The UN will hold a high-level meeting of the General Assembly on 16–17 December 2025 to conclude the WSIS+20 review, marking 20 years since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) outlined a global vision for an inclusive and people-centred information society. The review assesses the progress made by countries and stakeholders in implementing the WSIS outcomes agreed upon in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.
The WSIS+20 process examines the progress made over the past two decades while also identifying remaining challenges, including persistent digital divides, gaps in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the need to harness digital tools more effectively for sustainable development. The high-level meeting will feature four plenary sessions with statements from UN member states, observers, and other stakeholders, in line with a recent General Assembly resolution.
A key outcome of the meeting will be the adoption of a final WSIS+20 outcome document, which will reflect on achievements so far and outline priorities for future action. Alongside the main sessions, a series of in-person, virtual, and off-site side events starting on 15 December 2025 will showcase innovations, share experiences, highlight emerging digital issues, and announce voluntary commitments aimed at strengthening an inclusive and development-oriented information society.
Diplo and the Geneva Internet Platform will provide just-in-time reporting from the high-level meeting. Bookmark this page; more details will be available soon.
Google has released a new AI playbook aimed at helping organisations streamline and improve sustainability reporting, sharing lessons learned from integrating AI into its own environmental disclosure processes.
In a blog post published on The Keyword, Google states that corporate sustainability reporting is often hindered by fragmented data and labour-intensive workflows. After two years of using AI internally, the company is now open-sourcing its approach to help others reduce reporting burdens.
The AI Playbook for Sustainability Reporting is presented as a practical, implementation-focused toolkit. It includes a structured framework for auditing reporting processes, along with ready-made prompt templates for common sustainability reporting tasks.
Google also highlights real-world examples that demonstrate how tools such as Gemini and NotebookLM can be used to validate sustainability claims, respond to information requests, and support internal review, moving AI use beyond experimentation.
The company says the playbook is intended to support transparency and strategic decision-making, and has invited organisations and practitioners to explore the resource and provide feedback.
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The US tech company, Oracle, has expanded Oracle Database@Google Cloud to India, making the service available through Google Cloud’s Mumbai region.
Enterprises can access Oracle Exadata, Autonomous AI Database and AI Lakehouse services while keeping data in the region to meet sovereignty and regulatory requirements.
The multicloud offering allows organisations to combine Oracle enterprise data with Google Cloud analytics and AI tools, including BigQuery, Vertex AI and Gemini models.
Customers can modernise applications and migrate mission-critical workloads without sacrificing performance, security or low-latency access.
Oracle Database@Google Cloud is available through the Google Cloud Marketplace, enabling customers to procure services via trusted partners instead of navigating complex contracting models.
Oracle and Google Cloud partners can also integrate the service into broader multicloud solutions.
The launch reflects growing demand for flexible multicloud architectures in India, supporting AI-driven innovation, advanced analytics and accelerated IT modernisation across regulated and data-intensive industries.
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NVIDIA has announced the acquisition of SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, a widely used open-source workload manager for high-performance computing and AI environments.
The company stated that Slurm will continue to be developed and distributed as open-source, vendor-neutral software, with support maintained across a broad range of hardware and software platforms used by the HPC and AI communities.
Slurm plays a central role in managing complex workloads on large computing clusters, handling job scheduling, queuing, and resource allocation. It is used by more than half of the top 10 and top 100 systems on the TOP500 supercomputer list, reflecting its widespread adoption and significant impact.
NVIDIA stated that the software is also critical infrastructure for generative AI, helping developers manage large-scale model training and inference. The company has collaborated with SchedMD for over a decade and plans to increase investment in Slurm’s ongoing development.
SchedMD said the deal will enable Slurm to evolve in tandem with accelerated computing demands while remaining open source. NVIDIA said it will continue to provide support, training, and development to existing customers across various use cases, including research, industry, and public sectors.
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Visa has launched a Stablecoins Advisory Practice through its Visa Consulting & Analytics unit, reflecting rising institutional interest in stablecoin-based payment infrastructure. The service aims to help banks, fintech firms, merchants, and enterprises assess strategy, market fit and implementation.
The move comes as the global stablecoin market exceeds $250 billion in value and emerging reports of an annualised stablecoin settlement run rate of $3.5 billion as of late November. According to the company, demand is rising among financial institutions exploring faster and lower-cost payment rails.
Visa Consulting & Analytics will offer services ranging from market education and strategy development to use case sizing and technical integration. The programme draws on Visa’s network of consultants, data scientists and product specialists to support clients navigating regulatory and operational complexity.
Several financial institutions have already participated in early engagements, citing the need for clearer frameworks as stablecoins gain traction in cross-border payments and digital finance. The advisory practice reflects broader efforts to support responsible adoption alongside emerging standards.
Visa has previously piloted stablecoin settlement using USDC and now supports more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programmes across 40 countries. The company is also testing stablecoin-based pre-funding for international payouts.
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The third UK-EU Cyber Dialogue was held in Brussels on 9 and 10 December 2025, bringing together senior officials under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement to strengthen cooperation on cybersecurity and digital resilience.
The meeting was co-chaired by Andrew Whittaker from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Irfan Hemani from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, alongside EU representatives from the European External Action Service and the European Commission.
Officials from Europol and ENISA also participated, reinforcing operational and regulatory coordination rather than fragmented policy approaches.
Discussions covered cyber legislation, deterrence strategies, countering cybercrime, incident response and cyber capacity development, with an emphasis on maintaining strong security standards while reducing unnecessary compliance burdens on industry.
Both sides confirmed that the next UK-EU Cyber Dialogue will take place in London in 2026.
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US credit reporting company 700Credit has confirmed a data breach affecting more than 5.6 million individuals after attackers exploited a compromised third-party API used to exchange consumer data with external integration partners.
An incident that originated from a supply chain failure after one partner was breached earlier in 2025 and failed to notify 700Credit.
The attackers launched a sustained, high-volume data extraction campaign starting on October 25, 2025, which operated for more than two weeks before access was shut down.
Around 20 percent of consumer records were accessed, exposing names, home addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, while internal systems, payment platforms and login credentials were not compromised.
Despite the absence of financial system access, the exposed personal data significantly increases the risk of identity theft and sophisticated phishing attacks impersonating credit reporting services.
The breach has been reported to the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI, with regulators coordinating responses through industry bodies representing affected dealerships.
Individuals impacted by the incident are currently being notified and offered two years of free credit monitoring, complimentary credit reports and access to a dedicated support line.
Authorities have urged recipients to act promptly by monitoring their credit activity and taking protective measures to minimise the risk of fraud.
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Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have created an AI tool called Variant to Phenotype (V2P) that can identify genetic mutations and predict the diseases they may cause, bolstering the field of genetic diagnostics.
The V2P method is designed to accelerate diagnosis and facilitate the discovery of new treatments for complex and rare diseases by comprehensively interpreting genomic data, surpassing the limitations of traditional techniques that often focus solely on mutation detection without predicting phenotypic effects.
This innovation could enhance clinical decision-making by linking specific genetic variants directly to disease risk, helping clinicians prioritise variants for further study and informing patients about likely outcomes sooner.
The findings were published online in Nature Communications, marking a notable advancement in how AI can support precision medicine and research for rare diseases.
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Libraries Connected, supported by a £310,400 grant from the UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund administered by the Department for Science, Industry and Technology (DSIT), is launching Innovating in Trusted Spaces: Libraries Advancing the Digital Inclusion Action Plan.
The programme will run from November 2025 to March 2026 across 121 library branches in Newcastle, Northumberland, Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire, targeting older people, low-income families and individuals with disabilities to ensure they are not left behind amid rapid digital and AI-driven change.
Public libraries are already a leading provider of free internet access and basic digital skills support, offering tens of thousands of public computers and learning opportunities each year. However, only around 27 percent of UK adults currently feel confident in recognising AI-generated content online, underscoring the need for improved digital and media literacy.
The project will create and test a new digital inclusion guide for library staff, focusing on the benefits and risks of AI tools, misinformation and emerging technologies, as well as building a national network of practice for sharing insights.
Partners in the programme include Good Things Foundation and WSA Community, which will help co-design materials and evaluate the initiative’s impact to inform future digital inclusion efforts across communities.
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SoundCloud has confirmed a recent security incident that temporarily affected platform availability and involved the limited exposure of user data. The company detected unauthorised activity on an ancillary service dashboard and acted immediately to contain the situation.
Third-party cybersecurity experts were engaged to investigate and support the response. The incident resulted in two brief denial-of-service attacks, temporarily disrupting web access.
Approximately 20% of users were affected; however, no sensitive data, such as passwords or financial details, were compromised. Only email addresses and publicly visible profile information were involved.
In response, SoundCloud has strengthened its systems, enhancing monitoring, reviewing identity and access controls, and auditing related systems. Some configuration updates have led to temporary VPN connectivity issues, which the company is working to resolve.
SoundCloud emphasises that user privacy remains a top priority and encourages vigilance against phishing. The platform will continue to provide updates and take steps to minimise the risk of future incidents.
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