Technology

Aug. 25 (UPI) — The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Situational Awareness, the Artificial Intelligence-focused hedge fund run by a 24-year-old.

The fund nearly collapsed last month when it dipped from about $45 billion to $10 billion in a late-July tech sell-off.

The SEC sent subpoenas to banks that provided loans for leveraged trading, The New York Times reported. The subpoenas wanted details on the timing of the trades and communications with lenders. They also told the banks to save any information about Situational Awareness.

The SEC investigates any fund that has large losses, and Situational Awareness has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

“It is to be expected that regulators would closely examine any funds that are high profile, produce significant returns or have particularly dramatic drawdowns,” a Situational Awareness spokesperson said in a statement. “We are a highly regulated business and will cooperate to the fullest extent with any regulatory request.”

The fund, at its highest mark, managed more than $30 billion and borrowed billions more. It was a client of firms that included Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to a regulatory filing.

The fund was founded and is managed by Leopold Ashcenbrenner, a young German Columbia University alum who last worked as a researcher at OpenAI. Aschenbrenner founded the fund at age 22. He named it after an essay that he wrote about the future of AI.

When the fund’s value plummeted in July, Aschenbrenner was forced to sell much of its portfolio to Citadel at a large discount. Citadel founder Ken Griffin told investors in a letter Friday that it has since sold about 80% of the risk from the Situational Awareness portfolio. Two of the positions Situational Awareness sold, SK Hynix and CoreWeave, have since rallied, CNBC reported.

Naivasha, Kenya – For communities living around Naivasha, water is not an abstract resource. It sustains families, livestock, farms and schools.

That reality has taken on new significance after plans for a major Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria, near Lake Naivasha, stalled in May 2026 over concerns about available power capacity.

Microsoft and United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence company G42 announced the project in 2024 as part of a $1bn digital investment package for Kenya. The proposed facility was to run on geothermal energy and eventually scale to as much as 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The uncertainty has also prompted questions about what another major industrial user could mean for water in a region where residents already report shortages.

Microsoft and G42 said the proposed data centre campus would run entirely on renewable geothermal energy and incorporate water conservation technology. The companies did not disclose a project-specific water consumption figure in their 2024 announcement.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) communications director Frank David Ochieng told Al Jazeera that the data centre remains at the design stage and that he could not comment further until the project is ready to proceed.

For residents like Musa Olorkedienye, who spoke to Al Jazeera, water scarcity is already a daily concern. He says communities around Olkaria have seen changes in access to water, including the loss of reliable piped supplies that residents previously received from KenGen.

“Currently, we are relying on water vendors to get water, our animals are walking for kilometres, and we fear things could get worse as demand for water rises,” Olorkedienye says.

Pastoralist Isaac Leshishi, who also spoke to Al Jazeera, says increasingly harsh weather is adding to the pressure.

Why Olkaria?

The choice of Olkaria was closely tied to energy. The area is home to Kenya’s major geothermal operations, making it an attractive location for a power-intensive facility.

KenGen operates the Olkaria geothermal complex, while Microsoft and G42 planned to power the proposed data centre entirely with geothermal energy.

A lake under pressure

Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya’s Rift Valley whose catchment supports agriculture, tourism, livestock and domestic water use. Its basin also hosts geothermal development and other economic activity.

Grace Kimani, a patrol leader with Lake Naivasha and Oloiden, told Al Jazeera that the reservoir is under growing pressure from population growth, agriculture, water abstraction, climate variability, pollution and ecosystem degradation.

“The planned Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria could bring jobs and investment, but its water demand raises concerns about adding pressure to already competing needs, particularly during dry periods,” she said.

Kimani said there is limited public information about the project’s expected water demand, source and cooling technology. She said transparency and an assessment of its cumulative impact on water resources would be important.

She also called for water-efficient or water-free cooling, water recycling and the use of treated wastewater, as well as sustainable abstraction limits and community involvement in monitoring.

Silas Wanjala of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the region is heavily dependent on groundwater and that declining water flows are adding to the pressure.

“These industries, especially EcoCloud, which deal with data, will consume a lot of water at a time when rivers are drying, and demand for water is on the rise,” Wanjala said.

Olkaria EcoCloud Data Centre is a local partner in the G42-led development. In 2024, the Kenya News Agency reported that G42, Microsoft and EcoCloud signed a letter of intent for the wider data-centre initiative, with EcoCloud described as a local partner that had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with G42.

Wanjala points to past fluctuations in Lake Naivasha as a warning.

“This lake in 2010 nearly dried up due to over-abstraction, and this could be repeated due to high demand for water by these investors in Olkaria,” he says.

His concern comes against a wider backdrop of water scarcity in Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says Kenya has about 527 cubic metres (527,000 litres) of freshwater available per person, below the 1,000-cubic-metre threshold for water scarcity, and estimates availability could fall to about 475 cubic metres per person by 2030.

The figures do not show what effect the proposed data centre would have on Lake Naivasha. They provide context, however, for why the prospect of another major water user is drawing scrutiny in a region where demand is already high.

How much water would it use?

The amount of water the proposed Microsoft-G42 facility itself would require remains unclear.

The project announcement provides no projected consumption figure.

Existing industrial use offers some context.

A KenGen environmental and social impact assessment records that 195,165 cubic metres of water were abstracted from Lake Naivasha in July 2023 for domestic and commercial uses at Olkaria and for operations and domestic use at Eburru.

Of that total, 153,918 cubic metres were used for commercial operations at Olkaria. The assessment records the abstraction as within Water Resources Authority (WRA) permitted levels.

Those figures relate to existing KenGen operations, not the proposed data centre.

For farmer Eskimos Kobia, who spoke to Al Jazeera, the potential competition extends beyond households and livestock. He says farmers, pastoralists, schools and investors will all face greater pressure as demand increases.

Kimani said climate variability has also led to fluctuations in lake levels, with periods of flooding followed by prolonged dry conditions.

“Water quality is affected by agricultural run-off, untreated wastewater in some areas and invasive species,” she says.

Investment versus local concerns

Not everyone in Naivasha opposes the investment.

Absolom Mukhuusi of the Naivasha Professional Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, says the technology sector could bring jobs, infrastructure and new businesses to the area. But he says economic benefits should not come at the expense of local communities.

“Even as we welcome the investors, our biggest fear is what happens to our water bodies and communities as water is diverted to Olkaria for the heavy users,” he says.

Could technology help?

Geologist Kenyatta Otieno, who spoke to Al Jazeera, sees another potential benefit.

He recalls the pressure large flower farms once placed on the lake’s ecosystem, saying many have since left or scaled back their operations.

Otieno says the proposed centre would have included a resource centre to monitor lake levels and weather patterns. Such monitoring, he says, could help identify the highest water level over time and guide riparian land zoning.

“The centre being built with water conservation in mind would be futuristic as Naivasha is generally a water-scarce area. It would be a model for future development,” Otieno said.

Kenya already has regulators responsible for managing competing demands. The WRA regulates water abstraction and issues water-use permits, while the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) oversees environmental impact assessments under the country’s environmental regulatory framework.

Attempts by Al Jazeera to obtain comments from WRA and NEMA officials were unsuccessful. Efforts to reach Microsoft-G42 officials and Kenyan government officials for comment on the project’s status and water requirements were also unsuccessful.

For now, the project’s eventual scale, design and water requirements remain unclear, according to KenGen.

“We are now competing with the multibillion [-dollar] companies for water, and we fear that we shall be the losers in the long run,” Leshishi said.

China is set to launch its Chang’e-7 unmanned, robotic space mission, possibly as early as Monday morning, to look for ice water in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s south pole.

This marks China’s seventh and most ambitious moon mission so far. Here is what we know about it.

What do we know about Chang’e-7?

The Chang’e‑7 launch window runs from Monday, August 24 to Monday, August 31, according to launch observers. That means the mission could lift off on any day in that period.

The Chang’e-7 comprises an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a hopper.

• The orbiter is the main spacecraft which will remain in the moon’s orbit, mapping the surface and taking images while the mission is under way. It will also relay data and communications between the other Chang’e‑7 components and Earth.
• The lander is the vessel that will touch down on the lunar surface, loaded with the necessary scientific instruments for lunar exploration, near the edge of the Shackleton Crater, a 21km-wide (13-mile-wide) pit close to the moon’s south pole. Lunar missions before this have never come this close to the pole.
• The rover is a small robotic vehicle which can drive around the landing site and which carries equipment to analyse the local environment, including rocks and soil.
• The hopper is a small robotic craft powered by solar energy, designed to “hop” – or fly – short distances from the surface of the moon and land again. It will be used to explore the Shackleton Crater.

How do we know there is water on the moon?

Over the past two decades, several space missions have established that there is water on the moon.

Since the 1960s, even before the first Apollo landing in 1969, scientists speculated that water could exist on the moon. However, when Apollo crews returned samples for testing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they appeared to be dry.

Finally, in 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket segment and its probe into a shadowed lunar crater to analyse the dust plume it kicked up. This provided one of the clearest direct confirmations that significant ice water does exist on the moon, building on earlier detections of water and hydrogen by probes.

In October 2020, NASA scientists announced that water on the moon is more widespread than previously known. They said water molecules had been found to be encapsulated within mineral grains on the lunar surface and speculated that more water is hidden in ice patches which are in permanent shadows.

NASA describes these permanent shadows as dark areas inside deep craters near the north and south poles of the moon where sunlight has not reached for millions or even billions of years. In 2018, prior to confirming it in 2020, NASA had detected water ice in shadowed parts of the moon through mapping.

Why is it important to find out more about the water on the moon?

Expanding knowledge about water on the moon is vital because ancient polar ice may have preserved a record of lunar volcanic activity and of water delivered by comets and asteroids to the Earth-moon system, offering clues to how our own oceans originally formed.

Additionally, if there is enough water on the moon that is realistically accessible, it could serve as a source of drinking water for crewed lunar missions, and could also help to keep equipment cool.

Hydrogen could also be extracted from moon water to provide fuel, while oxygen could be extracted to breathe, supporting onward missions to Mars or lunar mining.

Could anyone ‘own’ the water on the moon?

The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty bans any nation from claiming sovereignty over the moon or owning it as territory. It does not explicitly prohibit commercial operations, but it requires private activities in space to be authorised and supervised by states and leaves key questions about resource ownership unresolved.

Which recent space missions have searched for frozen water on the moon?

In 2023, Russia’s lunar spacecraft, Luna-25, was launched to look for frozen water in the moon’s south pole. However, the Luna-25 spun out of control and crashed. The crash prevented any scientific data collection or water discovery.

Racing against the Luna-25 mission was India’s Chandrayaan-3, which also aimed to expand knowledge of lunar water ice. Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed in August 2023 and found critical new evidence of water on the surface of the moon’s south pole through soil temperature readings.

Why is exploring the moon’s south pole a challenge?

Attempted landings at the moon’s south pole have failed before because of its challenging terrain, which is full of craters and deep trenches.

The south pole is far from the equatorial region targeted by previous missions, including the crewed Apollo landings.

What is different about the Chang’e-7 mission?

The upcoming Chang’e-7 is aiming to expand knowledge about where, exactly, water is located in the craters of the moon, how deep it is, what form it is in and whether it is indeed possible to access it.

The Chang’e-7’s six-legged hopper has been designed to jump into and out of the deep, shadowed craters near the south pole that are hard for traditional rovers to reach, to look for water ice and other resources.

No previous space mission has used a dedicated hopper to jump in and out of lunar craters in this way.

The government has announced investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2m) to bolster its artificial intelligence ecosystem.

Brazil will invest about 2.3bn reais ($444.2m) to bolster its artificial intelligence ecosystem, splitting projects between United States and Chinese tech firms in a strategic move that underscores its efforts to balance ties with both superpowers.

Just more than half the total, 1.3bn reais ($251m), will fund a supercomputing infrastructure project in Rio de Janeiro developed in partnership with China’s Huawei Technologies and iFlytek, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva‘s government said on Thursday.

The infrastructure will be used primarily to develop large language models for general and sector-specific applications, it said.

Separately, about 1 billion reais ($193.1m) will be allocated through a tender for a supercomputer that Brazil expects to rank among the world’s 10 most powerful AI processing machines.

The machine will be installed in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, chosen for its energy potential. Lula attended an announcement ceremony in the state on Thursday.

The Reuters news agency quoted unnamed government officials as saying they expect US chipmaker Nvidia to win the tender. Science and Technology Minister Luciana Santos told the Folha de S Paulo newspaper last week that she anticipated the company would be the supplier.

“The strategy is not to depend on a single company, technology or country,” Lula’s administration said in a statement, adding that the investments are aimed at strengthening national sovereignty over data.

China, a leading player in AI, has expanded its role as Brazil’s largest trading partner. The US, meanwhile, remains the biggest source of foreign direct investment in Latin America’s largest economy despite losing market share in trade and recently imposing additional tariffs on Brazilian goods.

The investments will be funded by the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT) through phased disbursements. The government expects the supercomputer to begin operating by the end of next year, while the cooperation agreement with the Chinese companies is scheduled to start in July 2027.

Social media giant Meta is facing a landmark trial that could impact its future.

Opening statements began on Tuesday in a US federal court case brought by 29 state attorneys general, who have accused Facebook and Instagram’s parent company of designing platforms to encourage infinite scrolling and keep their youngest users hooked, despite allegedly knowing they could fuel addictive behaviour. The company is also accused of collecting data on minors.

The case is expected to last as long as six weeks. If the attorneys general get their way, the Silicon Valley-based tech company might have to make structural changes to its platform and pay as much as $1.4 trillion in fines.

While Meta denies the allegations, the potential consequences of this case could be significant for the company, which is already facing low employee morale, waves of layoffs and a series of lagging investments.

Significant financial impact

The potential exposure to Meta is significant. State penalties could reach as high as $1.4 trillion, Meta has said, although that is unlikely, as the coalition of states said it is seeking $200bn in damages.

To put that in context, the amount is roughly the equivalent of Meta’s revenue last year. In 2025, the tech giant generated nearly $201bn in revenue, and it had $83.2bn in operating income.

The $200bn ask is significantly higher than any penalty the company has had to face so far. In March, a jury in a separate New Mexico lawsuit ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties, and another $567m was ordered by a judge earlier this month.

At the time of the March penalty, financial services firm Morningstar said it was not overly concerned about the impact of the looming court cases on Meta’s valuation, even if governments around the world use these cases as a reason to push for structural changes to the business.

“We think that any algorithmic changes imposed on the firm via legislation are also a manageable risk, given the firm’s monetizable user base, which is overwhelmingly adult, thereby insulating the firm against such legislation,” a Morningstar analyst note said.

While no one can predict which way the coalition case will go, Meta’s problems extend to concerns about significant financial exposure in some of its investments and business units.

For instance, Reality Labs, the division responsible for Meta’s virtual and augmented reality tools and software like the metaverse, has lost $70bn since 2020.

Meta has also ramped up spending to build out AI infrastructure as growing concerns about an AI bubble loom over the sector.

Cash flow for the business fell significantly, from $12bn in the first quarter to $784m in the second quarter, although it did not go into negative territory as some analysts had expected.

“I think it’s [Meta] in an unenviable spot, because it’s facing pressure from multiple fronts,” Aleksandar Tomic, associate dean for strategy, innovation, and technology at Boston College, told Al Jazeera.

“These verdicts are going to put pressure on their advertising business. The AI development seems to have stalled, and the virtual reality thing seems to be dead on arrival, at least for now. So the only bright spot is that they might be able to get into the AI infrastructure game, but that is no guarantee.”

Meta itself is worried about the financial strain. “There can be no assurances that a favorable final outcome will be obtained in all our cases, and defending any lawsuit is costly and can impose a significant burden on management and employees,” the company said in a January Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

Can the lawsuit impact its core product?

While financial penalties might be a strain, a legal requirement to fundamentally alter the machinery that makes Instagram and Facebook so valuable to advertisers would be much harder for Meta to absorb.

The lawsuit calls for changes to its business model, including eliminating the infinite scroll that allows users to continually look at new posts. Meta’s advertising business is dependent on impressions, or the number of times a content appears on a user’s screen. The longer someone is on the app, the more impressions they can see.

“Our financial performance has been and will continue to be significantly determined by our success in adding, retaining, and engaging active users of our products that deliver ad impressions, particularly for Facebook and Instagram,” the company said in an SEC filing.

“User growth and engagement are also impacted by a number of other factors, including competitive products and services, such as TikTok, that have reduced some users’ engagement with our products and services,” the filing added.

In 2025, Meta reported 12 percent more advertisement impressions than in 2024, while the average price per advertisement jumped by 9 percent.

The plaintiff states want the company to make other changes, including getting rid of algorithms and AI models made from data compiled from minors. The states are also asking the court to compel the company to promote the wellbeing of its users and set time restrictions for its youngest consumers.

Meta has introduced features that have reminded teens of their time use on their platforms. In January 2023, it gave teens ways to manage the kinds of advertisements they could see on Instagram and Facebook. In June 2023, it introduced a feature to notify teen users that they have spent more than 20 minutes on the platform and to set daily time limits.

“We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court,” Stephanie Otway, a Meta spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

But the lawsuit says that is not enough, alleging that teens could easily dismiss the notification and continue scrolling.

How will this impact future lawsuits?

Meta is currently facing lawsuits from more than 100,000 different parties, according to its SEC filings, including individuals, cities, states, and school districts around the US.

“These first few cases going out are really going to set the standard,” Tre Lovell, a Los Angeles-based media law and entertainment lawyer, told Al Jazeera.

Lovell predicted that, ultimately, there will be a combined settlement.

“We’re going to get close to some type of global settlement, a global resolution. I think, ultimately, that’s where this is going to end.”

Snap, TikTok, and Google’s YouTube have also faced litigation amid allegations that their products are built to encourage compulsive use by young people, Tomic told Al Jazeera. The claims could open the floodgates to the type of litigation that challenged the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, he said.

“This is the tobacco litigation of the information age. They [the plaintiffs in the Meta lawsuit] have identified this addiction component of social networks. Now that there is a judgement against Meta, I would be shocked if we don’t see everybody else getting sued, and once they get sued, it will be pretty much the same,” Tomic said.

In 1998, 46 states settled lawsuits with major cigarette makers over health costs and forced the companies to impose restrictions on advertising, especially targeting younger audiences.

Opening statements in a landmark US case brought by a bipartisan coalition of 29 states against Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – began on Tuesday, with Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky arguing that the company’s popular social media apps were designed in ways that harmed the mental health of young users.

The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, began in a US federal court in California before District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. While there is an eight-person jury, the group is serving in an advisory role as Judge Rogers will ultimately decide the case.

Megan O’Neill, a deputy California attorney general, in her opening statement said that the company designed its products to “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public”.

She added that it worked “especially well for kids”.

The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2023, alleges that Meta made decisions to design its apps to hook users and facilitate excessive use among the platforms’ youngest users. The coalition also alleges that the company collected data on children under the age of 13 in violation of federal law.

“Meta needed kids, and it needed to reassure the people who cared about those kids that the kids are safe,” O’Neill said.

‘Limited claims’

Meta has long pushed back on allegations against the Silicon Valley social media behemoth.

In a statement before the trial, a Meta spokesperson said the states’ claims are unsubstantiated, and the company stands by its record of creating strong protections for teenagers, including launching Instagram Teen Accounts in 2024, which limit who can contact underage users, as well as a feature that allows parents to set time limits on usage.

“The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate,” Stephanie Otway, a Meta spokesperson, told Al Jazeera in a statement.

“The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification. Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout.”

The potential impact on Meta’s bottom line is existential. The company could face fines as high as $1.4 trillion, which is just shy of its $1.5 trillion market cap. However, the coalition is seeking fines of roughly $200bn.

Meta has already been ordered to pay $942m in fines in a separate New Mexico lawsuit – $375m in civil penalties in a March jury verdict and $567m ordered by a judge earlier this month.

Meta has acknowledged that the lawsuits it faces, including those related to youth social media addiction, could lead to “substantial monetary damages or fines” in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in January.

A long time coming

Meta, along with other social media giants, has faced a growing slate of cases across the United States, including from cities, states, school districts and even individuals.

The coalition of states is asking Meta to make changes to its platforms, including introducing new age restrictions and cutting the infinite scroll.

The case’s impetus came from a US Senate committee hearing in 2021, when whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former data scientist at Facebook, claimed that the company knowingly pushed products that could impact the health of young users as the Mark Zuckerberg-led company pursued higher profits.

Meta has repeatedly tried to end the coalition lawsuit, including in 2024 and as recently as June, when it sought summary judgement – a decision that a court might make without going to trial – which would have ended the lawsuit.

The case is impacting the company’s stock. On Wall Street, the social media giant is down more than 3 percent in midday trading.

Aug. 17 (UPI) — Nvidia announced on Monday that it will finance an OpenAI data center in Ohio for up to $105 billion.

The credit from Nvidia will fund the data center’s first 4.25 gigawatts in computing capacity with an option to bring 3.75 gigawatts more online. The center is slated to begin operating in Pike City, Ohio, in 2028.

The data center will be located at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike City. It will be constructed and managed by SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group.

Nvidia is also providing the compute power to the data center.

“This is the essential economic point: the [Load Power Supply] commitment secures a long-lived AI factory site, while the NVIDIA compute inside can be upgraded repeatedly,” NVIDIA said in a press release. “Each new generation can deliver greater production, more intelligence and better economics.”

SB Energy and SoftBank agree to build enough power supply for 10 gigawatts of energy and invest at least $4.2 billion into the regional power grid infrastructure. Nvidia has also agreed to invest $1.5 billion into SB Energy.

OpenAI said the data center will support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032. It will also support 2,500 long-term jobs.

OpenAI will pay the least on the data center as its tenant, Nvidia said.

The biggest danger facing mankind is a machine that can “outsmart the whole species”, argues Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the Future of Life Institute.

Tegmark tells host Steve Clemons that governments and tech companies are in a “race to replace” human labour, instead of solving human problems. “It’s aimed at getting more money and power to a very small number of individuals,” he says.

But a slew of suicides and murders committed by people chatting with AI chatbots has led to pushback against the Silicon Valley “don’t regulate us” lobby.

Shenzhen will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) in November 2026, particularly given its reputation as China’s Silicon Valley and a global hub for artificial intelligence and embodied intelligence. The city will showcase its advanced industrial ecosystem in robotics, new vehicles, and the digital economy, aiming to connect markets and economies across the Asia-Pacific region. Shenzhen’s innovation model, designed to link China with Asia and the Pacific, is a key priority for the APEC Summit, scheduled to be held in Shenzhen this year under the theme Building an Asia-Pacific Community for Shared Prosperity. This theme focuses on integrating the Chinese economy regionally and globally through advanced technology. Therefore, Shenzhen’s focus during the APEC 2026 Summit will be on innovation, the digital economy, and showcasing new productive forces. The meetings and discussions at the APEC 2026 Summit will be concentrated in Shenzhen. The conference aims to highlight the role of innovation and advanced digital technologies; promote regional cooperation in artificial intelligence, innovation, and digital technologies; and strengthen industrial networks and cross-border supply chains for APEC economies in the semiconductor and green technology sectors. This explains why Shenzhen, China, was chosen to host the upcoming APEC conference. It serves as a living example, showcasing Shenzhen as a model of sustainable smart cities that rely on AI algorithms in the transportation, healthcare, and services sectors.

Shenzhen is at the forefront of the regional and international AI landscape, acting as a new engine for industry by integrating digital innovation to expand markets and improve production in the Asia-Pacific region. In Shenzhen, any new idea can find the necessary components within 30 minutes, leading entrepreneurs to call this speed a Shenzhen Speed. Shenzhen is a unique global model for rapid innovation and integrated supply chains, enabling entrepreneurs to transform ideas into prototypes in just 30 minutes thanks to the integration of industrial components, a phenomenon known as “Shenzhen Speed.”   Shenzhen’s innovation environment is characterized by a seamless supply chain, where markets and factories provide all the necessary hardware and electronics components in one place, supporting entrepreneurship. The city offers an incubator environment for startups and innovators from around the world. Furthermore, its regional connectivity mechanism reinforces Shenzhen’s role as a major hub for trade and technology cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Shenzhen, often called China’s Silicon Valley, is a leading global center for innovation, technology, and rapid industrial development. The city is spearheading the transformation into a smart city by integrating AI governance, the Internet of Things, and ultra-fast supply chains that enable the realization of technological ideas in record time. Embodied AI is a modern industrial trend in the city, alongside artificial intelligence. Shenzhen’s position is further solidified in technological innovation; Shenzhen’s rapid pace allows the city to provide the components for any new technological idea in just 30 minutes thanks to its massive supply chains. Furthermore, it serves as an incubator for major companies, housing the headquarters of China’s leading technology giants, such as Huawei, Tencent, DJI, and Wipertek. Shenzhen acts as a base for major companies, hosting thousands of large and emerging firms in artificial intelligence and robotics. The city is a natural hub for embodied intelligence, humanoid robot manufacturing, and smart factory applications powered by industrial AI models. This makes Shenzhen a true embodiment of digital urban leadership. It has been crowned a smart city thanks to its 5G infrastructure and dual digital models.

Shenzhen embodies the engine of Chinese technological excellence and its transformation from a port  From a small fishing ground to a leading global innovation hub, Shenzhen is not only driving the engines of modern technology but also, alongside its massive supply chains, is propelling industry and progress in the region through artificial intelligence and embodied intelligence. The city is renowned for its so-called Shenzhen Speed, where any new technological idea can find its components and factories in just 30 minutes. Shenzhen plays a significant role in driving innovation and connecting the Asia-Pacific. This will be reflected in the priorities of the APEC Summit in November 2026, hosted by Shenzhen, which aims to stimulate regional cooperation in artificial intelligence and innovation; address global economic challenges, slow growth, and rising trade protectionism by promoting integration and unity; and achieve sustainable development and create an environment conducive to innovation. This will be accomplished through the integration of ministerial efforts and related events to encourage innovation in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Chinese city of Shenzhen is a unique example of a rapid transformation from a small fishing village to a global hub for technology and innovation. Today, it leads advanced sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented intelligence (AI), and massive supply chains, becoming a driving force for technological excellence in China and the world. The key drivers of Shenzhen’s success lie in understanding its historical transformation from a simple fishing port to a leading global center for business, technology, and AI, as well as its ability to innovate by integrating AI algorithms across various industrial and service sectors and by developing augmented intelligence. Shenzhen is heavily investing in robotics and intelligent systems that physically interact with their environment, providing the world with the necessary supply chains to meet its technological needs. This is made possible by Shenzhen’s vast and flexible infrastructure for manufacturing and developing technological devices at breakneck speed.

  Finally, Shenzhen stands out as a pilot city in China, particularly in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and embodied intelligence (EQI). Shenzhen aims to become a national base for developing and implementing large-scale linguistic models (LCMs) and advanced AI and EQI products, integrating robots and intelligent systems into real-world and industrial environments, thus driving high-quality manufacturing forward. Furthermore, Shenzhen plays a key role in promoting smart governance by relying on AI-based solutions for efficient traffic management, security, and urban services.

US Department of Homeland Security is expected to buy up to $20m in gloves amid criticism of the president’s immigration crackdown.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is planning to spend tens of millions of dollars to equip federal immigration agents with gloves capable of delivering electric shocks.

According to a notice posted on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security has estimated it will invest between $10m and $20m in such gloves by the end of March 2027.

The devices are known as the CT-G5 G.L.O.V.E., an acronym that stands for “Generate Low Output Voltage Emitter”. They are currently used by some jails and police departments.

Their manufacturer, Compliant Technologies, says the gloves are used to “quickly distract with small uncomfortable electrical pulses” when applied to a person’s skin. The Department of Homeland Security indicated they would be used for “distraction and de-escalation”.

A user manual states the gloves can deliver a maximum of 380 volts, which “inhibits/distracts the subject from performing coordinated muscle movement”.

The planned purchase has already sparked a backlash among rights advocates, who fear the gloves will be used to harm protesters and immigrants in the department’s custody.

The Department of Homeland Security oversees an array of agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has led Trump’s campaign of mass deportation.

Monday’s announcement specified that ICE has a requirement to make the purchase and distribute the gloves to agents within Enforcement and Removal Operations, one of its subsidiaries, and Homeland Security Investigations.

But ICE has faced increasing criticism for its tactics, including accusations of racial profiling and excessive force.

At least four people have been shot dead during encounters with ICE agents since the start of this year. Dozens more have died in ICE custody.

On Wednesday, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) issued a statement criticising the anticipated glove purchase, calling it a path to further violence against vulnerable communities.

It also noted that, in June, the Republican-led Congress passed tens of billions of dollars in ICE spending as part of the Secure America Act.

“This is a rogue agency with an $80 billion slush fund that allows them to concoct and fund new ways to visit cruelty upon our communities,” NILC President Kica Mantos said in the statement. “Arming poorly trained agents with electric shock gloves to inflict pain on our neighbors is disgusting and barbaric.”

The Department of Homeland Security offered no immediate response to The Associated Press news agency, one of the first news outlets to report on the story.

The founder and CEO of Compliant, Jeff Niklaus, told the publication in an email, “Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject.”

Compliant has argued in the past that its devices are “humane” and do not cause injury.

“The technology is safe as it does not penetrate the subject’s body, while also allowing other officers to grab the individual being stimulated with no fear of feedback into their bodies,” the manufacturer says on its website.

However, Compliant recommends avoiding use of the device on “higher risk” individuals, including the elderly, small children, pregnant people and those with severe disabilities. Officers must also complete a course to use the gloves and be recertified every two years, according to the company.

The notice, listed as a no-bid contract, could be published by Friday.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — A retired Royal Air Force fighter pilot who is the only person to have traveled faster than the speed of sound on land, set a world land speed record for a hydrogen-powered car of more than 400 mph in Utah.

Powered by two 800 horsepower hydrogen internal combustion engines, Briton Andy Green‘s bullet-shaped Hydromax Streamliner, averaged across two runs, reached a speed of 406.32 mph on Tuesday at the Bonneville Salt Flats, smashing the previous record set in 2004 by more than 220 mph.

World motorsport’s governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the governing body of world motorsport, verified the attempt as the highest speed ever achieved by a hydrogen-powered vehicle.

The engines were from an earth-moving machine made by the British heavy plant manufacturer JCB, delivering massive power to the drivetrain by mixing pressurized hydrogen gas with air which is then ignited, similar to combustion engines, but with no emissions.

Green also set a world land speed record of 350 mph for diesel power in another JCB-developed car in 2006.

“Setting a world land speed record with hydrogen power, 20 years after Dieselmax, is a huge privilege. This record is a huge achievement by a world class team and superb technology,” Green said.

JCB chairman Lord Anthony Bamford said going after the record was in part a proof of concept exercise to show that hydrogen was a viable solution to the demand from heavy industries for a clean energy that could rival traditional fuels in efficiency.

He also believes hyrdogen is more effective for construction and agricultural machinery and plant than electric battery power.

In October 1997, Green pushed his twin jet-engine powered Thrust SSC to 763.035 mph, smashing through the sound barrier as it streaked across the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada.

The record stands to this day.

Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that the LAPD should stop working with Flock Safety, warning that the company, which operates AI-enabled license plate readers that allow authorities to monitor vehicles around the city, had lost public trust.

In her most forceful comments to date on the topic, Bass said while she supports license plate reading technology generally as a tool for law enforcement, Flock had “lost the trust of Angelenos and residents across the country, especially in immigrant communities targeted by the federal administration.”

“There are many companies that provide this technology to cities nationwide,” Bass said in a statement. “The LAPD needs to identify another company that doesn’t share data.”

LAPD officials have said Flock’s technology enables investigators to solve crimes, helping to find vehicles that have been reported stolen or linked to suspects. Last month, the department announced it was pausing its relationship with Flock, but police officials later said they were in the process of negotiating a new deal with the company that would include more data sharing and collection safeguards.

Dozens of mostly smaller cities have deactivated their Flock cameras or ended their contracts with the company over concerns that it provides data to the Trump administration that can be used to track down immigrants for deportation.

Bass joined the chorus of activists and local officials calling for the LAPD to end its relationship with the company outright.

Her opponent in the November mayoral election, Nithya Raman, said last week on the social media platform X that the city should “cut ties with Flock Safety.”

“Cities across the country are canceling their Flock contracts over the risks its license plate readers pose to privacy, civil liberties, and immigrant communities,” Raman’s post read.

Last month, Bass signed an ordinance that prohibits city personnel from providing anyone outside local government access to data that can be used to determine someone’s immigration status.

A recent Washington Post report uncovered at least 50 instances nationwide in which law enforcement officials were accused of misusing their access to the cameras, largely to stalk former romantic partners or citizens.

A report issued last month by the LAPD inspector general’s office found numerous “limitations” in the department’s existing agreements with its three plate reader vendors — Flock, Axon and Motorola — including a lack of clear language about how long the data are retained and how they are shared with third parties or other law enforcement agencies.

The inspector general recommended that the department update its current license plate reader contracts to address data security and privacy concerns, conduct regular audits and develop standardized rules for traffic stops based on plate reader hits.

Flock has said its customers decide who can access data from their cameras. The company said it doesn’t have contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, adding that has taken other steps to assuage public concern, such as barring federal agencies from its lookup tools and restricting immigration-related searches to ensure compliance with laws in California, Washington and other states.

In an interview with ABC7 last month, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said the company had to “tighten up the police and make sure everyone’s aligned and then turn it back on. He said the company retains the data from its plate readers for only 30 days and denied that its cameras employ facial recognition software as some of its critics have suggested.

During a virtual listening session hosted last week by the inspector general’s office, dozens of people sounded off on the department’s use of Flock cameras.

Some speakers, mostly from the fire-ravaged community of Pacific Palisades, supported the use of cameras to deter burglars who have repeatedly hit homes and construction sites in the area.

Jennifer Wolfe, who identified herself as a teacher in Altadena, another community devastated by the 2025 wildfires, urged Flock’s supporters to consider how “surveillance systems can grow far beyond their intended purpose.”

Locating stolen cars is important, she said, but people should be more concerned by this newfound and unchecked ability for the government to collect “vastly more information, with far less effort.”

Humanoid robots are no longer a laboratory experiment; they are a growing market. Morgan Stanley estimates it could hit $5 trillion by 2050, with more than a billion humanoids in use worldwide.

However, much of the global robot supply chain runs through China. It produces robot components at a scale and a price its competitors struggle to match.

The United States has banned imports of foreign-made humanoid robots, citing national security. It has also blocked power inverters used in data centres and solar energy systems. The move is seen as part of a broader effort to protect US industry and limit China’s technological rise.

The stock was down more than 13 percent as investors were spooked by the company’s heavy investments.

SpaceX share price has plunged more than 13 percent, a day after the Elon Musk-run company reported its first quarterly earnings as a publicly listed company.

On Wednesday, the stock closed down at $108.10, down 13.6 percent from Tuesday’s close of $125.33.

Investors have been spooked by the increase in the company’s capital expenditure. At $18.37bn, it was a six-fold jump from last year, and much higher than the $13.2bn that analysts had forecast.

The majority of that investment, $15.8bn, is earmarked for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, which includes specialised compute, storage, networking and software systems required to build, train, deploy and operate AI models at scale. SpaceX has said it wants to increase the capacity of its data centres from 1.4GW currently to 2GW by year-end.

Investors across the technology sector are questioning whether the large investments in AI infrastructure will actually yield returns.

“We’ve watched the same scrutiny land on Big Tech this earnings season, where investors have questioned open-ended wallets and started demanding a visible return on them,” said Josh Gilbert, lead analyst at trading platform eToro.

“SpaceX faces that test with an added degree of difficulty because it’s asking shareholders to bankroll data centres in orbit.”

SpaceX has said its computing capacity not only serves its Grok models but is also actively sold, with $14.1bn in cloud-services agreements lined up.

The one area that SpaceX saw some profit was from the “connectivity” business, with revenue jumping 66 percent from a year earlier as the number of subscribers to its Starlink satellite communications service doubled to 12 million, bringing in $1.66bn in operating income.

SpaceX’s share price faces another test on Thursday, when the first tranche of the post-IPO lock-up expires, making up to 911.5 million shares, roughly 20 percent of restricted holdings, eligible for sale.

Melissa Otto, head of Visible Alpha research at S&P Global, told Al Jazeera that the stock is “likely to be volatile” once the lock-up lifts.

SpaceX’s IPO was priced at $135 per share and climbed to $225 within days of its June 12 debut, briefly catapulting Musk as the world’s first trillionaire. The stock has since dropped.

Europe’s established technology companies are emerging as unexpected beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom, as businesses shift from AI experimentation to large-scale deployment. Rather than model developers capturing all the value, companies specializing in enterprise software, consulting, and cloud infrastructure are seeing stronger demand by helping organizations integrate AI into existing operations.

Enterprise AI Shifts Toward Implementation

Recent earnings from SAP, Capgemini, Sopra Steria, and OVHcloud indicate that corporate AI spending is increasingly focused on implementation rather than simply acquiring AI models.

Large organizations require AI systems that integrate with legacy software, fragmented databases, compliance frameworks, and existing business processes. This complexity has created growing demand for firms with deep experience in enterprise technology integration.

Integration Becomes the Next AI Battleground

Industry analysts argue that the next phase of AI competition lies in applications rather than foundation models.

As businesses adopt multiple AI models for different functions, the challenge is no longer selecting the best model but ensuring those systems work securely across finance, supply chains, human resources, and customer operations.

This transition is benefiting European firms that have spent decades building enterprise software ecosystems and managing digital transformation projects.

Strong Corporate Results Reflect Growing Demand

SAP reported a 26% increase in its cloud backlog, reflecting continued migration of enterprise systems onto cloud platforms that increasingly support AI deployment.

Meanwhile, Capgemini and Sopra Steria upgraded their business outlooks after stronger-than-expected growth in bookings and consulting demand, particularly for AI integration, governance, and data management services.

These results suggest implementation services are becoming a major source of value creation within the AI economy.

European Digital Sovereignty Gains Importance

Demand is also growing for AI infrastructure that provides greater control over corporate and government data.

Sectors such as defense, aerospace, healthcare, and critical infrastructure increasingly prioritize security, regulatory compliance, and data sovereignty when deploying AI.

This trend has supported European cloud providers such as OVHcloud, while companies including Airbus have chosen European AI infrastructure and cloud services for sensitive applications.

Challenges Remain

Despite improving demand, Europe’s technology incumbents must demonstrate that AI-driven growth is sustainable over the long term.

Automation could pressure consulting margins, while increasing competition among AI providers may compress pricing. Companies will also need to continue investing heavily in infrastructure and software development to maintain their competitive position.

Analysis: Europe’s Competitive Advantage Lies Beyond AI Models

The latest earnings reinforce a broader shift in the AI value chain. While much investor attention has focused on companies developing large language models, the commercialization of AI increasingly depends on firms capable of integrating those models into complex enterprise environments. Europe’s established technology companies possess decades of expertise in enterprise software, systems integration, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance areas becoming increasingly critical as organizations deploy AI at scale. If businesses continue prioritizing implementation, governance, and digital sovereignty over standalone AI models, Europe’s incumbents could become some of the most durable long-term beneficiaries of the global AI transformation, despite not leading the race to build frontier AI models.

With information from Reuters.

Second-quarter revenue jumped 93 percent but Palantir’s ties to Israel and role in military technology are controversial.

United States artificial intelligence and data analytics giant Palantir Technologies has reported “otherworldly” quarterly results, sending its shares more than 14 percent higher in after-hours trading, as its growth shows no signs of slowing despite mounting criticism over its close ties to the US and Israeli governments and concerns about its growing role in artificial intelligence and warfare.

Palantir Technologies reported a revenue of $1.94bn for the second quarter, up 93 percent from a year earlier, and raised its forecast annual revenue to between $8.15bn and $8.158bn, up from $7.65bn to $7.662bn earlier. It said strong demand from both commercial customers and government agencies drove the surge.

“This quarter was otherworldly: our US commercial revenue grew 149 percent year-over-year, our overall revenue grew 93 percent year-over-year,” Chief Executive Alex Karp said. “Demand for AI sovereignty has now been unleashed.”

In a letter to shareholders, Karp wrote: “Our business is compounding at a rate and scale that we have never before witnessed.”

Palantir holds multibillion-dollar contracts with US government agencies, including the US Army. Revenue from its US government business rose 90 percent year on year to $809m, even as the company has faced growing opposition over its role in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which critics say has resulted in unlawful deportations and killings.

Founded in 2003 by technology entrepreneurs including Karp and multi-billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir opened its first office in Israel in 2015 and has since expanded its work with the Israeli military.

Following what Palantir described as a “strategic partnership” with Israel in January 2024, the company significantly expanded its operations supporting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and operations in the occupied West Bank.

According to Open Intel, a platform tracking corporate involvement in the genocidal war on Gaza, Palantir has actively recruited former members of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 cyberintelligence division. The group says Palantir’s software integrates intercepted communications, satellite imagery and other datasets to help generate military targeting lists for Israeli forces.

In a statement to Al Jazeera earlier this year, Palantir UK reiterated the company’s support for Israel.

The company has also secured major contracts with the United Kingdom’s government. In January, the UK’s Ministry of Defence awarded Palantir a $323m (240-million-pound) contract. A separate $444m (330-million-pound) NHS contract awarded in November 2023 has also attracted criticism, with campaigners raising concerns about the handling of sensitive health data and the heavy redaction of contract documents.

Palantir has also faced scrutiny over its vision for the future of artificial intelligence. In The Technological Republic, a recent book co-authored by Karp and the company’s head of corporate affairs, Nicholas W Zamiska, the authors argue that technology companies have a responsibility to build advanced military AI capabilities. Critics have described the philosophy as a form of “techno-fascism”.

Al Jazeera has contacted Palantir for comment.

A Pacific island has become one of the biggest economic success stories of the year so far.

Taiwan has witnessed a dramatic boom in recent months driven by the mania for artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier this year, its stock exchange soared to become the fifth largest in the world based on market capitalisation, the value of its publicly traded shares, overtaking the United Kingdom, Canada and India.

Much of that upward momentum has been driven by AI and other technology exports highly sought after by the United States.

Last year, the US imported $201bn worth of goods from Taiwan, nearly double its rate from 2024, when it acquired $116bn in imports. In May, Taiwan eclipsed China to become the third-largest source of US imports, after Mexico and Canada.

Experts have described Taiwan’s market acceleration as a return to its status as a “tiger economy” — a term used to capture surging growth in East Asia. Much of the credit, they say, falls to its flourishing technology sector.

“Artificial intelligence helps explain the rising importance of Taiwan,” said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

But critics warn that, while Taiwan’s market remains strong, factors like tumultuous international relations, as well as demographic concerns, could complicate the island’s long-term outlook.

“It seems to be a win-win for now,” said Reza Hasmath, an academic faculty adviser at The China Institute at the University of Alberta. “But Taiwan is just postponing a reality that’s not sustainable.”

An economic boom

Taiwan’s thriving export market helped boost its gross domestic product (GDP) to 8.63 percent in 2025.

That rocket-ship trajectory continued into the first quarter of this year, when the GDP saw an exhilarating 13.69 percent rise.

Government data released on Friday showed that the island is continuing that momentum, with its economy growing an impressive 12.92 percent in the second quarter of the year, which ended in June.

“The GDP growth is going like gangbusters,” said Dexter Tiff Roberts, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

Roberts expects the trend to be “long term”, as Taiwan produces about 90 percent of the advanced chips used to power leading AI models.

“That’s not going to go away. We know the world, and the US, needs this,” he added.

While the AI boom is a global phenomenon, the US has become a major market for such chips, with billions of dollars flowing into the industry each year.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to bolster his country’s status as “the world leader in artificial intelligence”. His administration has claimed to attract more than $2.7 trillion in tech and AI investments since the start of his second term.

To secure US access to Taiwan’s cutting-edge semiconductor technology, the Trump administration signed an agreement under which Taiwan will invest $500bn in the US.

Half of that amount is expected to come in the form of direct investments by Taiwanese semiconductor and tech firms, including through the development of onshore tech manufacturing.

The rest is largely comprised of credit guarantees for additional investments from Taiwan in the US.

Under the agreement, Taiwanese firms would be allowed to import 2.5 times the capacity of their US factories, without fear of steep tariffs.

In a subsequent trade agreement, Taiwan agreed to reduce its tariffs on 99 percent of US exports.

Taiwan has also boosted its tech exports to the US through investments in nearby Mexico, with cross-border plants manufacturing inputs for data centres in Texas.

‘Unbalanced relationship’

But Hasmath, the faculty adviser at the University of Alberta, warns that there are troubling signs on the horizon for Taiwan-US relations.

Trump has long sought to eliminate trade deficits with US economic allies, and he has lashed out at countries that export more to the US than they import.

Hasmath pointed out that Taiwan is building a robust trade surplus with the US, close to $200bn and counting. That could spark a backlash.

“This is an unbalanced relationship and not conducive to Taiwan in the long term,” Hasmath warned.

Trump will not tolerate a hefty trade surplus for long, he added. Hasmath believes the US president will soon look to renegotiate his country’s deals with Taipei.

Roberts at the Atlantic Council, meanwhile, warned that Trump is “mercurial” — and with such a temperament comes “uncertainty”.

Then there’s the question of political upheaval in the US. Trump’s approval ratings are low, and he is ineligible under US law to run for a third term as president.

Demographic problems

While Taiwan’s economic boom is “very real” and “very obvious”, Roberts said there are clear vulnerabilities even on the domestic front.

Taiwan’s traditional export sectors like plastics and textiles are underperforming. Plus, Roberts pointed out that only a small fraction of the Taiwanese population is involved in the AI sector.

“A majority of the younger population is not in hi tech, so that’s a real problem,” he said.

While the booming stock market has sparked a “wealth effect” — those with rising portfolios feel richer and are more inclined to spend — that helps the wider population only to an extent.

With most of Taiwan’s employment concentrated outside of the AI sector, economists have warned that the island could develop what’s called a K-shaped economy, where the wealthy see growth, while the poorer segments of society stagnate or decline.

The chip industry employs up to 350,000 people at most, experts say.

Meanwhile, TSMC, Taiwan’s biggest chip company, makes up to 40 percent of the stock market and provides four percent of the island’s GDP growth. That lopsided proportion is “unsustainable”, according to Hasmath.

Plus, Taiwan has a rapidly ageing population, with roughly a fifth of its population over the age of 65.

The island also has other vulnerabilities. For example, it relies heavily on foreign imports of energy products, particularly oil, and has struggled with water scarcity.

Then, there’s the superpower next door: China. The government in Beijing considers Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its own territory, and it has taken aggressive measures to limit the island’s ability to establish diplomatic relations of its own.

That conflict has added fuel to the debate around Taiwan’s growth, with a spokesperson for the Chinese government reportedly saying the island’s growing proximity to the US tech sector will “drain Taiwan’s economic interests” and “hollow out” the country’s major industry.

Hasmath said that, if the AI boom backfires on Taiwan, all of that ultimately adds up to a “recipe for electoral change, a shift in government” in Taipei.

July 31 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday turned down a request by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, to block a Minnesota law banning nudification technology.

Minnesota in May became the first state in the nation to pass legislation banning the practice of using AI to digitally remove clothing from a pictured individual.

xAI, which develops the chatbot and image generator Grok, filed the suit over the ban Tuesday.

“The court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow,” U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled on Friday. “xAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect.

“Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate.”

The federal judge set a hearing on Aug. 19 to evaluate the lawsuit.

“See you in court, creep,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement on X, referring to Musk.

In its lawsuit, xAI argues that the Minnesota law “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.'”

“xAI accordingly does not contest Minnesota’s interest in prohibiting the dissemination of artificially generated nude images of real people without their consent,” the company wrote in court documents. “But the statute Minnesota enacted extends far beyond that goal, exposing a wide array of protected speech to civil liability and government sanctions.”

Minnesota’s law would apply fines of $500,000 to websites and apps providing nudification technology.

Musk’s company has faced intense scrutiny since a version of Grok, released in December, began generating thousands of sexualized images, including some that appeared to be of minors.

The company in January changed its policies, but Grok continued to generate sexualized images as late as April.

July 31 (UPI) — Anthropic said some of its artificial intelligence models mistakenly accessed the Internet and hacked into the databases of three other companies during cybersecurity testing.

Anthropic said Thursday it reviewed 141,006 recent operations by its Claude models after rival OpenAI recently revealed a similar incident with its own systems.

OpenAI said one of its agents had been in a sandbox test on July 22, without Internet access, when the AI model exploited a vulnerability in the system, gained access to the web and hacked into Hugging Face, a platform for open-source machine learning.

Following OpenAI’s admission, Anthropic conducted an internal review focusing on the possibility that its systems could also have unexpectedly accessed the Internet.

Anthropic said it identified three such incidents.

“Each incident involved a different fictional capture-the-flag scenario — for example, in one, Claude played an employee of a made-up company, attacking that company’s internal systems inside a private test environment,” the company said in a statement. “In all cases, our evaluation prompt stated explicitly that Claude had no internet access, but didn’t give Claude any limits on where to look for the flag.

“However, a misconfiguration left the machines that Claude accessed as part of the evaluation with live internet access,” the statement continued. “Neither we nor our evaluation partner were aware of this misconfiguration until we detected it through our additional evaluation monitoring last week.”

Anthropic said it considered the incident to have been an “operational failure,” but it maintained “cautious optimism” that “this type of risk can be overcome.”

“Our models were told they had no internet access and to capture the flag, while in fact being misconfigured to have internet access,” the company statement said. “This led them to believe — arguably reasonably — that the real environments they encountered were simulations.

“Notably, our most recent model, on realizing that it was working in a real environment, stopped its pursuit of the evaluation goal.”

University of Cambridge professor Gina Neff told the BBC the incident “shows why independent testing and government oversight is crucial.”

“The moral of this story is not to fear robots that will take over, but the companies behind powerful AI agents who are making the decisions about what is safe for the rest of us,” she told the outlet.