Technopolitik

NEW - 🇨🇳🇺🇸 A Chinese university with ties to the People's Liberation Army bought Nvidia's H200 AI chips last month despite being on a US export blacklist, according to procurement records cited by Reuters.

NEW - AST SpaceMobile and Rakuten are forming a joint venture, Rakuten AST, to build a satellite-to-phone network for Japan. Japan's government will give the venture up to approximately $1 billion over about three years. AST SpaceMobile will supply the satellites, which connect directly to regular smartphones.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp: Palantir is used heavily in France and in other places in Europe where we're contractually not allowed to mention. There's a difference between surveillance under the context of a legal mandate and surveillance where there's no legal mandate.

NEW - Palantir alumni raise $300 million to 'Awaken' Europe’s defense supply chain. Dutch startup Onodrim plans to buy controlling stakes in dual-use suppliers and help them expand production as European defense manufacturers face record order backlogs.

Bill Gates says governments should keep some jobs off-limits to AI. He has proposed “Human Reserved” jobs, roles society keeps for people even when AI could do them, such as childcare and jury service. In one version of the proposal, he said up to 40% of jobs could be reserved for humans.

NEW - The Financial Times reports that Alice Huang, who US intelligence suspects was spying on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, told China-based investors in early 2025 that she and business partner Kang Wei had “no problem securing GPUs” for a Southeast Asian data center project.

Britain's growth minister says the UK will not slow its data center expansion as US voters turn against data centers. The UK is targeting 6 GW of computing capacity by 2030, with plans for lower energy costs and priority grid connections.

A hacker in Taiwan used BOSSAI, a 12-agent AI attack mesh, to attack Taiwan’s emergency services while targeting hundreds of banks, universities, military systems and other organizations across 11 countries. The hacker controlled a 4090 cluster in Guangzhou.

The number of projects in Türkiye’s defense industry has increased from 62 in 2002 to about 1,500, SSB chief Haluk Görgün says on the agency’s 41st anniversary. Defense and aerospace exports reach $11.357 billion over 12 months. Total project volume stood at about $5.5 billion in 2002.

NEW - U.S. intelligence concluded that Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, who developed close ties with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to spy on him. The operation reportedly aimed to gather intelligence on advanced U.S. AI chips.

NEW: Iran is negotiating with Russia to acquire S-400 air defense systems, according to The Telegraph. Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei reportedly delivered a personal letter from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to Vladimir Putin requesting the systems.

NEW: China is seeking to build AI memory chips using fewer foreign manufacturing tools. Reuters reports that YMTC plans to source up to 70% of the equipment for its next chip factory from Chinese suppliers, up from just over 50% at its third plant.

NEW - Nvidia will make chip tracking a condition for preferred access to its AI GPUs in Southeast Asia, Bloomberg reports, as US authorities intensify efforts to stop chip smuggling into China.

NEW - Anduril is supporting drone defense on NATO's eastern flank in Latvia, integrating its Lattice software with Origin Robotics' autonomous BLAZE interceptor, designed to destroy hostile drones and loitering munitions.

NEW - Chinese AI lab Moonshot, the maker of Kimi AI models, has sought access to Nvidia chips through data centers in Europe. It discussed renting Nvidia Blackwell capacity from European cloud providers this year, according to CNBC. The chips are subject to US export controls.

About 600,000 Nvidia H200 AI chips remain in Hong Kong as Beijing withholds approval for large-scale imports into China, Reuters reports. An eight-chip H200 server now costs over $900,000 on China's unofficial market.

NEW - 🇺🇸 A Democratic lawmaker called for banning artificial superintelligence on the first day Democrats control the US House and Senate.

NEW: 🇬🇧 UK cyber chief warns of a likely AI cyberattack on critical infrastructure by 2028.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 Trump confirmed a U.S. strike on Iran. "They were building an anti-aircraft. We watched it get built.. as soon as it was completed, we hit it last night.."

BREAKING - 🇨🇳 Nvidia has instructed data center partners to reduce business with Chinese customers.