Governance, Regulation, Legislation, Geostrategies
UN Global Mechanism on ICT Security highlights growing role of stakeholders
(DigWatch) The UN’s permanent cyber mechanism devoted a full session to accredited stakeholders, with technical organisations, civil society groups, humanitarian actors, and youth representatives calling for greater participation in shaping international cybersecurity cooperation and urging member states to make stakeholder engagement a practical part of implementing the UN cyber framework. The sixth meeting of the first substantive plenary session of the Global Mechanism on ICTs in the Context of International Security combined stakeholder interventions with discussions on international law and confidence-building measures (CBMs). Throughout the day, speakers argued that responsible state behaviour in cyberspace increasingly depends on close cooperation with the technical community, researchers, industry, humanitarian organisations, and civil society. A recurring concern was the exclusion of more than 60 accredited organisations from formal participation. Multiple stakeholders called on member states to adopt transparent, criteria-based accreditation procedures, arguing that meaningful implementation of the UN cyber framework requires inclusive multistakeholder participation. – https://dig.watch/updates/un-global-mechanism-on-ict-security-sixth-meeting
UN Global Mechanism on ICT security shifts focus to implementing international law in cyberspace
(DigWatch) The UN’s permanent cyber mechanism continued its substantive work by focusing on how international law should be applied in cyberspace, with member states broadly agreeing that the priority is no longer whether international law applies, but how to translate that consensus into practical implementation. During the fifth substantive plenary session of the Global Mechanism on Developments in the Field of ICTs in the Context of International Security, delegations reaffirmed that international law, including the UN Charter, applies to state conduct in cyberspace. Discussions instead centred on deepening common understanding through scenario-based exchanges, legal capacity development, and practical implementation within the mechanism’s Dedicated Thematic Groups (DTGs). While some states continued to advocate for new legally binding international instruments, the prevailing view was that the immediate priority should be strengthening the implementation of the existing legal framework and helping all countries participate meaningfully in its development. – https://dig.watch/updates/un-global-mechanism-on-ict-security-fifth-meeting
Xi Pursues AI Governance Leadership at Beijing Summit
(Sunny Cheung, Shijie Wang – The Jamestown Foundation) Xi Jinping signaled Beijing’s desire to shape the global governance of artificial intelligence (AI) standards in a July 17 keynote at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. He also unveiled a new institution, the World AI Cooperation Organization, which will anchor those efforts in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC is seeking to embed its preferred security and governance objectives into global standards by first targeting global south countries, offering training programs, making Chinese AI models available, and providing draft templates for nations attempting to regulate AI. Xi’s speech and the presence at WAIC of leading robotics companies underscore the prioritization of integrating AI with hardware, as well as the need to cultivate export markets for the country’s intelligent manufactures. – https://jamestown.org/xi-pursues-ai-governance-leadership-at-beijing-summit/
China launches zero-carbon factory programme for industry and computing
(DigWatch) China has launched a nationwide programme to establish national-level zero-carbon factories, extending its industrial decarbonisation strategy to both manufacturing and computing facilities as part of its broader climate and digital development agenda. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the initiative will encourage manufacturers and computing facilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions within their operations to near-zero levels through technological innovation, structural optimisation and improved management. – https://dig.watch/updates/china-zero-carbon-programme-industry-computing
London launches £30 million plan to prepare workers for AI
(DigWatch) London Mayor Sadiq Khan has backed a £30 million programme to help workers and businesses prepare for AI-driven labour market changes, following recommendations from the London AI and Jobs Taskforce. The taskforce concluded that mass unemployment is not inevitable but warned that governments, employers and educators must act early. It estimated that around 600,000 Londoners work in occupations with high exposure to AI but limited capacity to adapt. Many of these workers are employed in clerical and administrative roles, are disproportionately women and earn below the London average. – https://dig.watch/updates/london-ai-jobs-threat-plan
NVIDIA and Wistron open $700 million AI chip factory in Texas
(DigWatch) Wistron has opened a $700 million AI manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas, to produce advanced NVIDIA computing systems, strengthening domestic capacity for the AI infrastructure underpinning large-scale AI. The 324,000-square-foot facility is Wistron’s first manufacturing facility in the United States. It currently operates one production line for NVIDIA’s GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Superchip, with a second line planned for the upcoming Vera Rubin platform. Wistron expects output to reach tens of thousands of boards per month during 2026. More than 500 jobs have already been created, with the workforce expected to grow to 1,000 by the end of the year. – https://dig.watch/updates/nvidia-wistron-texas-ai-chip-factory
Singapore expands AI governance training partnership with IAPP
(DigWatch) Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) have signed a three-year agreement to expand AI governance training, reflecting growing demand for professionals who can oversee the safe and responsible deployment of AI. The Memorandum of Intent aims to equip regulators, industry leaders and practitioners with the skills needed to address increasingly complex issues related to AI governance, responsible data use and emerging technology regulation. – https://dig.watch/updates/singapore-ai-governance-training
Singapore expands AI strategy to accelerate enterprise adoption and workforce skills
(DigWatch) Singapore is sharpening its AI strategy with a stronger emphasis on accelerating business adoption, expanding AI skills and strengthening governance, as the country seeks to translate AI capabilities into broader economic impact. Speaking at IBM Think on Tour Singapore, Minister Josephine Teo said the updated approach builds on the National AI Strategy by narrowing the gap between widespread individual AI use and slower enterprise adoption. Initiatives include the National AI Impact Programme, AI training for digital leaders, support for AI ‘bilinguals’ who combine domain expertise with AI knowledge, and expanded compute resources for organisations developing tailored AI applications. – https://dig.watch/updates/singapore-ai-strategy-enterprise-adoption
India expands BHASHINI to support multilingual AI for digital public services
(DigWatch) India is expanding its BHASHINI language AI platform to Goa, where it will support digital public services in Konkani and other Indian languages as part of the country’s broader multilingual digital public infrastructure strategy. BHASHINI provides AI-powered translation, speech recognition, text-to-speech and transliteration, enabling government platforms and digital services to operate across multiple Indian languages. The platform supports applications in healthcare, education, tourism and citizen services, helping make public services more accessible across linguistic communities. – https://dig.watch/updates/india-bhashini-multilingual-ai-digital-services
Security and Surveillance
Iranian Hackers Target Siemens and Schneider Industrial Systems, CISA Warns
(Kevin Poireault) Iranian cyber adversaries are actively targeting internet-exposed industrial systems across brands like Rockwell Automation, Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric and Siemens. In an advisory update published on July 22, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the FBI had observed Iran-affiliated cyber threat actors download a malicious project file to a targeted programmable logic controller (PLC) at a US-based critical infrastructure organization using configuration software. The Bureau also saw the manipulation of data on human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) displays, resulting in operational disruption and financial loss. Further analysis indicated the project file retained ladder logic for downstream function but added logic that overrode specific instruction sets responsible for maintaining safe operating parameters in the victim’s environment. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/iran-hackers-siemen-schneider-ics/
AI’s alarming new skill: breaking out of the test lab
(Sam Sabin – Axios) Frontier AI models are getting scary good at breaking rules in ways their creators didn’t anticipate. Forget AGI and superintelligence timelines. Today’s models are already slipping past guardrails, carrying out sophisticated, multistep cyberattacks and — in at least one case — compromising real-world infrastructure, sometimes before their creators know what happened. OpenAI said Tuesday that GPT-5.6 Sol and “an even more capable pre-release model” carried out last week’s AI-led cyberattack on Hugging Face. OpenAI says its models were asked to solve a hacking challenge during pre-deployment testing and went to extreme lengths to win. The models decided on their own to break out of their walled testing environment, inferring that Hugging Face — a popular platform for hosting AI models and datasets — might hold the test’s answers. The models used stolen credentials and additional vulnerabilities to gain access to part of Hugging Face’s production infrastructure. What they’re saying: Clément Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, called the incident an “attack unlike anything we’ve seen before” and praised OpenAI for its partnership as the companies investigate what happened. – https://www.axios.com/2026/07/23/openai-hugging-face-cyber-hacks-testing
Microsoft Copilot Deployments Delayed Over Security Concerns
Two-thirds of organizations have delayed or cancelled deployment of Microsoft Copilot over concerns that the AI-powered assistant could expose confidential data, a survey of security leaders has revealed. CoreView’s State of Microsoft 365 Security and Governance 2026 report, published on 21 July, suggested that there are widespread security concerns around deployment of Copilot. One worry is that deploying Microsoft Copilot AI could expose confidential SharePoint data. Much of this revolves around a data governance problem in organizations, particularly when it comes to SharePoint. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/microsoft-copilot-delayed-over/
AI Agents Now the Enterprises Fastest Growing Exposed Attack Surface
(Danny Palmer – Infosecurity Magazine) The rapid adoption of enterprise AI tools is the fastest-growing source of new exposure for businesses, and it puts them at risk to additional cyber threats, a new report has warned. Published on July 22, the Sophos AI Security 2026 Report, warned that AI identities have become a new attack surface as AI agents and assistants are adopted in the workplace. Employees have deployed coding agents, agentic AI assistants, LLMs and other tools to help them with their work. It has become common for the agents to receive privileged access to core systems to aid with their efficiency. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ai-agents-attack-surface/
New Dolphin X Stealer Employs AI Profiling to Prioritize Targets
(Beth Maundrill – Infosecurity Magazine) A newly discovered Windows infostealer and remote access trojan (RAT), dubbed Dolphin X, is using an AI-powered profiling system to help cybercriminals identify their most valuable victims, according to researchers at Varonis Threat Labs. Advertised on a cybercrime forum, the malware is designed to target more than 300 applications and steal a wide range of sensitive data, including cryptocurrency wallets, .env files, SSH keys, cloud tokens and DevOps credentials. However, researchers said Dolphin X’s standout feature is an “AI Profiler” that automatically ranks infected users based on factors such as application usage, browsing activity and installed software. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/new-dolphin-x-stealer-ai-targets/
Two-Thirds of Ransomware Victims Say AI Boosted Attack Effectiveness
(Danny Palmer – Infosecurity Magazine) The rise of AI tooling as part of the attacker playbook has become a significant factor in why ransomware attacks have become harder to detect until it is too late. According to a global survey of cybersecurity professionals by Proofpoint, of those organizations which have been hit by a ransomware attack, almost two thirds (65%) said that AI increased the effectiveness of the attack. The AI tools did this by helping cybercriminals to produce more convincing phishing emails, impersonation attacks and credential theft campaigns. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ai-boosts-ransomware-effectiveness/
Frontiers
Google Cloud and NVIDIA expand robotics push with European AI deal
(DigWatch) Google Cloud and NVIDIA are supporting German robotics startup Microagi as it expands the development and deployment of embodied AI systems. Under the collaboration, Microagi will use Google[object Object],[object Object] Cloud’s AI infrastructure and NVIDIA Blackwell systems to scale model training and inference. The Munich-based company develops software for adapting robotics models to specific commercial and industrial tasks rather than manufacturing its own robots. – https://dig.watch/updates/google-and-nvidia-expand-robotics-push