EU Tech Policy

Macron wants EU to target US Big Tech after new Trump tariff threat

French President Emmanuel Macron has told his ministers that the European Union should consider retaliatory measures against the U.S. digital sector after President Donald Trump threatened additional tariffs over tech regulation and taxes, according to a senior French government official. “The European Union has a big trade deficit with the United States, we need to focus on this,” Macron was quoted as saying, referring to the EU’s negative trade balance in services with the United States. The bloc has a trade surplus in goods, such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals and food that Trump wants to get down. Access full article in POLITICO >> 

EU industry chief warns of US trade deal review if Trump’s tech demands continue

The trade deal between the European Union and the United States will “have to be reviewed” if the U.S. is serious about its demands for the EU to deregulate its tech sector, the EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné said on Wednesday. Late on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries with regulatory or tax burdens on American tech companies. The Trump White House has been pushing the EU to drop some of these policies since it took office. But their exclusion from the trade deal, a joint statement on which was released last week, was celebrated as a win by the European Commission. Access full article in POLITICO >> 

EU resists Trump: Tech regulation is our ‘sovereign’ right

The European Commission on Tuesday defended the bloc’s right to set and enforce its own tech rules, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on countries with digital policies he considers “discriminatory.” “It is the sovereign right of the EU and its member states to regulate economic activities on our territory, which are consistent with our democratic values,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said during an afternoon briefing. Access full article in POLITICO >>

Data Centres: Blank spots in Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe remain underserved by data centres, despite favourable conditions, a new mapping tool shows. Now, as the European Union prepares to invest €20 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) gigafactories, Poland and the Baltics are pushing to secure investment and strengthen the region’s digital sovereignty. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy and AI Observatory recently published a report on data centre availability in Europe, covering both existing and planned facilities. It’s known that data centres, especially specialised types of data centres that are optimised for AI and HPC, are best suited to colder climates with abundant water resources. Yet, currently, most hubs remain concentrated in Western and Southern Europe, while Central and Eastern Europe remain largely underserved. The European Commission’s decisions regarding the upcoming AI gigafactories will be of crucial importance, signalling the bloc’s trust in and willingness to invest in its eastern flank. Access full article in Euronews >> 

TikTok booms in Europe despite threat of U.S. ban 

TikTok’s operations in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Latin America more than doubled revenues since 2022, according to filings submitted to Companies House, the U.K’s corporate registry (though it still isn’t profitable). Late last year, the European Commission opened proceedings against TikTok for allegedly failing to mitigate election integrity risks by allowing, for instance, fake accounts on the platform to influence the outcome of the 2024 Romanian presidential election. TikTok has taken steps in recent years to reduce Chinese access to European user data. The company launched a data center in Norway earlier this year, and announced plans to follow it with a second data center in Finland. Those efforts might mitigate the risk of some fines and penalties, but the company could also face a fine of up to 6% of its annual revenue for failures to comply with the European Digital Services Act’s requirement to publicly report information about its advertisers. Access article in Forbes >> 

‘By choosing AI for its remembrance policy, the French government is automating an intellectual process’

On May 27, France’s National Resistance Day, the French government released a video recounting the life of a Resistance member during the Occupation. Created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), the video contained historical inaccuracies. Notably, it ended with a scene of the Liberation featuring a soldier from the Wehrmacht, the German army during World War II. The video was criticized for blurring the line between truth and falsehood and was subsequently withdrawn. Historian Frédéric Clavert writes that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by French ministries to create commemorative videos can result in highly questionable outcomes. Access paywall article in Le Monde >>

US Tech Policy

Trump threatens ‘substantial’ new tariffs against countries with ‘discriminatory’ digital rules

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to “impose substantial additional Tariffs” and stop selling tech and chips to countries with digital rules he deems discriminatory to American companies. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country’s Exports to the U.S.A., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips.” Access full article in POLITICO >> 

Trump turns $11.1B in US government funds into a 10% stake in downtrodden Intel

President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company’s CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job. The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece — a discount from Friday’s closing price at $24.80. That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper. Access full article in the Associated Press >>

Trump wants more deals like Intel’s, worrying business community

The administration’s approach upends a decades-old view of the U.S. economy, in which the government only took corporate stakes in rare emergencies like the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent bailout of U.S. auto companies. Intel is struggling, but still has a cash cushion of $9 billion and a market value of $105 billion. To critics, the Intel move threatens the U.S. business world. “We’re moving from a pure capitalistic economy to a much more state-engaged economy… That’s a huge change for America and over where we’ve been. I’ve never seen an era like this,” said Bill George, former Medtronic CEO and executive education fellow at Harvard Business School. Columbia Business School professor Shivaram Rajgopal said on balance he thinks the Intel deal is a good way to support the chipmaking industry, noting how other companies benefit from favorable policies, such as Amazon not having to collect sales tax in many states for years. “That enabled Amazon to become a giant. Why is taking a 10% equity stake in Intel any worse?” Access full article in Reuters >>

Trump weighs using $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding for critical minerals

The Trump administration is considering a plan to reallocate at least $2 billion from the CHIPS Act to fund critical minerals projects and boost Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s influence over the strategic sector. The Commerce Department oversees the $52.7 billion CHIPS Act, formally known as the CHIPS and Science Act. The act, signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in 2022, has provided funding so far for research while also seeking to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor production. Access full article in Reuters >>

The US is closer than ever to breaking up Google

The D.C. court is expected to rule by Monday on whether to order Google to spin off its Chrome browser, one of the most valuable patches of online real estate, following its 2024 finding that the firm holds an illegal monopoly in search and a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to do so. Viewed from Brussels, which is chewing over its own late-stage antitrust case against Google’s market dominance, a court-ordered sale of Chrome would be a convenient result — especially as the European Commission faces heat from the Trump administration to lay off on Big Tech enforcement. Access full article in POLITICO >> 

Tech Policy Other Regions

China could move away from Nvidia AI chips after brash ‘addiction’ comments from US Commerce Secretary

Reports indicate comments made by U. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in mid-July 2025 were viewed as both “insulting” and brash by China’s government. In a televised interview, Lutnick stated Washington’s strategy was to ensure Chinese developers became “addicted” to the American technology stack. “We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second-best stuff, not even our third-best,” Lutnick had told CNBC. The Chinese considered this remark unnecessarily arrogant, and it is now engineering a move that presents sustained sales headwinds for Nvidia, a company that has long viewed the country as a major market. Washington and Beijing had previously struck a framework agreement earlier in 2025 allowing H20 sales to resume in China while Beijing restored some rare earth exports. That deal was interpreted as a step toward stabilizing relations. Yet by late July 2025, Chinese regulators such as the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Technology began advising firms to halt new H20 orders. Alongside the restrictions, Beijing has promoted the use of domestic chips, including those from Huawei. However, doubts remain about their effectiveness, and DeepSeek had to delay the launch of its new R2 model after difficulties training with Huawei Ascend processors. Access full article in Tech Radar >> 

What to know about China’s new regulations on rare earths

China released new interim measures on 22 August tightening controls on mining and processing of rare earths that are used in many high-tech products including electric vehicles, smartphones and fighter jets. The rules released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology apply both to rare earths originating in China and those that are sent to China for refining. They require companies to comply with quotas for various minerals. Companies must have government approval to deal with rare earths and must accurately report the amount of rare earths products being handled. Violators will face legal penalties and also have their quotas for rare earths reduced. Access full article in the Associated Press >> 

Humain plans to use US chips in new Saudi Arabia AI data centres

New AI company Humain begins data centre construction in Saudi Arabia and plans to have them up and running in early 2026, using semiconductors imported from the US. Company CEO Tareq Amin says Humain is in the process of procuring semiconductors for its new data centres from US chipmakers, including Nvidia, with the company having received local regulatory approval to purchase 18,000 of Nvidia’s latest AI chips. Humain is owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and was launched in May 2025. US President Donald Trump visited around a similar time and announced the kingdom’s US$600 billion commitment to invest in the US to build economic ties and strengthen technology leadership and access to global infrastructure. Access full article in Capacity Media >> 

Market Trends

Is the AI bubble bursting? Lessons from the dot-com era

The stocks of the seven big tech companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla make up more than a third of the S&P 500, with recent growth driven by an AI story. Investors are becoming uneasy with this level of concentration. At the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the top technology stocks from the late 1990s (Cisco, Dell, Intel, Lucent and Microsoft) accounted for 15% of the index. Such concentration heightens risk. The parallels do not stop there. A massive telecommunications infrastructure buildout ushered in the e-commerce era. The world needed the internet pipes to enable high-speed connectivity. This triggered an overly optimistic deployment of fiber optic networks, which led to catastrophic bankruptcies when the demand did not materialize in the short term. Today, the leading AI companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new data centers. The total capital spending in this area is being discussed in the trillions of dollars, figures that were once only associated with large countries’ GDPs. Meanwhile, the connectivity boom and investments from a quarter century ago enabled the always-on world we live in today. Access full article in Forbes >>

6 Takeaways About The Meta/Google Cloud AI Deal

The $10 billion deal with Google is part of a Meta plan to invest a total of over $100 billion in AI. Zuckerberg has repeatedly talked about this kind of scaling up, as the company lays off significant numbers of human workers, moves the survivors to departments that are heavier on AI and automates business processes. The deal also lasts until 2031. Another thing to know about this deal is that it is, to some extent, a stopgap solution and part of the greater debate for large companies like Meta about “build vs. buy” — that is, whether it is better to use an outside vendor’s resources or build them internally. That extends to models as well as data centers: as LLMs became more ubiquitous, companies had to decide whether to run their AI applications on someone else’s model or build one themselves. In terms of data center planning, Meta already has fairly concrete plans for Prometheus and Hyperion, which are projected to provide 1 gigawatt and 5 gigawatts, respectively, over time. So after that six years, we could see a very different landscape emerging. Access full article in Forbes >> 

Google wants you to know the environmental cost of quizzing its AI

Every time you ask Google’s Gemini a query, it takes the same amount of energy as watching nine seconds of TV. That’s what the tech giant says in a new report detailing the energy consumption, emissions and water use of its generative artificial intelligence. A single Gemini text query emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent and consumes about five drops of water. Google, which included its methodology in the report and the formulas it used, says other tech companies don’t disclose the energy demands of their power-hungry AI models with this much detail, but it is hoping that will change. “As a community, as an industry, we’re not very consistent about how we measure energy,” said Parthasarathy Ranganathan, who helped conduct Google’s research. This summer Google said in an environmental report that its emissions have jumped 51% since 2019 because of AI needs. But the AI-focused report from August says Google’s AI systems are becoming more efficient. The company said that the energy required to power a median Gemini text prompt decreased by 97% in the past year. “While the impact of a single prompt is low compared to many daily activities, the immense scale of user adoption globally means that continued focus on reducing the environmental cost of AI is imperative,” the report said. Access full article in The Wall Street Journal >> 

Anthropic’s Claude AI can now end abusive conversations for ‘model welfare’

In a recent update, the company introduced what it calls an experiment in “model welfare,” giving its Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 models the power to end conversations outright. According to the company, this “pull-the-plug” feature activates only in extreme cases when users repeatedly push for harmful or abusive content, such as child exploitation or terrorism, and only after multiple refusals and redirections have failed. When Claude decides enough is enough, the chat ends immediately. Users can’t continue the chat thread, although they’re free to start a new one. The company is explicit about its uncertainty and admits it does not know whether AI systems like Claude deserve any kind of moral consideration. Yet during testing, Claude reportedly displayed what Anthropic described as “apparent distress” when pushed to generate harmful material. “Claude Opus 4 showed a strong preference against engaging with harmful tasks,” Anthropic explained in a blog post. “Claude is only to use its conversation-ending ability as a last resort when multiple attempts at redirection have failed and hope of a productive interaction has been exhausted.” The company frames the safeguard as a “low-cost insurance” against the possibility that advanced AI systems could one day develop preferences, or even a rudimentary sense of well-being. Access full article in Forbes >> 

German drone producer Quantum Systems spreads its wings in Ukraine

Ukraine’s voracious appetite for killer drones, its tech arms race against Russia and the battlefield experience it gives manufacturers make it crucial for companies to be present there. That’s why Germany’s Quantum Systems is ramping up its production inside Ukraine as well as bolstering cooperation with its plants in Germany. Being in Ukraine is vital to any military drone maker. “The whole development in the drone industry is coming right from the Donbas, not from Silicon Valley,” said Matthias Lehna, Quantum’s director for business development and government relations. While NATO helps sets the standards for military gear, rapid development needs field testing in the frontline conditions of Ukraine. Access to full article in POLITICO >> 

Saudi Arabia’s Humain launches first Arabic chatbot with ‘Islamic values’

Humain, a Saudi Arabia-based artificial intelligence company, has launched Humain Chat, an Arabic language conversational AI app for Arabs and Muslims. According to Humain, the chatbot is powered by ALLAM 34B, the most advanced large language model ever built in the Arab world, and trained on more than eight petabytes of data –  the largest known Arabic dataset to date. It has been designed to deliver culturally fluent, bilingual interactions rooted in Arabic heritage and identity. It also allows users to interact fluidly in Arabic and English, switch languages mid-conversation, and receive real-time search-integrated responses. “The launch marks a turning point in generative AI for the Arabic-speaking world, bringing long-overdue linguistic and cultural inclusion to the digital age,” said Tareq Amin, CEO of Humain. Access full article in The Indian Express >> 

Why Visa plans to open its first African data centre

If you’ve ever wondered why some payments feel slower or costlier in Africa than elsewhere, here’s a clue. Until now, most transactions were routed through data centres in the U.S., U.K., and Singapore. That’s a long way for your money to travel. For Visa, and frankly for anyone trying to scale payments across the continent, that’s a problem. So this July, Visa opened its first African data centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, investing ~$54 million to build a stronger local backbone for more than 350 million unbanked African adults. But if we zoom out, what Visa is doing is part of a trend where the world’s biggest tech companies are finally treating Africa as a serious digital market. The continent hosts just 229 data centers across 39 countries—less than 2% of the world’s total capacity. For companies like Visa, Microsoft, or Google, there’s no scaling payments, cloud, or AI without first fixing that bottleneck. Another reason could be politics. Governments across the continent are pushing for data sovereignty. Access full article in Technloy >> 

Geopolitics

EU moves closer to using Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine

The European Commission is devising a scheme to transfer almost €200 billion in Russian immobilized assets to rebuild Ukraine at the end of the war. Talks will come to a head on 30 August when the EU’s 27 foreign ministers debate the option for the first time during an informal gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark. With Ukraine facing an estimated €8 billion budget shortfall in 2026, EU countries are looking for new ideas to continue funding the war-battered country amid squeezed domestic budgets and no room to issue EU-wide debt. Despite its economic predicament, Europe faces increased pressure to step up in the face of U.S. disengagement from Ukraine and faltering attempts by President Donald Trump to reach a peace deal. Access full article in POLITICO >> 

France and Germany to provide more air defense hardware to Ukraine

France and Germany will provide more air defense hardware for Ukraine after “massive” Russian airstrikes in recent days, the key EU members said in a joint statement on Friday, August 29. “France and Germany will provide additional air defense to Ukraine,” they said, after President Emmanuel Macron hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for a visit to the south of France. “Despite intensive international diplomatic efforts, Russia shows no intention to end its war of aggression against Ukraine,” they added. The two countries added that France – the EU’s only nuclear-armed power – and Germany are to open a “strategic dialogue” over nuclear deterrence in light of shared security challenges.  The goal will be developing a “common strategic culture, further interlinking our security and defense objectives and strategies,” they said. The two countries noted that nuclear deterrence is a “cornerstone” of NATO security. Access full article in Le Monde >> 

US deploys three warships off Venezuelan coast to escalate pressure on Maduro

US President Donald Trump is deploying three warships off the coast of Venezuela as part of efforts to curb drug trafficking. The deployment of three Aegis-class guided missile destroyers comes as Donald Trump has pushed for using the US military to thwart cartels he blames for the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into American communities. US media reported that Washington was also planning to send 4,000 Marines to the region. Maduro said that he would be deploying 4.5 million militia members across Venezuela in response to US “threats.” Access full article in Le Monde >>

---

---