Governance, Legislation, and Geostrategies

Nuclear Security at Risk: Quantum Computing’s Silent Attack

(Kavya Wadhwa – Observer Research Foundation – 11 April 2025) In today’s digitised world, the security of our most sensitive and vital systems has never been more crucial. Nuclear security stands at the apex, where the safety and control of weapons and materials must be unassailable. Yet, a quiet revolution is brewing that could render the foundational pillars of our defence infrastructure obsolete. The culprit? Quantum computing. As we stand on the precipice of this new computing frontier, we must confront a chilling truth: quantum technologies are poised to dismantle the very cryptographic systems that protect communication, security, and global information networks. – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/nuclear-security-at-risk-quantum-computing-s-silent-attack

X is taking the Indian government to court over content moderation tools. Expect India to win

(Nayana Prakash – Chatham House – 11 April 2025) Last month, social media platform X filed a case in Indian court against the government around a platform called Sahyog, a state-owned digital tool. Sahyog automatically sends government notices to intermediaries like X and Facebook, requesting them to review or remove content. The Indian government says the tool is essential to tackle harmful online content. But X has referred to it as a ‘censorship portal’, setting the stage for a legal battle in an Indian court. Foreign and domestic tech firms – as well as freedom of speech activists – will be watching carefully. In the southern state of Karnataka, X was asked via Sahyog to take down ‘hundreds of posts’ which show people dying in a massive crush at a major Hindu religious festival – a request which the platform is now contesting as a threat to freedom of speech. X is taking the Indian government to court to challenge Section 79(3)(b) of the Indian Information Technology Act, 2000, which allows Sahyog to moderate and order the removal of content on social media. – https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/04/x-taking-indian-government-court-over-content-moderation-tools-expect-india-win

DeepSeek and China’s AI Innovation in US-China Tech Competition

(Alex He – Centre for International Governance Innovation – 11 April 2025) At first glance, the following statements may seem like they come from the harshest critics of China’s technological innovations: “We often say that the gap between China and the United States in AI is one or two years. But the real gap between the U.S. and China AI is creativity and imitation. China will be a follower forever if this doesn’t change.” – “In the past 30 years, China has essentially not produced any innovation in the tide of IT development, merely following along as a free rider, without contributing to any real technological innovation.” – “Chinese companies are accustomed to taking other (foreign) companies’ innovation, developing applications based on those, and making a fortune from it. But this should not be taken for granted.” – “We have been used to waiting for Moore’s Law to come down from the sky, and then, boom, 18 months later, we have better hardware and software to use. Now, in China, the same is happening with scaling laws.”. But surprisingly, these words come from Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI start-up that recently shocked the global AI community, particularly in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. – https://www.cigionline.org/articles/deepseek-and-chinas-ai-innovation-in-us-china-tech-competition/

Enabling a Thriving Middleware Market

(Luke Hogg, Renee DiResta – Just Security – 11 April 2025) Middleware, third-party software that serves as an intermediary between users and platforms, offers a potentially promising solution to counter the concentrated power of centralized social media platform governance. Middleware, in this context, refers to open, third-party products and services that are composable—meaning they allow multiple providers to be mixed and matched for specific use cases, allowing users agency over the overall user experience. One example of this was the app BlockParty, which let users nuke trolls from their feeds on X by configuring settings in BlockParty’s easy-to-use interface. Although middleware may serve as a user agent for many purposes, scholars who study the impact of concentrated platform power on democracy and society have speculated about middleware’s potential benefits for increasing user agency over content curation and moderation specifically. In giving users more agency over the content that they see—or the content they wish to avoid–middleware might encourage a more pluralistic and democratic digital ecosystem. For the still-nascent middleware market to flourish, however, incentives must be aligned, regulatory barriers addressed, and platform cooperation encouraged. Here, we outline key steps necessary to cultivate a viable middleware market, balancing innovation with user protection and regulatory clarity. – https://www.justsecurity.org/109974/enabling-middleware-market/

Strengthening South Korea’s national security by adopting the cloud

(Afeeya Akhand – The Strategist – 11 April 2025) To improve its national security, South Korea must improve its ICT infrastructure. Knowing this, the government has begun to move towards cloud computing. The public and private sectors are now taking a holistic national-security approach that includes the country’s military capability and cybersecurity. Success in this approach will require an improved competitive edge across emerging technologies to project and defend national power. Cloud-based ICT infrastructure provides scalable computing capacity by managing vast quantities of data and adapting to varying workloads. From a defence perspective, flexible computing capacity enables rapid scaling during different mission phases. – https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/strengthening-south-koreas-national-security-by-adopting-the-cloud/

The UAE and KSA’s AI Hedge in a Divided Global Order

(The Soufan Center – 10 April 2025) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leverage AI investments as a dual instrument of economic diversification and geopolitical influence. Against the backdrop of great power competition, there is increasing pressure on the UAE and Saudi Arabia to divest from Chinese technology companies in return for access to advanced semiconductors from the United States. The geopolitical and security environment of the Gulf, shaped partly by the Houthi insurgency in Yemen and the importance of its waterways for trade and energy security, has also spurred investment in AI integration in defense. The very qualities that make Gulf countries attractive as regulatory sandboxes to develop AI technologies and test governance frameworks also raise significant concerns regarding human rights and civil liberties, particularly in the areas of privacy and data protection. – https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-april-10/

New White House AI Policies Introduce Government by AI

(Kevin Frazier – Lawfare – 10 April 2025) While the Biden administration introduced government with artificial intelligence (AI), the Trump administration aspires for government by AI. The former encouraged agencies to explore AI use cases and generally experiment with how to integrate AI tools into services and systems, while adhering to a number of procedural safeguards. The latter retains some of those safeguards but establishes a default of using AI to streamline and improve government services. Two new policies issued by the Office of Management and Budget will usher in this era of government-by-AI. OMB Memo M-25-21 calls for accelerating federal use of AI. OMB Memo M-25-22 directs agencies to use an “efficient” acquisition process. The policies build on the administration’s Jan. 23 executive order, which centered “AI dominance” as the primary aim of President Trump’s AI strategy. Implementation of these policies may have a major influence on the public’s willingness to accept AI as a core part of government activity-—whether that influence is positive or negative depends on whether agencies adhere to the safeguards and transparency requirements outlined by the OMB memos while also leveraging AI to meaningfully improve government services and effectiveness. Current uses of AI by the administration—namely, by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team—may jeopardize this public trust, clashing with the aims of the OMB memos. DOGE has deployed AI systems with seemingly minimal oversight and in sensitive contexts. For example, Reuters recently reported that DOGE developed AI tools to monitor the communications of staffers within at least one federal agency to identify conversations that include critical opinions of the President and his agenda. Musk has even floated replacing government workers with AI. Effective government by AI—as articulated by the OMB memos—precludes such reckless, opaque employment of AI. As things stand, just 17 percent of the public expects that AI will have a positive effect on the US in the next two decades. Nearly 60 percent have concerns that the government will inadequately regulate AI, whereas just 21 percent think it will overreach and quash AI innovation. If the administration rushes to work AI into sensitive decision-making contexts without earning the public’s trust, then it may hinder future efforts to adopt AI into government processes. The unprecedented shift to government by AI represents a fundamental transformation of public administration that will not only redefine federal operations but also determine whether AI serves as a democratizing force or concentrates power further away from citizen oversight—making the implementation of these policies a critical battleground for the future of American governance. – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/new-white-house-ai-policies-introduce-government-by-ai

AI, AR, and the Future of Skills: Bridging Gaps or Widening Them?

(Soumya Bhowmick, Arpan Tulsyan – Observer Research Foundation – 10 April 2025) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) are rapidly transforming how people learn and work worldwide. From adaptive learning software to immersive training simulations, these technologies promise to democratise education and upskill workers at scale. At the same time, they raise concerns about deepening divides—between those with access to cutting-edge tools and those without, between advanced economies and developing ones, and even within classrooms and companies. For India, home to one of the world’s largest and youngest workforces, it is essential to understand both the opportunities and challenges these technologies bring. AI-driven tools are making learning more personalised, flexible, and accessible. Intelligent tutoring systems can tailor instruction to individual student needs, identifying where learners struggle and providing targeted support. Platforms like Duolingo, for instance, report that users achieve language proficiency 30 percent faster with AI-driven lesson paths. In regions with a paucity of teachers and resources, such innovations can be especially impactful, acting as round-the-clock digital coaches. AI also enhances accessibility by offering real-time translation, speech-to-text, and other assistive functions for learners facing language or physical barriers. – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/ai-ar-and-the-future-of-skills-bridging-gaps-or-widening-them

The US AI Diffusion Framework: Global and Indian Implications

(Prateek Tripathi – Observer Research Foundation – 10 April 2025) The growing technology war between the United States and China has led to a growth in export control restrictions across a wide range of critical and emerging technologies, starting with the US’s export control regulations on semiconductors in 2019 under the first Trump administration. The US Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Framework, announced in January 2025, is the latest attempt by the US government to curb China’s evolving prowess in the domain of Artificial Intelligence and is bound to have far-reaching consequences for both India and the world at large. – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/the-us-ai-diffusion-framework-global-and-indian-implications

The cloud needs water: How big tech’s data centers are fueling the global water crisis

(Interesting Engineering – 9 April 2025) Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s push to create data centers in some of the world’s driest areas threatens to deepen a looming water crisis. An investigation by SourceMaterial and The Guardian found that tech giants are using vast amounts of water to run data centers—often in water-scarce regions—and are rapidly expanding in these vulnerable areas. Backed by political support, including from US President Donald Trump, the tech giants are forging ahead with plans to build hundreds of data centers across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/data-centres-fuel-water-crisis

What is ‘quantum advantage’ and how can businesses benefit from it?

(Katia Moskvitch – World Economic Forum – 9 April 2025) Before 19 February 2025, most people wouldn’t have heard of the name Majorana. That day, Microsoft announced it had created the first chip powered by “topological qubits”. These qubits (quantum bits), the company said, were built around elusive particles dubbed “Majorana fermions”, named after the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana. Quantum computers rely on qubits that encode 0s and 1s of information, but also use quirky properties of atoms and other particles of the microscopic world to solve complex math problems that a traditional computer would struggle with – or to solve them much faster. Microsoft’s topological qubits approach is just one of the methods companies and academia are pursuing to build these machines of the future. Once fully developed, quantum computers should excel at tasks that need to go through a multitude of probabilities to find the best option. Say an airline would like to calculate the best route between Sydney and New York by optimizing the fuel usage of the aircraft and the duration of the flight. A quantum computer would be able to quickly go through many different scenarios and find the best option. The same would apply if a pharma company needed to create a new molecule by positioning atoms in just the right way during the development process of a new drug. Novel materials, better predictions about the fluctuations of financial markets, improved manufacturing and design – quantum computers have the potential to open a lot of new doors for businesses around the world. Artificial intelligence (AI) should enhance quantum computing capabilities even further. – https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/04/quantum-computing-benefit-businesses/

US ownership of TikTok won’t protect democracies from digital threats

(Isabella Wilkinson, Rowan Wilkinson – Chatham House – 8 April 2025) Last weekend, US President Donald Trump extended the 5 April deadline for TikTok to sell its assets to a US owner or face a nationwide ban, the second time he has postponed the ultimatum facing the popular Chinese-owned social media platform since returning to office. The delay followed a desperate scramble between ByteDance (TikTok’s Chinese parent company), prospective buyers and the administration to reach a deal. TikTok is not short on admirers: with over 135 million active users in the US, for many Americans, TikTok is the go-to platform for news, culture and entertainment.  But the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – passed with bipartisan support in April 2024 – issued a firm ultimatum to the platform: sell up, or be banned, citing significant threats to national security. Taking place against the backdrop of the intensifying US-China technology race, the order comes after years of US concern over Chinese-owned platforms and technologies. These constraints reflect a longstanding US policy belief shared by President Trump: that domestic control over digital platforms and emerging technologies helps guarantee safety, security, prosperity and sovereignty. Trump even suggested that the TikTok deal could be used as a bargaining chip in tariff negotiations. – https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/04/us-ownership-tiktok-wont-protect-democracies-digital-threats

Harnessing AI for economic growth. Insights from electricity, finance, health care, and information sectors

(Martin Neil Baily, Aidan T. Kane – Brookings – 8 April 2025) Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing, with generative AI (genAI) models demonstrating continuous improvements in capability. These developments have sparked discussions about AI’s potential to enhance productivity and economic growth, as well as concerns about their broader impact on the labor market and business processes. As a part of a project with David M. Byrne and Paul E. Soto, we explore the economic and productivity implications of AI—particularly genAI. We investigate whether genAI qualifies as a general-purpose technology (GPT), akin to past innovations like the electric dynamo and computer that transformed the economy and fostered strong productivity growth. In addition, we examine the technology as an invention in the method of invention (IMI), examining the role AI is playing in scientific research and R&D. Research shows the difficulty and expense of scientific and applied development has greatly increased, making it harder to push out the frontier of knowledge. If AI can mitigate this trend and raise the productivity of research, it can, over time, raise overall productivity in the economy. – https://www.brookings.edu/articles/harnessing-ai-for-economic-growth/

Governing AI for the Future of Humanity

(Nudhara Yusuf, Julian Mueller-Kaler, Juliana Lozano-Jaramillo – Stimson Center – 7 April 2025) At the 2024 UN Summit of the Future on September 22, 2024, Member States adopted a Declaration on Future Generations and a Global Digital Compact, marking a pivotal moment in international efforts to govern emerging technologies responsibly. The Declaration focuses on ensuring governance systems act in solidarity with future generations and the Compact emphasizes the sustainable governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This issue brief analyzes how these global initiatives can converge to promote AI governance that advances development while protecting long-term human and planetary well-being. It highlights the critical role of intentional multi-stakeholder partnerships and proposes efforts to coordinate governance across multilateral systems to ensure global AI governance is done in a way that protects the opportunities afforded to future generations. – https://www.stimson.org/2025/governing-ai-for-the-future-of-humanity/

Connecting “Cyber Diplomacy” to “Cyber Deterrence”

(James Siebens, Allison Pytlak – Stimson Center – 7 April 2025) The scale of cyber operations today has reached unprecedented levels, with state-sponsored actors, criminal syndicates, and independent hackers launching increasingly sophisticated attacks against critical infrastructure, financial systems, and government networks worldwide. These operations can compromise sensitive data affecting millions of individuals, disrupt essential services, and even potentially manipulate democratic processes or disable military capabilities. A strong deterrent response has become necessary because traditional defensive measures alone are insufficient against persistent and evolving threats. – https://www.stimson.org/2025/connecting-cyber-diplomacy-to-cyber-deterrence/

Ghost of the Machine: India’s Quantum Ambitions Confront Hardware Limits, Lead Physicist Persists

(Quantum Insider – 8 April 2025) India has developed a comprehensive quantum strategy through its National Quantum Mission, integrating research, workforce training, and commercial efforts. The country still lacks a domestically built quantum computer, exposing it to hardware export controls and limiting its autonomy in the global quantum landscape. Physicist Rajamani Vijayaraghavan’s lab at TIFR leads a key indigenous effort, but faces delays due to procurement rules, funding bottlenecks, and administrative hurdles. India’s ability to lead in quantum will depend on building domestic hardware, improving research infrastructure, and retaining talent through stronger industry-academic partnerships. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/08/ghost-of-the-machine-indias-quantum-ambitions-confront-hardware-limits-lead-physicist-persists/

Understanding Cyber Market Failures

(Jason Healey, Carina Kaplan, Christine McNeill – Lawfare – 7 April 2025) When the United States government spots a market failure and decides to prevent a corporate merger or to break up an existing company, it generally proceeds only after doing legal and economic homework. To tackle a similar problem—regulating cybersecurity to fix perceived market failures—there is still substantial homework to be done. The Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS), in a substantial departure from 25 years of presidential policy, asserted that the market has failed and that “regulation can level the playing field, enabling healthy competition without sacrificing cybersecurity or operational resilience.”. But as Harry Coker, the then-national cyber director, complained at a cyber-regulation conference, “there is not a lot of literature or a good understanding of the gap between cyber risk that is in a business’s self-interest to mitigate, and the risk that is in society’s interest to mitigate.” The literature on cyber market failures is thinly developed, mostly consisting of anecdotes and examples: interesting and illustrative but insufficient to support the weight of policymakers’ expectations. Any time the U.S. government wants to regulate, it does so only because of a market failure. “Even when markets are efficient,” explains Joseph Sitglitz, “they may fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes …. Governments impose regulations to prevent [socially unjust and unacceptable] exploitation and to pursue a number of other social goals.” – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/understanding-cyber-market-failures

The Dangers of AI Sovereignty

(Kevin Frazier – Lawfare – 7 April 2025) A throughline connects recent statements on artificial intelligence  policy by the Trump administration, AI labs, and others with a vested interest in the nation’s AI policy—it’s a call for AI sovereignty. In particular, it’s a call for strong AI sovereignty or complete domestic control over essential AI inputs. Policy discussions in other countries, such as India, China, Japan, and Canada, have similarly accelerated in this direction. Emerging technical and resource considerations likewise may encourage more nations to home grow their AI. This is a troubling trend. Widespread pursuit of strong AI sovereignty is the worst of both worlds: at once increasing the odds of an all-out AI arms race in which nations focus their development strategies on national security interests while also crowding out the development of AI tools intended to serve the broader public interest. – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-dangers-of-ai-sovereignty

Government automated-decision-making: transparency and responsibility in the public sector

(Antoine Glory – OECD AI – 7 April 2025) As taxpayers and citizens- often both- many of us are increasingly concerned about the automated decision-making systems and algorithms deployed by cities, provinces, states, countries, etc. But do we understand how and when governments at all levels build these algorithms and how they are used? Whether for social benefits, university admissions, facial recognition, or health data, transparency is crucial for public trust and government accountability. While “algorithmic transparency” may sound straightforward, it is still vague because the term lacks a universally accepted definition. Are we referring to a principle about availability, a standard degree of accessibility, an obligation to disclose information, or even a right to access? – https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/government-automated-decision-making-transparency-and-responsibility-in-the-public-sector

Europe preparing to ‘ease the burden’ of landmark data privacy law

(Suzanne Smalley – The Record – 7 April 2025) The European Commission is now finalizing a plan to simplify and potentially remove many of the regulatory requirements imposed by the continent’s complex and far-reaching General Data Protection Regulation, particularly those impacting small and medium-sized businesses. The commission is working on a plan to simplify the law in order to “ease the burden” on smaller organizations while “preserving the underlying core objective of our GDPR regime,” Michael McGrath, the European commissioner overseeing data privacy laws, said in recent remarks at an interview at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). – https://therecord.media/eu-proposal-changes-gdpr-small-medium-businesses

U.S. Risks Falling Behind in Quantum Race, Colorado Leaders Warn

(Quantum Insider – 7 April 2025) U.S. leaders warn that without stronger investment, the country could lose its lead in quantum technology to China, with major economic and security consequences. Colorado’s Elevate Quantum consortium received the nation’s only federally funded Tech Hub award for quantum, unlocking over $127 million in additional support. A workforce roadmap by CU Boulder projects that up to 90% of future quantum-related jobs will not require a Ph.D., emphasizing the need for broad-based training. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/07/u-s-risks-falling-behind-in-quantum-race-colorado-leaders-warn/

Will the future of fact-checking flourish or founder? 2025 marks a new turning point

(Angie Drobnic Holan – International Fact-Checking Network – 2 April 2025) Every year on April 2, fact-checkers celebrate International Fact-Checking Day. Usually it’s a time for celebration, fun, even for a little irreverence. This year, for example, the British actor Stephen Fry is giving fact-checkers a shout-out and asking people to think before they share. But this year’s fact-checking day also marks a very serious moment for the fact-checking community. We are facing multiple challenges to our ability to do our journalism, and it’s not clear what the next few years will bring. As director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, which connects 170 organizations around the world all adhering to high standards in fact-checking, I see a community under intense pressure. Not everyone loves fact-checking, and there are powerful political forces that would simply like it to go away. This is indeed a crisis for fact-checkers, but it’s even worse for the general public. Disinformation hurts people. It has real-world consequences. Without fact-checking, more grandparents will fall victim to financial scams. Adults will refuse to vaccinate children against proven killers like measles. Teens will read faked reports of current events with no way to tell them apart from the real thing. – https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/angie-drobnic-holan-international-fact-checking-day/

Security

Leading the way in preventing the abuse of biometric recognition technology

(Europol – 7 April 2025) A new Europol report looks at the now ubiquitous biometric recognition technology and its potential for exploitation by criminals. Biometric recognition technology is a trusted and reliable way to verify identities and is now widely used to protect personal electronic devices and sensitive accounts. Fingerprint scans or facial recognition technology are increasingly replacing passwords to make logging in or confirming payment effortless. But this convenience presents new threats that need to be acknowledged by law enforcement and the general public. A password can be updated, but biometrics cannot. – https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/leading-way-in-preventing-abuse-of-biometric-recognition-technology

Frontiers

Chinese Researchers Use Quantum Computer to Fine-Tune Billion-Parameter AI Model

(Quantum Insider – 7 April 2025) Chinese scientists used a domestically developed quantum computer to fine-tune a billion-parameter AI model, claiming this as a global first, Global Times reported. The experiment, conducted on the 72-qubit Origin Wukong system, showed improved model performance even after reducing parameters by over 75 percent, according to the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center. The research remains a demonstration rather than a commercial deployment, and no peer-reviewed study has been released, Global Times noted. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/04/07/chinese-researchers-use-quantum-computer-to-fine-tune-billion-parameter-ai-model/

Defense, Intelligence, and Warfare

How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit

(Valerii Zaluzhnyi – Defense One – 10 April 2025) Ukraine’s tactical drones are “inflicting roughly two-thirds of Russian losses,” making them “twice as effective as every other weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal,” says a recent study by the Royal United Services Institute. This is a remarkable development for weapons considered relatively unimportant just three years ago—but it exemplifies how Ukraine is changing how the West will fight its wars. At the risk of oversimplification, wars have always been about managing information, people, and equipment. Stone-age warriors, Napoleon, Patton, and Schwarzkopf all faced these tasks, though certainly on a vastly different scale. Napoleon introduced new ways to control unprecedented quantities of soldiers and materiel, enabling him to operate across distances and against adversaries far more effectively than anyone before him. Decades later, Helmuth von Moltke refined battlefield management by loosening the Napoleonic grip. “War is an art, not a science,” he wrote, acknowledging human judgment in command and control and introducing extensive planning, decentralization, and flexibility. The Prussian leader’s ideas have formed the basis for Western warfare strategy ever since—until the Russo-Ukraine conflict changed everything. – https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/04/how-drones-data-and-ai-transformed-our-militaryand-why-us-must-follow-suit/404444/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary