Governance, Legislation, and Geostrategies
Securing Tomorrow: Why America Needs an AI Education Corps
(Kevin Frazier – Lawfare – 29 April 2025) Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a future prospect; it is a present reality fundamentally altering U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. Maintaining American leadership in this domain requires more than technological innovation—it demands a strategically literate populace and a robust pipeline of domestic talent capable of developing, deploying, and defending against AI capabilities. While President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth,” acknowledges this need, its framework—relying primarily on task forces, grant prioritization, and partnership formation—lacks the scale and implementation power required to meet the immediate strategic challenge. Existing educational infrastructure is demonstrably unprepared to deliver the widespread AI proficiency necessary to counter sophisticated disinformation threats, fill critical national security workforce gaps, and outpace determined global competitors. I argue for a concrete, actionable solution: the creation of a national AI Education Corps. This initiative is proposed not merely as an educational program, but as a vital component of U.S. national strategy. It offers the necessary mechanism to translate the executive order’s objectives into tangible results by deploying specialized expertise directly into K-12 schools nationwide. The Corps is designed to provide the sustained, adaptable support required to build foundational AI literacy at scale—a prerequisite for national resilience against AI-driven threats and for cultivating the human capital essential for long-term technological and military advantage. Status quo approaches are insufficient; a dedicated, national effort is now a strategic necessity. – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/securing-tomorrow–why-america-needs-an-ai-education-corps
India Releases Technology Engagement Strategy for Quantum, Ambitions Meet Hardware Realities
(Quantum Insider – 29 April 2025) India’s first National Quantum Mission report highlights strong progress in quantum software and communication but emphasizes gaps in domestic quantum hardware fabrication, industrial investment, and workforce development. Startups like QPiAI and QNu Labs are advancing quantum computing and secure communications, but India remains heavily reliant on foreign hardware and suffers from limited institutional funding. To strengthen its position, India plans to expand local fabrication capabilities, improve regulatory frameworks, and support deep-tech startups through new funding initiatives. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/29/india-releases-technology-engagement-strategy-for-quantum-ambitions-meet-hardware-realities/
Assistive Technologies in India: The Data Dilemma
(Tanusha Tyagi – Observer Research Foundation – 29 April 2025) Assistive technology (AT) is integral to the health sector, with over 2.5 billion people worldwide relying on some form of it. Demographic shifts coupled with epidemiological transition have predicted the need for AT to reach 3.5 billion by 2050. ATs have several benefits, including enhancing the quality of life, improving health care access, enabling early detection of health issues, and fostering patient and caregiver engagement. Nevertheless, such technology raises several ethical implications, including concerns around user privacy, surveillance, confidentiality, and management of large volumes of data. This piece discusses the various types of ATs and the data-intensive nature of such technologies. It examines how the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA), and the draft DPDP Rules 2025, fall short in addressing these concerns, particularly around data minimisation and meaningful user control. The article also provides recommendations for policy measures to help tackle this grey area. – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/assistive-technologies-in-india-the-data-dilemma
Deepfake victims gain new rights with House-approved bill
(Digital Watch Observatory – 29 April 2025) The US House of Representatives has passed the ‘Take It Down’ Act with overwhelming bipartisan support, aiming to protect Americans from the spread of deepfake and revenge pornography. The bill, approved by a 409-2 vote, criminalises the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery—including AI-generated content—and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. – https://dig.watch/updates/deepfake-victims-gain-new-rights-with-house-approved-bill
Security
Nova Scotia energy provider takes some servers offline following cyber incident
(Jonathan Greig – The Record – 29 April 2025) Nova Scotia Power and its parent company Emera said a cyberattack has affected parts of its Canadian network and servers supporting portions of its business. The company says it provides 95% of the power for Nova Scotia and serves more than 500,000 homes and facilities across the province. On Friday, Nova Scotia Power discovered a cyber incident involving unauthorized access to its systems. – https://therecord.media/nova-scotia-energy-provider-takes-servers-offline
Cybercriminals target Gmail accounts in sophisticated new attack
(Digital Watch Observatory – 29 April 2025) Gmail users are facing a serious new threat that could lead to their accounts being hijacked by cybercriminals. Experts at Malwarebytes have issued an urgent warning about a sophisticated scam that is bypassing Gmail’s usually reliable spam filters, putting billions of accounts at risk. – https://dig.watch/updates/cybercriminals-target-gmail-accounts-in-sophisticated-new-attack
Frontiers
New National Quantum Hub to be Based at UMD’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security
(Quantum Insider – 29 April 2025) Maryland announced the creation of the Capital Quantum Benchmarking Hub, a partnership between the University of Maryland, DARPA, and the State of Maryland to evaluate quantum computing systems for national security and commercial applications. The hub, housed at UMD’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, will support DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative and help assess whether quantum technologies can achieve industrial utility by 2033. The State of Maryland and DARPA have pledged up to $100 million each over four years, while nearly 20 quantum companies will enter the initial evaluation phase to validate the viability of their approaches. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/29/new-national-quantum-hub-to-be-based-at-umds-applied-research-laboratory-for-intelligence-and-security/
Egyptian Researchers Unleash Quantum Ninjas to Improve Renewable Energy Forecasts
(Quantum Insider – 29 April 2025) A quantum-inspired AI system developed by Egyptian researchers significantly improved renewable energy forecasting accuracy, potentially easing the integration of solar and wind power into electric grids. The model combines a Quantum Temporal Model with the Ninja Optimization Algorithm to overcome forecasting challenges like data variability and feature selection. In testing, it outperformed traditional deep learning models and optimization techniques, achieving a 95.15% accuracy rate and a near-zero error margin when predicting energy output. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/29/egyptian-researchers-unleash-quantum-ninjas-to-improve-renewable-energy-forecasts/
Alibaba launches Qwen3 AI model
(Digital Watch Observatory – 29 April 2025) As the AI race intensifies in China, Alibaba has unveiled Qwen3, the latest version of its open-source large language model, aiming to compete with top-tier rivals like DeepSeek. The company claims Qwen3 significantly improves reasoning, instruction following, tool use, and multilingual abilities compared to earlier versions. – https://dig.watch/updates/alibaba-launches-qwen3-ai-model
Autonomous construction robot Zyrex set for 2026 debut
(Digital Watch Observatory – 29 April 2025) Construction sites could soon see a dramatic change with the arrival of Zyrex, a 20-foot-tall autonomous robot developed by RIC Robotics in California. Designed for welding, carpentry, 3D printing, and material handling, Zyrex is being built to tackle labour shortages and improve safety on high-risk construction sites. – https://dig.watch/updates/autonomous-construction-robot-zyrex-set-for-2026-debut
AI research project aims to improve drug-resistant epilepsy outcomes
(Digital Watch Observatory – 29 April 2025) A research collaboration between Swansea University and King’s College London has secured a prestigious Medical Research Council project grant to tackle drug-resistant epilepsy. The project brings together clinicians, data scientists, AI specialists, and individuals with lived experience from the Epilepsy Research Institute’s Shape Network to advance understanding and treatment of the condition. – https://dig.watch/updates/ai-research-project-aims-to-improve-drug-resistant-epilepsy-outcomes
Defense, Intelligence, and Warfare
China develops 2-pound drone that looks like a flying thermos and drops grenades
(Interesting Engineering – 29 April 2025) To achieve dominance in unmanned warfare, China has introduced various new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones. These autonomous drones are deployed as a part of China’s intelligent warfare doctrine. Under this strategy, the country plans to rapidly field cost-effective, AI-enabled UAVs optimized for attack and reconnaissance missions. – https://interestingengineering.com/military/china-2-pound-thermos-inspired-drone
The ADF isn’t nearly fast enough. It must rush into the cheap-drone revolution
(Erik Davis – The Strategist – 29 April 2025) The Australian Defence Force isn’t doing enough to adopt cheap drones. It needs to be training with these tools today, at every echelon, which it cannot do if it continues to drag its feet. Cheap drones have changed the way armies fight on today’s battlefield, and Australia is already years behind in adopting this new technology. In July 2023, the government’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) laid out the challenge to industry to develop sovereign small drones for ‘training, surveying, photographic, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.’ Noticeably, strike was not listed as a requirement. Following a fly-off a year ago this month, three vendors signed $2.2 million contracts to provide 3,000 drones each weighing less than 2 kilograms and having a range of 5 kilometres, all for a price of $5,000 each. – https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-adf-isnt-nearly-fast-enough-it-must-rush-into-the-cheap-drone-revolution/