Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (10 March 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-10-march-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (11 March 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-11-march-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (12 March 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-12-march-2026/
Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (13 March 2026) – https://pam.int/daily-digest-on-ai-and-emerging-technologies-12-march-2026-2/
Governance, Regulation, and Legislation
EU competition regulators expand scrutiny across the entire AI ecosystem
(DigWatch) Competition authorities in the EU are broadening their oversight of the AI sector, examining every layer of the technology’s value chain. Speaking at a conference in Berlin, Teresa Ribera explained that regulators are analysing the full ‘AI stack’ instead of focusing solely on consumer applications. According to the competition chief, scrutiny extends beyond visible AI tools to the systems that support them. Investigations are assessing underlying models, the data used to train those models, as well as cloud infrastructure and energy resources that power AI systems. – https://dig.watch/updates/eu-competition-regulators-expand-scrutiny-across-the-entire-ai-ecosystem
EU platform law expands data access rights
(DigWatch) European regulators are examining how the Digital Markets Act interacts with the General Data Protection Regulation across major digital platforms. The EU rules apply to designated gatekeepers that operate core platform services used by millions of users. Policy specialists in the EU say the Digital Markets Act complements GDPR protections by strengthening user control over personal data. The framework also supports rights related to data access, portability and transparency for both consumers and business users. – https://dig.watch/updates/eu-platform-law-expands-data-access-rights
Civil society urges stronger EU digital fairness rules
(DigWatch) More than 200 civil society organisations have urged the European Commission to deliver strong consumer protections through the upcoming Digital Fairness Act. Advocacy groups in the EU say the proposal must address risks created by modern online platforms. – https://dig.watch/updates/civil-society-urges-stronger-eu-digital-fairness-rules
EU lawmakers move forward on AI Act changes
(DigWatch) Members of the European Parliament have reached a preliminary political agreement on amendments to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. The compromise will be reviewed by parliamentary committees before a scheduled vote in Brussels. Lawmakers in the EU agreed to extend compliance deadlines for some high risk AI systems. The changes aim to give companies and regulators more time to prepare technical standards and enforcement frameworks. – https://dig.watch/updates/eu-lawmakers-move-forward-on-ai-act-changes
UK watchdog demands stronger child safety on social platforms
(DigWatch) The British communications regulator Ofcom has called on major technology companies to enforce stricter age controls and improve safety protections for children using online platforms. The warning targets services widely used by young audiences, including Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. Regulators said that despite existing minimum age policies, large numbers of children under the age of 13 continue to access platforms intended for older users. – https://dig.watch/updates/uk-watchdog-demands-stronger-child-safety-on-social-platforms
AI is the New Plastics. Can We Govern it Better?
(Caroline Baxter – Just Security) The paradigm-shifting nature of AI has been compared to the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, electricity, and computers. But a better analogy may be synthetic plastics: the manmade material that, for better and for worse, forms the backbone of modern life. Today, it is impossible to maintain an entirely plastic-free life. Although regulation attempts to mitigate the damage that plastics cause, the material’s production is increasing, as is its presence in our soil and tap water. AI, dubbed by some as the “most transformative” technology of the century, is on a similar path of ubiquity, spanning across children’s classrooms and workspaces to military arsenals. And without regulation demarcating the line separating valuable and frivolous cases for AI inclusion, or a populace able to make informed and active decisions about which side of that line they want to be on, AI will likely continue to rapidly diffuse. However, before that happens, policymakers and legislators have a chance to manage it differently than we did with plastics—and avoid creating something else that harms us as much as it helps. – https://www.justsecurity.org/132615/ai-new-plastics-govern-better/
Deepfakes in campaign ads expose limits of Texas election law
(DigWatch) AI-generated political advertisements are becoming increasingly visible in Texas election campaigns, highlighting gaps in existing laws designed to regulate deepfakes in political messaging. Texas was the first state in the United States to adopt legislation restricting the use of deepfakes in campaign advertisements. However, the law applies only to state-level races. It does not cover federal contests, including the US Senate race that has dominated advertising spending in Texas and featured several AI-generated campaign ads. Some lawmakers and experts warn that the growing use of AI-generated political content could complicate election campaigns. During recent primary contests, campaign advertisements featuring manipulated or synthetic images of political figures circulated widely across media platforms. – https://dig.watch/updates/deepfakes-texas-election-law
Geostrategies
Huawei Is Betting on the Future with HarmonyOS
(Samm Sacks – Lawfare) As Presidents Trump and Xi prepare to meet at the end of March—forging a possible detente in the U.S.-China relationship—a storm is brewing beneath the surface of this fragile stability. It is on full display in the first sentence of America’s AI Action Plan unveiled last July: “The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence (AI)”. The U.S. has not softened its quest for dominance, while China’s leadership is pushing ahead on aggressive targets for AI adoption in plans unveiled at the National People’s Congress last week. In particular, there has been a proliferation of activity in China in agentic AI development: ByteDance’s new agentic AI smartphone; Manus, an AI agent developed from a Wuhan-based startup (recently acquired by Meta); Alibaba’s Qwen model series; and now, Huawei’s new system for coordinating agents built around its homegrown operating system, Harmony. Another recent piece in Lawfare examines how China is grappling with unprecedented challenges to data security and privacy with the rise of AI agents—resulting in a tug of war to shape future agentic AI rules among Chinese tech platforms, AI developers, and superapps. How this new balance of power evolves could have far-reaching implications for China’s fiercely competitive domestic internet economy, with global ripple effects. – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/huawei-is-betting-on-the-future-with-harmonyos
Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism
Quadcopter Drones Reshaping Pakistan’s Militant Landscape (Part One)
(Rahim Nasar – The Jamestown Foundation) Militant organizations, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), have begun using commercially available quadcopter drones for offensive operations, shifting the warfare modes beyond Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide bombings. The doctrinal shift has exacerbated casualties of security personnel, as Pakistan’s anti-drone systems were unprepared for this shift, while minimizing the operational risks posed to the militant groups’ fighters. The resurging intensity and technical complexity of the quadcopter drone campaign by the militants predict a new and sophisticated era of hybrid warfare and militancy, which, if not properly tackled, can pose serious threats to Pakistan’s security landscape. – https://jamestown.org/quadcopter-drones-reshaping-pakistans-militant-landscape-part-one/
Frontiers
New venture aims to build AI that understands the real world
(DigWatch) AI pioneer Yann LeCun has secured more than $1 billion in funding for a new startup that aims to rethink how AI systems learn about the world. The venture, called Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), will focus on developing AI that learns from real-world signals, such as camera and sensor data, rather than relying primarily on text. According to this French company, such systems could make better decisions by understanding how events unfold in the physical world. – https://dig.watch/updates/new-venture-aims-to-build-ai-that-understands-the-real-world
AI is helping close the heart health gap in remote Australian communities
(DigWatch) Google has launched a new AI-powered initiative aimed at reducing heart disease risk in rural Australia, where people living in remote communities are 60% more likely to die from heart disease than those in metropolitan areas. The programme, a first for the Asia-Pacific region, is backed by a $1 million AUD investment from Google Australia’s Digital Future Initiative and brings together Wesfarmers Health, SISU Health, the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, and Latrobe Health Services. – https://dig.watch/updates/ai-is-helping-close-the-heart-health-gap-in-remote-australian-communities
Generative AI in precision oncology faces a trust and safety challenge
(DigWatch) A narrative review published in the Journal of Hematology & Oncology examined how generative AI tools could support oncologists in precision cancer care. In this increasingly data-intensive field, clinicians must cross-reference genomic sequencing results, patient records, imaging findings, and a rapidly expanding body of biomedical literature to inform their decisions. Researchers found promising results for AI-assisted clinical trial matching and diagnostic report drafting, but also highlighted significant risks that make unsupervised deployment dangerous. – https://dig.watch/updates/generative-ai-in-oncology-faces-challenges
5G expansion strengthens digital connectivity across Algeria
(DigWatch) Ooredoo Algeria has expanded its 5G network to all provinces in Algeria. The operator announced that 5G services are now present in every wilaya, although coverage within each province remains limited as the network continues to expand. The deployment is progressing ahead of the national rollout schedule. The expansion goes beyond the initial timeline set by the Postal and Electronic Communications Regulatory Authority (ARPCE), which required operators to begin with pilot deployments in a limited number of provinces. – https://dig.watch/updates/5g-expansion-digital-connectivity-across-algeria
What’s next for the Genesis Mission
(Maria Curi – Axios) The Trump administration has ambitious deadlines to accelerate scientific discovery, Energy Department undersecretary Darío Gil and Dell CEO Michael Dell told Axios in an interview. Government agencies and companies are mobilizing to use AI for energy, drug discovery and national security, all while promising new jobs. The Genesis Mission, unveiled late last year, is a federal initiative led by the DOE and its national labs to use AI and emerging tech to accelerate scientific discovery. Gil said that includes quantum computers that aren’t error prone by 2028, commercially viable fusion power plants in the 2030s, and a trained workforce of 100,000 scientists and engineers within the next decade. The goal is to double the productivity and impact of science R&D spending, he added. That means building on AI’s success with language and code, and advancing its capabilities in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and more. – https://www.axios.com/2026/03/13/doe-dell-genesis-mission
MIT researchers outline future of AI and physical sciences
(DigWatch) AI and the mathematical and physical sciences are entering a new phase of collaboration that could accelerate technological progress and scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly see the relationship as a two-way exchange rather than a one-sided use of AI tools. A 2025 MIT workshop brought together experts from astronomy, chemistry, materials science, mathematics and physics to examine the future of this collaboration. – https://dig.watch/updates/mit-researchers-future-ai-and-physical-sciences