with Equinix, which already includes a site in Dallas. The new centre complements Groq’s global network, including facilities in the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia. – https://dig.watch/updates/groq-opens-ai-data-centre-in-helsinki

How US Export Controls Have (and Haven’t) Curbed Chinese AI

(Chris Miller – AI Frontiers – 8 July 2025) For over half a decade, the United States has imposed significant semiconductor export controls on China, aiming to slow China’s chip industry and to retain US leadership in the computing capabilities that undergird AI advances. Have these controls achieved their goals? Have the assumptions driving them been confirmed or undermined by the rapid evolution of the chip industry and AI capabilities? Three factors for assessing chip export controls. We can now draw preliminary conclusions by assessing three factors: China’s domestic chipmaking capability, the sophistication of its AI models, and its market share in providing AI infrastructure. Initial evidence shows that controls have succeeded in several important ways, though not all. Restrictions on chipmaking tool sales have significantly slowed the growth of China’s chipmaking capability. However, restrictions on the export of AI chips to China, while creating challenges, have not prevented Chinese labs from producing highly competitive models (though they may make it harder for China to deploy their models at scale). Controls have severely limited China’s share of the global AI infrastructure market, because, lacking competitive hardware, Chinese cloud computing firms have been unable to establish much, if any, AI infrastructure outside of China. – https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/how-us-export-controls-have-and-havent

Security

Cybercrime soars as firms underfund defences

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) Nearly four in ten UK businesses (38 %) do not allocate a dedicated cybersecurity budget, even as cybercrime costs hit an estimated £64 billion over three years. Smaller enterprises are particularly vulnerable, with 15 % reporting breaches linked to underfunding. Almost half of organisations (45 %) rely solely on in‑house defences, with only 8 % securing standalone cyber insurance, exposing many to evolving threats. – https://dig.watch/updates/cybercrime-soars-as-firms-underfund-defences

Azerbaijan’s State Security Service tackles surveillance camera cyber breach

(DigWatch – 9 July 2025) Azerbaijan’s State Security Service has disrupted a significant cybersecurity breach targeting surveillance cameras nationwide. The agency says unauthorised remote access had allowed attackers to capture and leak footage of private homes and offices. The attackers exploited a digital video recorder (DVR) system vulnerability, intercepting live camera feeds. Footage of private family life was reportedly uploaded to foreign websites and even sold online. – https://dig.watch/updates/azerbaijans-state-security-service-tackles-surveillance-camera-cyber-breach

Iranian ransomware crew reemerges, promises big bucks for attacks on US or Israel

(The Register – 9 July 2025) An Iranian ransomware-as-a-service operation with ties to a government-backed cyber crew has reemerged after a nearly five-year hiatus, and is offering would-be cybercriminals cash to infect organizations in the US and Israel. The malware, an updated version of 2020’s Pay2Key, previously linked to Tehran’s Pioneer Kitten, now uses several of the Mimic ransomware’s capabilities, according to the threat research team at Morphisec, a purveyor of defensive security products. – https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/09/iranian_ransomware_crew_reemerges/?&web_view=true

Ukraine strengthens cyber cooperation at NCC Network Day in Rome

(National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine – 8 July 2025)  Held in Rome with support from Italy’s National cybersecurity agency, the NCC Network day gathered EU major points, the ECCC, and diplomats to deepen cooperation on cybersecurity under the Digital Europe Program. Ukraine’s delegation shared wartime cyber resilience in Ukraine. The initiative aims to counter cyber aggressions and build capacity through AI tools, joint training and international collaboration. – https://www.rnbo.gov.ua/en/Diialnist/7216.html

Defence, Intelligence, and Warfare

US Navy’s new underwater robot can swim, scan, and strike mines without tethers

(Interesting Engineering – 9 July 2025) Raytheon, a business segment of RTX, has achieved a key milestone in naval mine warfare. In a recent open-water demonstration in Narragansett Bay, the company’s Barracuda mine neutralization vehicle executed its first untethered, semi-autonomous mission. The test was an important advance in technology for removing underwater explosives. It showed that the system can work independently in real-world maritime conditions.- https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-navys-mine-killing-underwater-robot

Pentagon trials drone-spotting air traffic suite at US bases worldwide

(Courtney Albon – Defense News – 9 July 2025) A promising Air Force Research Laboratory system designed to integrate drones into air traffic management systems at military installations could one day be installed at bases around the world. AFRL’s Collaborative Low-Altitude Uncrewed Aircraft System Integration Effort, or CLUE, fuzes data from radars, counter-UAS systems and other sensors to create a shared operating picture for air traffic controllers, security forces and UAS operators. – https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2025/07/09/pentagon-trials-drone-spotting-air-traffic-suite-at-us-bases-worldwide/

Fighter pilots integrate drones into air combat training

(Zita Ballinger Fletcher – Defense News – 9 July 2025) U.S. Air Force fighter pilots integrated two Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie drones into an aerial combat training exercise at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base in what the Air Force has described as “a major leap in human-machine teaming.”. Pilots of an F-16C Fighting Falcon and an F-15 Strike Eagle controlled two Valkryie drones each while flying, wielding them while performing combat maneuvers. The pilots successfully used their skills in harmony with the unmanned aerial vehicles in realtime. – https://www.defensenews.com/newsletters/2025/07/09/fighter-pilots-integrate-drones-into-air-combat-training/

China’s new ‘invisible’ radar may let its military fight wars without showing up on map

(Interesting Engineering – 9 July 2025) A team of researchers from China claims it has developed a radio “telepathy” radar that allows broadcasters to remain radio silent. This could enable high-speed communication while removing the risk that users are intercepted and jammed, or targeted by missile attacks, a report from the South China Morning Post reveals. – https://interestingengineering.com/space/chinas-new-invisible-radar-military-fight

Frontiers

Surgical robot hits milestone with autonomous, adaptive gallbladder removal

(Interesting Engineering – 9 July 2025) A surgical robot has successfully performed a key phase of a gallbladder removal with no human intervention, marking a critical leap toward fully autonomous operations. Developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers and funded by the U.S. government, the system demonstrated expert-level performance while adapting to unpredictable conditions and responding to voice commands like a human trainee. This achievement shifts surgical robotics from tool-assisted precision to intelligent, interactive execution. This marks the first time a robot has truly grasped the surgery flow and adjusted in real time. – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/ai-surgical-robot-removes-gallbladder