Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (17 February 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-17-february-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (18 February 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-18-february-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (19 February 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-19-february-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (20 February 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-20-february-2026/
Geostrategies
Switzerland to host 2027 world summit on artificial intelligence
(Swiss Info) Switzerland will host the next World Summit on Artificial Intelligence in Geneva in 2027. President Guy Parmelin made the announcement on Thursday in New Delhi at the 2026 AI Summit in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. – https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-ai/switzerland-to-host-the-next-world-summit-on-ai/90966531
Global South at the heart of India AI plan
(DigWatch) India has unveiled the New Delhi Frontier AI Impact Commitments, a new initiative aimed at promoting inclusive and responsible AI, particularly across the Global South. The announcement was made by Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw at the opening of the India AI Impact Summit 2026. Vaishnaw described India’s AI strategy as focused on democratisation, scale, and technological sovereignty. He outlined a comprehensive approach spanning the whole AI ecosystem, including applications, models, computing infrastructure, talent, and energy, with a strong emphasis on practical use in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, and public services. – https://dig.watch/updates/global-south-at-the-heart-of-india-ai-plan
‘They’ve shot themselves in the foot’: EU slammed on global stage for overregulating AI
(Pieter Haeck – Politico) Don’t be like Europe. That was the brutal message delivered by attendees of the 2026 global artificial intelligence summit throughout a week-long jamboree of speeches, parties and events across New Delhi. Takedowns from attendees ranging from the American representative at the summit to multiple lobbyists and national officials provided stark evidence of how far Europe has fallen in the eyes of the global artificial intelligence community in just a few years. When the first AI safety summit took place in the U.K. in 2023, Europe was drafting its global first AI law and the bloc was a leading voice in conversations on how to shepherd the technology. This time around, the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act was attacked as an example of how not to do it. – https://www.politico.eu/article/world-weary-europe-eu-approach-ai-new-delhi-india/
Mitsotakis pitches Greece as AI bridge
(Ekathimerini) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. The Greek PM took part on Wednesday in the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, joining global leaders as part of a two-day visit to India. – https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1295737/mitsotakis-pitches-greece-as-ai-bridge/
OpenAI pushes into higher education as India seeks to scale AI skills
(Jagmeet Singh – TechCrunch) OpenAI is expanding its footprint in India and moving into the country’s higher-education system through partnerships with leading academic institutions. The move comes as the South Asian nation seeks to scale AI skills and build domestic capacity in one of the world’s largest talent markets. On Wednesday, OpenAI said it was partnering with six public and private higher-education institutions in India, including top engineering, management, medical, and design-focused institutes, with the aim of reaching more than 100,000 students, faculty, and staff over the next year. – https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/openai-pushes-into-higher-education-as-india-seeks-to-scale-ai-skills/
Nvidia touts India deals at AI summit
(Taipei Times) US artificial intelligence (AI) chip titan Nvidia Corp unveiled tie-ups with Indian computing firms as tech companies rushed to announce deals and investments at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Mumbai cloud and data center provider Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) said it was teaming up with Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, to build what it touted as “India’s largest gigawatt-scale AI factory.”. “We are laying the foundation for world-class AI infrastructure that will power India’s growth,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said in a statement that did not put a figure on the investment. – https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2026/02/19/2003852529
Never imagined Visakhapatnam will become a global AI hub: Google CEO Sundar Pichai
(The Hindu) Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he never imagined Visakhapatnam would become a global Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub. “As a student, I used to often take the Coromandel Express train from Chennai up to IIT-Kharagpur. To get there, we pass through Visakhapatnam, I remember it being a quiet and modest coastal city brimming with potential”, he stated at the India AI Impact Summit 2026. – https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-progress-india-summit-2026/article70650504.ece
Governance and Regulation
UN rights chief: AI must be based on inclusivity, accountability and global standards
(UN News) Speaking at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Mr. Türk told UN News that the technology must be governed through a human rights framework that ensures transparency, accountability and inclusion. – https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/02/1167000
US freedom.gov and the EU’s DSA in a transatlantic fight over online speech
(DigWatch) The transatlantic debate over ‘digital sovereignty’ is also, in a discrete measure, about whose rules govern online speech. In the EU, digital sovereignty has essentially meant building enforceable guardrails for platforms, especially around illegal content, systemic risks, and transparency, through instruments such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and its transparency mechanisms for content moderation decisions. In Washington, the emphasis has been shifting toward ‘free speech diplomacy‘, framing some EU online-safety measures as de facto censorship that spills across borders when US-based platforms comply with the EU requirements. – https://dig.watch/updates/us-freedom-gov-and-the-eus-dsa-in-a-transatlantic-fight-over-online-speech
Newsom backs social media restrictions for teens under 16
(Tyler Katzenberger and Christine Mui – Politico) California Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped into the fight over age limits on social media Thursday, saying he wants state legislation that would restrict access to the powerful online platforms for teens under 16. In a policy position shared first with POLITICO, Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said that the Democratic governor supports passing age-gating rules inspired by those Australia began enforcing last year, which bar teens under 16 from having social media accounts. Her comments came minutes after Newsom told reporters that “we have to address this issue” of teenagers’ chronic use of social media. – https://www.politico.com/news/2026/ 02/19/gavin-newsom-backs-social-media-age-restrictions-00789951?utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication&utm_medium=RSS&utm_source=RSS_Feed
Agentic AI’s Missing Ingredient: Context-Aware Data
(Tendü Yoğurtçu – Forbes) Agentic AI is being positioned as the next leap in enterprise automation, enabling systems that can reason, plan and act across complex workflows. Yet adoption remains uneven. While 88% of organizations report regular AI use in at least one business function, only about one-third have begun scaling AI implementations beyond pilot or experimental phases, according to McKinsey & Company’s State of AI report. Similarly, only 23% of organizations report scaling agentic AI anywhere in the enterprise, while another 39% remain in the experimentation stage. This gap is especially consequential for agentic AI. Unlike traditional analytics or generative tools, agents do not simply produce insights. They make decisions. Without sufficient context, they lack the awareness required to adapt, weigh tradeoffs and act in ways that align with real business conditions. What emerges is a broader issue I see repeatedly in enterprise AI programs: a context gap between what AI systems can generate and what they can safely act on at scale. Recent survey data reinforces this disconnect. In the 2026 State of Data Integrity and AI Readiness study, based on a global survey of data and analytics leaders and conducted by Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business in collaboration with Precisely, organizations expressed strong confidence in their AI ambitions. At the same time, more than 40% cited data readiness, infrastructure and skills as their biggest obstacles. Over half identified AI as the primary driver of their data strategy, yet only 31% reported having metrics tied to business outcomes. This confidence-reality gap helps explain why many agentic AI initiatives struggle to move beyond experimentation. – https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/02/19/agentic-ais-missing-ingredient-context-aware-data/
Fed warns AI could trigger jobless boom and reshape labour market
(DigWatch) Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr warned that rapid advances in AI could produce a ‘jobless boom‘, leaving many ‘essentially unemployable’. Speaking in New York, he urged policymakers to remain ‘clear-eyed’ about labour market risks as generative AI expands. Barr outlined three paths, from gradual adoption to stalled growth. In a rapid expansion scenario, AI and robotics would replace many professional, service, and manufacturing roles, concentrating opportunities in highly skilled or human-facing jobs while capital owners capture most gains. – https://dig.watch/updates/fed-ai-jobless-boom-warning
Security and Surveillance
Technical Analysis Reveals Connected Smart TV Security Risks
(John Costello – The Jamestown Foundation) Smart televisions manufactured by firms in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) present national security risks across three categories: intelligence and surveillance, denial and disruption, and influence and manipulation. Risk profiles vary significantly by service model and manufacturer. The degree of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) control over the device stack ranges from total (proprietary platforms like Hisense’s VIDAA) to partial but irreducible (platform partner models with Google, Amazon, or Roku), with the original design manufacturer (ODM) white-label model introducing an additional layer of supply chain opacity. Data collection through automatic content recognition, OEM telemetry, and ecosystem linkages is extensive, and data residency claims are frequently contradicted or left ambiguous by the manufacturers’ own privacy policies and technical infrastructure. The most consequential OEM capability is not data collection but the ability to modify device behavior at scale through over-the-air firmware updates, a privileged access point governed by engineering teams operating under PRC jurisdiction. PRC television manufacturers are expanding rapidly into adjacent smart home ecosystems, content services, and companion applications, transforming a discrete device risk into a persistent household-embedded data infrastructure whose complexity will grow increasingly difficult to govern. – https://jamestown.org/connected-smart-tv-security-risks/
Russia stepping up hybrid attacks, preparing for long standoff with West, Dutch intelligence warns
(Alexander Martin – The Record) Russia’s intensifying cyberattacks, sabotage and covert influence operations across Europe show the Kremlin is preparing for a prolonged confrontation with the West, Dutch intelligence agencies said in a report published this week. In a joint assessment by the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD), the Dutch agencies warned that while a direct military clash between Russia and NATO remains unlikely, it is no longer unthinkable. “Russia has not only proven capable of absorbing the substantial losses in Ukraine but has even expanded and reformed its armed forces. Furthermore, the Russian armed forces are preparing for the possibility of a conflict with NATO and are carrying out various activities to test the West’s willingness to escalate,” the report said. – https://therecord.media/russia-cyberattacks-europe-warfare
Hackers breach contractor linked to Ukraine’s central bank collectible coin store
(Daryna Antoniuk – The Record) Ukraine’s central bank said its online store for collectible coins and numismatic products was temporarily taken offline after a cyberattack exposed some customer information. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said in a statement on Thursday that attackers may have gained access to users’ personal data, including names, phone numbers, email addresses and delivery addresses. The bank said the attack did not affect its core systems and that no financial data, such as payment card details or other banking information, was compromised. – https://therecord.media/hackers-breach-ukraine-national-bank-contractor
Romanian hacker faces up to 7 years for breaching Oregon emergency management department
(Jonathan Greig – The Record) A 45-year-old Romanian national pleaded guilty this week to hacking into computers at Oregon’s Department of Emergency Management in June 2021 and selling the access he obtained for $3,000 worth of Bitcoin. Catalin Dragomir also hacked into 10 other U.S. companies, causing financial losses of at least $250,000. He was arrested in Romania in November 2024 and was extradited to the U.S. last year. In court on Thursday, Dragomir pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a protected computer and one count of aggravated identity theft. He will be sentenced in May and is facing up to seven years in prison. – https://therecord.media/romanian-hacker-faces-7-years-oregon-breach
Ukrainian national gets 5-year sentence for involvement in North Korea IT worker scheme
(Jonathan Greig – The Record) A 29-year-old Ukrainian man was sentenced to five years in prison for his years-long role in a scheme that helped North Koreans get illegally hired in IT roles at 40 U.S. companies. Oleksandr Didenko pleaded guilty on November 10 in the District of Columbia to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges after prosecutors accused him of being a key cog in the IT worker scheme. North Korea’s government has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars by infiltrating American tech companies in high-paying roles with workers posing as U.S. citizens. U.S. authorities have spent years uncovering parts of the scheme and prosecuting those involved. – https://therecord.media/north-korea-laptop-farm-ukraine
Leading Japanese semiconductor supplier responding to ransomware attack
(Jonathan Greig – The Record) Japanese semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest said it is dealing with a ransomware attack that has impacted several company systems. The company said it detected unusual activity within its IT environment on Sunday and activated incident response protocols and isolated the impacted systems. “Preliminary findings appear to indicate that an unauthorized third party may have gained access to portions of the company’s network and deployed ransomware,” Advantest said. – https://therecord.media/leading-japanese-semiconductor-supplier-ransomware
FBI: More than 700 ATM jackpotting incidents with losses over $20 million occurred in 2025
(Jonathan Greig – The Record) Criminals are increasingly using malware to steal money out of ATMs, with hundreds of incidents taking place in 2025 alone. In a flash alert on Thursday, the FBI said it has tracked more than 1,900 ATM jackpotting incidents since 2020 and over 700 in 2025 that involved more than $20 million in losses. FBI officials explained that criminals are now taking advantage of physical and software vulnerabilities that allow them to deploy malware on ATMs and dispense cash without transactions. The strains of malware include Ploutus, which has long been used globally by criminals to circumvent a layer of software that tells ATMs what to do called eXtensions for Financial Services (XFS) – https://therecord.media/fbi-atm-jackpotting-2025-report
Researchers warn Volt Typhoon still embedded in US utilities and some breaches may never be found
(Jonathan Greig – The Record) U.S. military and law enforcement officials have been on a dedicated mission for nearly three years to uncover and root out hackers who breached water and power companies in key locations across the country. But a new report suggests that many of these attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure may never be found. Operational technology firm Dragos, which has helped multiple critical infrastructure organizations investigate compromises by Chinese hackers connected to the Volt Typhoon operation, said in its annual report published this week that the group continued to attack U.S. utilities through 2025 and remains active despite increased scrutiny. Rob Lee, the company’s chief executive, told reporters last week that “they’re still very active, and they’re still absolutely mapping out and getting into embedding in U.S. infrastructure, as well as across our allies.” – https://therecord.media/researchers-warn-volt-typhoon-still-active-critical-infrastructure
Dramatic Escalation Frequency and Power of in DDoS Attacks
(Danny Palmer – Infosecurity Magazine) The number of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks has increased significantly and they’re getting more powerful and disruptive, analysis by cybersecurity researchers has warned. The Radware 2026 Global Threat Analysis Report has detailed what is described as a “dramatic escalation in cyber-attack activity” during 2025, with a 168% increase in DDoS attacks compared with 2024. The figure is based on analysis of Radware customer data. During 2025, the average Radware customer faced more than 25,351 attempted DDoS attacks during the reporting period – equivalent to 139 attempted incidents a day. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ddos-escalation-frequency-power/
Android Malware Hijacks Google Gemini to Stay Hidden
(Kevin Poireault – Infosecurity Magazine) ESET researchers have identified an Android malware implant that uses generative AI (GenAI) for persistence purposes. This malicious implant is an advanced version of VNCSpy, a piece of malware that appeared on VirusTotal in January 2026 and was represented by three samples uploaded from Hong Kong. VCNSpy is an Android malware implant that deploys a virtual network computing (VNC) module on the victim’s device, allowing attackers to see the screen and perform actions remotely. VNC modules are components of screen-sharing technology that enables remote control of another computer using the remote frame buffer (RFB) protocol. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/android-malware-hijacks-google/
GenAI Has Become the Biggest Data-Exposure Risk in Enterprise History
(Ray Canzanese – Infosecurity Magazine) Many employees now turn to generative AI not just for answers, but for help summarising documents, drafting content, analysing datasets, and writing code. It has become a useful assistant, embedded into everyday work. But what is now coming into focus is the security impact of this shift. As GenAI use accelerates, so too does the amount of sensitive information flowing through it. The result is a long list of GenAI-related data exposure incidents that have increased nearly fivefold year-on-year, creating a volume and velocity of leakage that enterprises have never had to manage before. Data leaks are the natural consequence of deploying technology that ingests data faster than most security models can handle. But as GenAI becomes the default way work gets done, every enterprise must understand that a tool built for speed and convenience has fundamentally altered their risk landscape. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/genai-biggest-data-risk-in-history/
Defence and Intelligence
Top NATO allies believe cyberattacks on hospitals are an act of war. They’re still struggling to fight back
(Maggie Miller, Dana Nickel and Antoaneta Roussi – Politico) NATO countries’ restrained response to hybrid attacks is at odds with public opinion, new polling shows: Broad swaths of the public in key allied countries say actions such as cyberattacks on hospitals should be considered acts of war. The POLITICO Poll, conducted in the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, showed a majority of people agreed that a cyberattack that shuts down hospitals or power grids constitutes an act of war. Canadians felt the strongest about the issue, with 73 percent agreeing. – https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/21/poll-us-nato-cyber-warfare-00789496
Control, Alt, Influence: the Potential for US Cyber Operations in Iran
(Prerana Joshi – RUSI) Over recent months, there has been much talk of US Cyber Command’s alleged role in turning the lights out over the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in the raid to capture the country’s president and his wife. The US has also acknowledged that cyber operations were integrated with its 2025 military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Elsewhere, the Trump administration has indicated the potential for private sector involvement in its offensive cyber operations. Taken together, these developments point in one direction: that cyber operations will occupy a more decisive and visible role in US national security objectives. In Iran, US cyber operations could target a range of systems, from early warning to administrative government infrastructure, with an aim to disrupt, degrade and deny use of capabilities. But these effects have strategic impacts beyond immediate tactical outcomes. When calibrated and aligned to political objectives, they work to create conditions for operational friction within Iran’s security apparatus, increase the IRGC’s operational costs, reduce regime co-ordination and potentially influence decision making. – https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/control-alt-influence-potential-us-cyber-operations-iran
Frontiers and Markets
Study: AI chatbots provide less-accurate information to vulnerable users
(MIT) Large language models (LLMs) have been championed as tools that could democratize access to information worldwide, offering knowledge in a user-friendly interface regardless of a person’s background or location. However, new research from MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication (CCC) suggests these artificial intelligence systems may actually perform worse for the very users who could most benefit from them. A study conducted by researchers at CCC, which is based at the MIT Media Lab, found that state-of-the-art AI chatbots — including OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus, and Meta’s Llama 3 — sometimes provide less-accurate and less-truthful responses to users who have lower English proficiency, less formal education, or who originate from outside the United States. The models also refuse to answer questions at higher rates for these users, and in some cases, respond with condescending or patronizing language. – https://news.mit.edu/2026/study-ai-chatbots-provide-less-accurate-information-vulnerable-users-0219
New research takes first step toward advance warnings of space weather
(Southwest Research Institute) New research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF-NCAR) has developed a new tool providing a first step toward the ability to forecast space weather weeks in advance, instead of just hours. This advance warning could allow agencies and industries to mitigate impacts to GPS, power grids, astronaut safety and more. “Understanding where and when large, flare-producing active regions (ARs) on the Sun would emerge is a long-standing problem in heliophysics,” said SwRI’s Dr. Subhamoy Chatterjee, an early-career scientist who co-authored a new Astrophysical Journal paper about this research. “These regions display tangled magnetic fields and produce explosive solar events, potentially causing hazardous space weather such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).” – https://www.swri.org/newsroom/press-releases/new-research-takes-first-step-toward-advance-warnings-of-space-weather
Alberta startup launches AI ‘lawyer’ for personal injury claims
(Alessia Simona Maratta – Global News) An Alberta-based legal technology company says it is using artificial intelligence to help personal injury claimants navigate the court system. Painworth, founded in 2020, recently began offering personalized AI-assisted representation for accident victims seeking injury settlements. Mike Zouhri, one of three founders, said the company’s mission is to improve access to justice for people who may struggle to afford or reach traditional legal services. – https://globalnews.ca/news/11673620/alberta-ai-powered-law-service/
AI in drug development drives breakthrough MSD–Mayo Clinic collaboration
(DigWatch) Merck & Co. (MSD) and Mayo Clinic have launched a research and development collaboration to integrate AI, advanced analytics, and multimodal clinical data into drug discovery and precision medicine. The partnership is designed to improve target identification, strengthen early development decisions, and increase the probability of success in clinical programmes. The collaboration combines Mayo Clinic’s Platform architecture and clinical-genomic datasets with MSD’s virtual cell technologies. By integrating biological modelling capabilities with real-world clinical data, the partners aim to generate deeper insights into disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets. – https://dig.watch/updates/ai-in-drug-development-drives-breakthrough-msd-mayo-clinic-collaboration
Measuring AI agent autonomy in practice
(Anthropic) AI agents are here, and already they’re being deployed across contexts that vary widely in consequence, from email triage to cyber espionage. Understanding this spectrum is critical for deploying AI safely, yet we know surprisingly little about how people actually use agents in the real world. We analyzed millions of human-agent interactions across both Claude Code and our public API using our privacy-preserving tool, to ask: How much autonomy do people grant agents? How does that change as people gain experience? Which domains are agents operating in? And are the actions taken by agents risky? – https://www.anthropic.com/research/measuring-agent-autonomy
Grain ATMs and hunger maps: AI innovations spotlighted at UN agency showcase in India
(UN News) Artificial intelligence solutions that transform the way food assistance reaches people facing hunger were on display during an exhibition at an AI meeting in New Delhi, India. From biometric grain dispensers and smart warehouses to crisis-mapping platforms and humanitarian communication avatars, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) showcase at the Artificial Intelligence Impact Summit demonstrated how data and machine learning are being applied to strengthen food and nutrition systems at scale. Among the most visible innovations is Annapurti – a “grain ATM” – that allows beneficiaries of public food programmes to authenticate with biometrics and collect rations quickly and accurately. – https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/02/1166992