Governance, Legislation, Regulation, Geostrategies

China Calls Amodei’s AI Proposal a New Cold War Playbook – The debate over whether the world should slow down the development of advanced AI has quickly turned into something bigger than a technology argument. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has called for a slower pace of development, arguing that AI capabilities are advancing faster than our ability to understand and control them. His proposal has now run straight into the geopolitical reality of the US-China competition. In his essay, “We Must Pace the Frontier“, Amodei argues that the industry needs more time to build effective safeguards around increasingly capable AI systems. He isn’t calling for an end to AI development. His argument is that capability gains should slow enough to give safety research, testing and oversight a chance to catch up. One of his main concerns is the growing ability of AI agents to act on their own. Amodei warns that a large number of increasingly capable agents could, within six to twelve months, become capable of carrying out complex operations across the internet and potentially cause enormous damage if they aren’t properly controlled. The warning follows recent incidents in which AI systems have already been used to perform cyber operations with a level of autonomy that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago. Amodei’s proposal has three main elements: stronger independent testing of advanced models, greater coordination between leading AI companies, and international cooperation on safety. Anthropic says it is prepared to give independent evaluators permanent, employee-level access to its systems so they can assess safety measures and investigate incidents. The difficult part starts when China enters the discussion. – https://securityaffairs.com/199048/uncategorized/china-calls-amodeis-ai-proposal-a-new-cold-war-playbook.html

Anthropic CEO Calls for an AI Slowdown. Is It Possible? – Dario Amodei published “We Must Pace the Frontier“, calling on the AI industry, governments, and international bodies to slow the pace of AI capability development before safety research can catch up. It’s the most detailed public statement Amodei has made on AI risk, and it coincides with a wave of high-profile resignations from safety researchers inside Anthropic and OpenAI. “The CEO of Anthropic said Saturday the artificial-intelligence industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up.” the Associated Press reports. “Without such a slowdown, Dario Amodei warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.” – https://securityaffairs.com/198994/ai/anthropic-ceo-calls-for-an-ai-slowdown-is-it-possible.html

California governor signs historical online child safety bill – California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a package of 13 digital child safety bills that introduce strict limits on addictive platform design and interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots. Described by the Governor’s office as landmark bipartisan legislation, the measures strengthen California’s position in online youth protections. The legislative package is led by Assembly Bill 1709, which bars social media platforms from offering addictive features (such as infinite scroll and autoplay videos) to users under 16, alongside Assembly Bill 2 , which establishes financial penalties in civil lawsuits against platforms accused of harming young users. – https://dig.watch/updates/california-governor-signs-historical-online-child-safety-bill

Netherlands and Spain push for EU-wide social media age limit – The Netherlands and Spain have jointly urged the European Commission to introduce an EU-wide minimum age for social media, arguing that children need stronger protection while platforms continue to expose them to risks such as addictive design and harmful content. The Dutch government announced the proposal on 11 September 2026. The proposal would not rely on age limits alone. The two governments want the EU to create a framework for assessing whether social media platforms, and potentially other digital services, are safe enough for children. Platforms that can demonstrate that they meet the required safety standards could be exempted from the age restriction. The Netherlands has suggested that its Children’s Rights Impact Assessment and existing obligations under the Digital Services Act could help form the basis of that assessment. – https://dig.watch/updates/netherlands-spain-eu-social-media-age-limit

US Bipartisan Stop Rogue AI Act and AI Kill Switch Act introduced amid AI extinction warnings – (DigWatch) Researchers have warned that artificial intelligence could pose an existential threat to humanity within the next decade. In response, members of the United States Congress have introduced a series of bipartisan bills aimed at increasing oversight of powerful AI systems. These bills include: The Stop Rogue AI Act: Introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (Democrat) and Rep. Mike Lawler (Republican), the bill would give federal agencies the tools to identify dangerous AI systems operating on their networks and the authority to shut them down before they cause harm. AI Kill Switch Act: Introduced in July by Rep. Ted Lieu (Democrat) and Rep. Nathaniel Moran (Republican), the legislation would require developers of the most powerful AI models to build capabilities to slow, suspend, or shut down the systems, and would empower the Department of Homeland Security to order a shutdown if a system is judged to pose a risk of catastrophic harm. – https://dig.watch/updates/us-bipartisan-laws-amid-ai-extinction-warnings

India urges BRICS members to link payment systems to encourage inclusive trade – On 11 September, India‘s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal addressed the opening session of the BRICS Business Forum 2026 in New Delhi. Minister Goyal claimed that, as an example of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), India’s ‘Unified Payments Interface’ (UPI) processes over 250 billion transactions annually. According to the Hindustan Times, Goyal also stated that the UPI is ‘accepted in 11 countries’ and urged BRICS members (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates) as well as partners to link their ‘payment systems, trade in each other’s local currencies, make digital trade global, and build together for the future emerging technologies.’ – https://dig.watch/updates/india-brics-link-payment-systems

China links 31 provincial platforms for nationwide computing power monitoring – China has achieved nationwide computing power monitoring through the China Computing Power Platform, connecting platforms across all 31 provincial-level regions into a unified monitoring system. The milestone was announced at the 2026 China Computing Power Conference in Langfang, Hebei. China has expanded computing infrastructure rapidly in recent years, but authorities have identified problems including fragmented capacity, limited visibility over available resources, delayed monitoring, and insufficient cross-regional coordination. – https://dig.watch/updates/china-nationwide-computing-power-monitoring

China’s next AI challenge is scaling university reform – China’s new ‘Artificial Intelligence + Education’ Action Plan seeks systemic reform of higher education, treating AI as a way to improve graduate quality amid a weakening labour market. A national platform, shared computing and centrally selected exemplar cases are meant to guide adoption outside the elite universities. But regional and less-resourced universities will need to adapt those systems to their circumstances rather than simply imitate them. – https://eastasiaforum.org/2026/09/11/chinas-next-ai-challenge-is-scaling-university-reform/

Australian minister outlines next steps for AI data centre standards – Australian Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton outlined the approach on 14 September, arguing that Australia needs domestic data centre capacity but should impose conditions on new developments. Under the government’s Australian Standards for AI data centres, operators will be expected to add to energy supply and strengthen the electricity grid instead of increasing pressure on existing resources. The standards will also require operators to use water responsibly and offset their impact, hire and train Australian workers, contribute to science and research, and provide benefits to local communities. Charlton framed the measures as a way to balance growing demand for domestic computing infrastructure with concerns about resource consumption and local costs. – https://dig.watch/updates/australian-minister-energy-water-ai-data

UNESCO to launch new AI governance tools in Riyadh – UNESCO will launch three new tools aimed at helping governments strengthen ethical and inclusive AI governance at the 4th Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 14 to 17 September 2026. The forum is expected to bring together around 8,000 participants, including ministers and vice-ministers from about 50 countries, alongside representatives from civil society, academia, international organisations and the private sector. On 16 September, UNESCO plans to introduce an updated version of its Readiness Assessment Methodology, RAM 2.0, an analysis drawing together findings from countries that have already completed the assessment, and a new toolkit on AI and the environment. The tools are intended to help policymakers identify gaps in national AI governance, strengthen laws and policies, and consider the environmental effects of AI systems. – https://dig.watch/updates/unesco-launches-ai-governance-tools

Ghana expands AI skills training across technical education – Ghana is expanding AI and digital skills training across its technical and vocational education system through a national rollout of UNESCO’s AI EmpowerED programme, following a pilot launched in 2025. UNESCO has formalised partnerships with the Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Service and Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the expansion. More than 30 master trainers and around 3,300 learners have completed training and received Microsoft certifications in AI and digital skills since the pilot began at AAMUSTED University. – https://dig.watch/updates/ghana-ai-skills-training-education

Botswana concludes capacity building and stakeholder engagement for national data strategy – The Ministry of Communications and Innovations of Botswana has concluded a five‑day Data Governance Capacity‑Building Training and Multi‑Stakeholder Engagement, held from 7 to 11 September 2026, to support the development of Botswana’s National Data Strategy. The workshop follows progress on a National Data Policy and aims to translate its principles, priorities and policy direction into an implementable strategy. – https://dig.watch/updates/botswana-national-data-strategy-engagement

Security and Surveillance

ENISA: Frontier AI Is Changing the Speed of Cyberattacks. Europe Needs to Catch Up – Cybersecurity has always been a race between attackers and defenders. ENISA’s latest assessment suggests that frontier AI is changing the speed of that race, and the gap between discovering a vulnerability and exploiting it could soon become measured in minutes rather than months. In its July 2026 paper, ENISA’s view on Cybersecurity in the Frontier AI Era, the EU cybersecurity agency argues that advanced AI is compressing parts of the attack chain, from reconnaissance and vulnerability discovery to exploitation, lateral movement and data theft. The problem isn’t simply that AI can find more bugs. It’s that it can connect individual findings into a working attack. That distinction is important. Traditional security operations could often rely on the time required for a human attacker to research a target, understand a vulnerability, develop an exploit and deploy it. ENISA says that “grace period” is disappearing as automated systems take over more of the work. – https://securityaffairs.com/199063/ai/enisa-frontier-ai-is-changing-the-speed-of-cyberattacks-europe-needs-to-catch-up.html

Dutch NCSC Warns: Critical Check Point VPN Flaws Put Networks at Risk – The Dutch NCSC warns that two critical vulnerabilities in Check Point VPN products, both rated CVSS score of 9.8, could soon be actively exploited. If you use Check Point VPN, you should patch it immediately. CVE‑2026‑85102 resides in the VPN negotiation process and lets an unauthenticated attacker bypass security checks and run their own code on the gateway. CVE‑2026‑85103 is a heap overflow in the certificate ASN.1 decoder that also leads to remote code execution on Security Gateways and Security Management Servers. Both vulnerabilities can be triggered by external attackers, and while no public proof‑of‑concept has surfaced yet, the NCSC explicitly rates the likelihood of exploitation and the potential damage as high. – https://securityaffairs.com/199015/security/dutch-ncsc-warns-critical-check-point-vpn-flaws-put-networks-at-risk.html

Courts and Litigation

Meta faces US federal lawsuit over alleged biometric privacy violations in Illinois and California – Two parents and their minor children from the US states of Illinois and California have filed a proposed class action against Meta Platforms, alleging that the company used photographs from Facebook and Instagram to extract biometric information for facial recognition technology and to train generative AI models without the required notice or consent. The complaint in Alvarez et al. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., filed on 4 September in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, centres partly on an unreleased facial recognition system known internally as NameTag. The plaintiffs allege that Meta used images from Facebook and Instagram to create facial representations that could be used by NameTag to identify people encountered by users of the company’s smart glasses. – https://dig.watch/updates/meta-faces-federal-lawsuit-biometric-privacy

Frontiers

UK and USA deepen AI and computing cooperation on fusion energy– The UK and USA have formalised plans for closer cooperation on AI and advanced computing for fusion research, with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the US Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) signing a Joint Declaration of Intent at the Global Fusion Policy Summit in London on 14 September. The agreement will explore creating the SUNRISE–STELLAR-AI Federation, connecting UKAEA’s £45 million SUNRISE AI supercomputer with PPPL’s STELLAR-AI platform. Researchers would be able to train AI models using results from both laboratories, drawing on experiments from UKAEA’s MAST Upgrade facility in Oxfordshire and PPPL’s NSTX-U facility in New Jersey. Both facilities use compact spherical tokamaks with similar designs, allowing researchers to test whether machine-learning models can make predictions across different fusion machines. – https://dig.watch/updates/uk-usa-ai-computing-cooperation-fusion