Capacity development

SMEs underinsured as Canada’s cyber landscape shifts

Canada’s cyber insurance market is stabilising, with stronger underwriting, steadier loss trends, and more product choice, the Insurance Bureau of Canada says. But the threat landscape is accelerating as attackers weaponise AI, leaving many small and medium-sized enterprises exposed and underinsured.

Rapid market growth brought painful losses during the ransomware surge: from 2019 to 2023, combined loss ratios averaged about 155%, forcing tighter pricing and coverage. Insurers have recalibrated, yet rising AI-enabled phishing and deepfake impersonations are lifting complexity and potential severity.

Policy is catching up unevenly. Bill C-8 in Canada would revive critical-infrastructure cybersecurity standards, stronger oversight, and baseline rules for risk management and incident reporting. Public–private programmes signal progress but need sustained execution.

SMEs remain the pressure point. Low uptake means minor breaches can cost tens or hundreds of thousands, while severe incidents can be fatal. Underinsurance shifts shock to the wider economy, challenging insurers to balance affordability with long-term viability.

The Bureau urges practical resilience: clearer governance, employee training, incident playbooks, and fit-for-purpose cover. Education campaigns and free guidance aim to demystify coverage, boost readiness, and help SMEs recover faster when attacks hit, supporting a more durable digital economy.

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Australian students get 12 months of Google Gemini Pro at no cost

Google has launched a free twelve-month Gemini Pro plan for students in Australia aged eighteen and over, aiming to make AI-powered learning more accessible.

The offer includes the company’s most advanced tools and features designed to enhance study efficiency and critical thinking.

A key addition is Guided Learning mode, which acts as a personal AI coach. Instead of quick answers, it walks students through complex subjects step by step, encouraging a deeper understanding of concepts.

Gemini now also integrates diagrams, images and YouTube videos into responses to make lessons more visual and engaging.

Students can create flashcards, quizzes and study guides automatically from their own materials, helping them prepare for exams more effectively. The Gemini Pro account upgrade provides access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Deep Research, NotebookLM, Veo 3 for short video creation, and Jules, an AI coding assistant.

With two terabytes of storage and the full suite of Google’s AI tools, the Gemini app aims to support Australian students in their studies and skill development throughout the academic year.

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Meta champions open hardware to power the next generation of AI data centres

The US tech giant, Meta, believes open hardware will define the future of AI data centre infrastructure. Speaking at the Open Compute Project Global Summit, the company outlined a series of innovations designed to make large-scale AI systems more efficient, sustainable, and collaborative.

Meta, one of the OCP’s founding members, said open source hardware remains essential to scaling the physical infrastructure required for the next generation of AI.

During the summit, Meta joined industry peers in supporting OCP’s Open Data Center Initiative, which calls for shared standards in power, cooling, and mechanical design.

The company also unveiled a new generation of network fabrics for AI training clusters, integrating NVIDIA’s Spectrum Ethernet to enable greater flexibility and performance.

As part of the effort, Meta became an initiating member of Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking, aiming to strengthen connectivity across increasingly complex AI systems.

Meta further introduced the Open Rack Wide (ORW) form factor, an open source data rack standard optimised for the power and cooling demands of modern AI.

Built on ORW specifications, AMD’s new Helios rack was presented as the most advanced AI rack yet, embodying the shift toward interoperable and standardised infrastructure.

Meta also showcased new AI hardware platforms built to improve performance and serviceability for large-scale generative AI workloads.

Sustainability remains central to Meta’s strategy. The company presented ‘Design for Sustainability’, a framework to reduce hardware emissions through modularity, reuse, and extended lifecycles.

It also shared how its Llama AI models help track emissions across millions of components. Meta said it will continue to

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AI becomes a new spiritual guide for worshippers in India

Across India, a growing number of worshippers are using AI for spiritual guidance. From chatbots like GitaGPT to robotic deities in temples, technology is changing how people connect with faith.

Apps trained on Hindu scriptures offer personalised advice, often serving as companions for those seeking comfort and purpose in a rapidly changing world.

Developers such as Vikas Sahu have built AI chatbots based on the Bhagavad Gita, attracting thousands of users in just days. Major organisations like the Isha Foundation have also adopted AI to deliver ancient wisdom through modern apps, blending spiritual teachings with accessibility.

Large religious gatherings, including the Maha Kumbh Mela, now use AI tools and virtual reality to guide and connect millions of devotees.

While many find inspiration in AI-guided spirituality, experts warn of ethical and cultural challenges. Anthropologist Holly Walters notes that users may perceive AI-generated responses as divine truth, which could distort traditional belief systems.

Oxford researcher Lyndon Drake adds that AI might challenge the authority of religious leaders, as algorithms shape interpretations of sacred texts.

Despite the risks, faith-driven AI continues to thrive. For some devotees, digital gods and chatbots offer something traditional structures often cannot- immediate, non-judgemental access to spiritual guidance at any time.

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NVIDIA and TSMC celebrate first US-made Blackwell AI chip

A collaboration between NVIDIA and TSMC has marked a historic milestone with the first NVIDIA Blackwell wafer produced on US soil.

The event, held at TSMC’s facility in Phoenix, symbolised the start of volume production for the Blackwell architecture and a major step toward domestic AI chip manufacturing.

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang described it as a moment that brings advanced technology and industrial strength back to the US.

A partnership that highlights how the companies aim to strengthen the US’s semiconductor supply chain by producing the world’s most advanced chips domestically.

TSMC Arizona will manufacture next-generation two-, three- and four-nanometre technologies, crucial for AI, telecommunications, and high-performance computing. The process transforms raw wafers through layering, etching, and patterning into the high-speed processors driving the AI revolution.

TSMC executives praised the achievement as the result of decades of partnership with NVIDIA, built on innovation and technical excellence.

Both companies believe that local chip production will help meet the rising global demand for AI infrastructure while securing the US’s strategic position in advanced technology manufacturing.

NVIDIA also plans to use its AI, robotics, and digital twin platforms to design and manage future American facilities, deepening its commitment to domestic production.

The companies say their shared investment signals a long-term vision of sustainable innovation, industrial resilience, and technological leadership for the AI era.

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Harvard’s health division supports AI-powered medical learning

Harvard Health Publishing has partnered with Microsoft to use its health content to train the Copilot AI system. The collaboration seeks to enhance the accuracy of healthcare responses on Microsoft’s AI platform, according to the Wall Street Journal.

HHP publishes consumer health resources reviewed by Harvard scientists, covering topics such as sleep, nutrition, and pain management. The institution confirmed that Microsoft has paid to license its articles, expanding a previous agreement made in 2022.

The move is designed to make medically verified information more accessible to the public through Copilot, which now reaches over 33 million users.

Harvard’s Soroush Saghafian said the deal could help cut errors in AI-generated medical advice, a key concern in healthcare. He emphasised the importance of rigorous testing before deployment, warning that unverified tools could pose serious risks to users.

Harvard continues to invest in AI research and integration across its academic programmes. Recent initiatives include projects to address bias in medical training and studies exploring AI’s role in drug development and cancer treatment.

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AWS glitch triggers widespread outages across major apps

A major internet outage hit some of the world’s biggest apps and sites from about 9 a.m. CET Monday, with issues traced to Amazon Web Services. Tracking sites reported widespread failures across the US and beyond, disrupting consumer and enterprise services.

AWS cited ‘significant error rates’ in DynamoDB requests in the US-EAST-1 region, impacting additional services in Northern Virginia. Engineers are mitigating while investigating root cause, and some customers couldn’t create or update Support Cases.

Outages clustered around Virginia’s dense data-centre corridor but rippled globally. Impacted brands included Amazon, Google, Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, Canva, Coinbase, Slack, Signal, Vodafone and the UK tax authority HMRC.

Coinbase told users ‘all funds are safe’ as platforms struggled to authenticate, fetch data and serve content tied to affected back-ends. Third-party monitors noted elevated failure rates across APIs and app logins.

The incident underscores heavy reliance on hyperscale infrastructure and the blast radius when core data services falter. Full restoration and a formal post-mortem are pending from AWS.

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Data labelling transforms rural economies in Tamil Nadu

India’s small towns are fast becoming global hubs for AI training and data labelling, as outsourcing firms move operations beyond major cities like Bangalore and Chennai. Lower costs and improved connectivity have driven a trend known as cloud farming, which has transformed rural employment.

In Tamil Nadu, workers annotate and train AI models for global clients, preparing data that helps machines recognise objects, text and speech. Firms like Desicrew pioneered this approach by offering digital careers close to home, reducing migration to cities while maintaining high technical standards.

Desicrew’s chief executive, Mannivannan J K, says about a third of the company’s projects already involve AI, a figure expected to reach nearly all within two years. Much of the work focuses on transcription, building multilingual datasets that teach machines to interpret diverse human voices and dialects.

Analysts argue that cloud farming could make rural India the world’s largest AI operations base, much as it once dominated IT outsourcing. Yet challenges remain around internet reliability, data security and client confidence.

For workers like Dhanalakshmi Vijay, who fine-tunes models by correcting their errors, the impact feels tangible. Her adjustments, she says, help AI systems perform better in real-world applications, improving everything from shopping recommendations to translation tools.

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AI and fusion combine to accelerate clean energy breakthroughs

A new research partnership between Google and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) aims to accelerate the development of clean, abundant fusion energy. Fusion powers the sun and offers limitless, clean energy, but achieving it on Earth requires stabilising plasma at over 100 million degrees Celsius.

The collaboration builds on prior AI research in controlling plasma using deep reinforcement learning. Google and CFS are combining AI with the SPARC tokamak, using superconducting magnets to achieve net energy gain from fusion.

AI tools such as TORAX, a fast and differentiable plasma simulator, allow millions of virtual experiments to optimise plasma behaviour before SPARC begins operations.

AI is also being applied to find the most efficient operating paths for the tokamak, including optimising magnetic coils, fuel injection, and heat management.

Reinforcement learning agents can optimise energy output in real time while safeguarding the machine, potentially exceeding human-designed methods.

The partnership combines advanced AI with fusion hardware to develop intelligent, adaptive control systems for future clean and sustainable fusion power plants.

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Labels and Spotify align on artist-first AI safeguards

Spotify partners with major labels on artist-first AI tools, putting consent and copyright at the centre of product design. The plan aims to align new features with transparent labelling and fair compensation while addressing concerns about generative music flooding platforms.

The collaboration with Sony, Universal, Warner, and Merlin will give artists control over participation in AI experiences and how their catalogues are used. Spotify says it will prioritise consent, clearer attribution, and rights management as it builds new tools.

Early direction points to expanded labelling via DDEX, stricter controls against mass AI uploads, and protections against search and recommendation manipulation. Spotify’s AI DJ and prompt-based playlists hint at how engagement features could evolve without sidelining creators.

Future products are expected to let artists opt in, monitor usage, and manage when their music feeds AI-generated works. Rights holders and distributors would gain better tracking and payment flows as transparency improves across the ecosystem.

Industry observers say the tie-up could set a benchmark for responsible AI in music if enforcement matches ambition. By moving in step with labels, Spotify is pitching a path where innovation and artist advocacy reinforce rather than undermine each other.

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