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Google Cloud and NVIDIA expand robotics push with European AI deal

Google Cloud and NVIDIA are supporting German robotics startup Microagi as it expands the development and deployment of embodied AI systems.

Under the collaboration, Microagi will use Google[object Object],[object Object] Cloud’s AI infrastructure and NVIDIA Blackwell systems to scale model training and inference.

The Munich-based company develops software for adapting robotics models to specific commercial and industrial tasks rather than manufacturing its own robots.

Its Atlas platform fine-tunes models using data from customers’ operations and is designed to work across different hardware and AI providers.

The infrastructure will include NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs and GB300 NVL72 systems delivered through Google Cloud.

Microagi will also use Google AI models and tools for processing multimodal information, including video, as it develops configurable software packages for enterprise robotics.

The company works with manufacturers and robotics providers in sectors including automotive, logistics, food and hospitality.

The agreement follows a $55 million seed funding round that Microagi plans to use, in part, to expand its computing capacity and real-world data collection.

Google described the collaboration as part of its wider effort to support the European robotics ecosystem. At the same time, NVIDIA said advanced robotics increasingly requires large datasets, accelerated computing and integrated development platforms.

Why does it matter?

The collaboration illustrates how robotics development increasingly depends on a combination of real-world data, cloud infrastructure and specialised chips. European startups may gain faster access to the computing resources needed to train and deploy embodied AI, but reliance on US cloud and semiconductor providers also raises longer-term questions about technological sovereignty, infrastructure concentration and control over industrial AI systems.

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Microsoft and Mistral expand sovereign AI partnership in Europe

Microsoft and French AI company Mistral have expanded their strategic partnership to strengthen sovereign AI deployment in Europe, giving enterprises and regulated industries greater control over how frontier AI is deployed and managed.

The agreement combines Mistral’s AI models and expanding European compute infrastructure with Microsoft’s AI platform, allowing organisations to run AI workloads across cloud, hybrid and fully disconnected environments while maintaining greater control over data, operations and regulatory compliance.

A central element of the partnership is a multibillion-dollar investment in European AI infrastructure. Microsoft will leverage Mistral’s expanding GPU capacity, powered by thousands of NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs, to support AI training, inference and large-scale deployment while increasing capacity for Microsoft’s cloud and AI services.

The companies said the investment supports Europe’s AI ecosystem and aligns with Microsoft’s European Digital Commitments and Sovereign Cloud strategy.

The partnership also brings Mistral’s Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 models to Microsoft Foundry, while Medium 3.5 becomes available through Microsoft Copilot Studio. Organisations will be able to develop AI applications using Mistral’s multilingual models and deploy them consistently across Azure, Azure Local and fully disconnected environments without redesigning workloads.

According to the companies, the partnership is intended to support highly regulated sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and critical infrastructure, where sovereignty, resilience, privacy and operational continuity are key requirements.

Alongside joint customer engagement, Microsoft and Mistral will also provide proof-of-concept funding, Azure credits and technical workshops to accelerate enterprise AI adoption.

Why does it matter?

The partnership reflects a broader shift in enterprise AI from simply providing access to advanced models towards giving organisations greater control over where AI systems run, how data is handled and how regulatory requirements are met. Flexible deployment options are becoming increasingly important for governments and highly regulated industries.

The announcement also reinforces Europe’s ambition to build sovereign AI capabilities by combining domestic AI models, regional compute infrastructure and trusted cloud services. Rather than viewing sovereignty as an alternative to global technology partnerships, the collaboration illustrates how international companies and European AI developers are increasingly working together to strengthen regional digital resilience.

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EU advances digital electricity strategy through Electrification Action Plan

The European Commission has adopted the Electrification Action Plan and proposed changes to the EU electricity market rules aimed at accelerating the digitalisation of Europe’s electricity system and preparing it to support growing AI infrastructure.

The measures are intended to reduce energy system costs, improve grid efficiency and accelerate the deployment of smart technologies while supporting a cleaner, more affordable and resilient electricity market.

A central element of the proposal is the accelerated rollout of smart meters, with a target of covering at least 50% of final electricity customers by 2030 and 75% by 2033. The devices will provide near real-time consumption data, enabling consumers to shift electricity use to cheaper and cleaner periods while helping network operators manage congestion and integrate renewable energy more efficiently.

The proposal also seeks to improve the secure exchange of electricity grid data between transmission and distribution system operators. Better access to harmonised, high-quality data is expected to strengthen grid planning, support renewable energy integration, encourage demand-side flexibility and enable new digital services.

The Commission also proposes a voluntary European framework for the secure reuse of grid data to support research and AI-powered energy management.

The initiative complements the EU’s broader Digital Union agenda, including the Data Act, the AI Act, the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act and the AI Continent Action Plan.

According to the Commission, smarter electricity networks will provide the infrastructure needed to support AI factories, AI gigafactories and sustainable data centres while strengthening Europe’s energy security, competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

Why does it matter?

The proposal reflects a growing recognition that electricity infrastructure and digital infrastructure are becoming increasingly interconnected. AI systems, cloud computing and data centres require abundant, reliable and flexible electricity supplies, making modernised energy networks a prerequisite for Europe’s digital competitiveness.

By linking smart grids, secure data sharing, AI-enabled energy management and electricity market reform, the Commission is also broadening the concept of digital governance. Rather than treating energy and digital policy separately, the EU is increasingly developing them as mutually reinforcing pillars of its industrial, climate and technological strategy.

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Australia announces national AI standards and new AI office

Australia has announced plans for mandatory national AI standards and established a new Office of AI within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the measures would coordinate AI policy across government, protect national interests and strengthen Australia’s sovereign technological capacity.

The proposed framework would bring large AI data centres under nationally consistent rules covering their location, infrastructure, energy use and water consumption.

Albanese plans to seek agreement from state and territory leaders at the National Cabinet in August 2026, with legislation expected to be introduced to Parliament in early 2027.

The next generation of large data centres could be legally required to underwrite new power supplies, cover their share of grid connection costs and add at least as much electricity to the grid as they consume.

Facilities would also be required to minimise water use, improve energy efficiency and fund any additional water infrastructure they need.

The government plans to strengthen protections for Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists, arguing that creators should retain control over whether and on what terms their work is used to train AI systems.

The new Office of AI will coordinate government work across industry, employment, education, energy, copyright, online safety, productivity and national security.

Australia also wants to attract frontier AI investment and increase domestic development, linking sovereign AI capability to secure employment, economic resilience and reduced dependence on foreign technology platforms.

Why does it matter?

Australia’s announcement connects AI governance with physical infrastructure, copyright, energy policy and technological sovereignty. National rules could reduce fragmented approval processes while requiring large data centres to account for their effects on electricity, water and local infrastructure. Central coordination through the Office of AI may also help align policies that currently span several departments. However, the eventual impact will depend on the legislation, enforcement mechanisms and copyright protections that the government develops.

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Microsoft and 3M partner on AI data centre infrastructure

Microsoft and 3M have announced a strategic partnership covering AI data centre infrastructure and the deployment of Microsoft AI tools across 3M’s business operations.

Microsoft Azure will become the first hyperscale cloud provider to deploy 3M’s Expanded Beam Optical technology, which is designed to improve the physical connectivity needed for expanding cloud and AI workloads. Unlike conventional fibre connectors that rely on direct physical contact, the technology uses an expanded optical beam, making connections more resistant to dust and contamination during installation and maintenance.

Microsoft said early deployments suggest the technology could shorten network installation times in some environments while maintaining reliable signal performance under typical data centre conditions.

3M is expanding production as hyperscalers and data centre operators invest in AI infrastructure. The company has also supported an industry agreement to standardise expanded beam optical connections.

The partnership will combine Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure with 3M’s expertise in materials science, optical connectivity and precision manufacturing, with further collaboration focusing on deployment speed, reliability, density and long-term scalability.

Alongside the infrastructure agreement, 3M will deploy Microsoft AI and digital platforms across customer service, finance, sales and marketing to simplify processes, improve decision-making and increase productivity.

Microsoft engineers are also working with 3M’s Global Business Services team on an AI agent-based customer order workflow covering credit checks, delinquency assessments and system updates while retaining human approval. A monitoring dashboard will provide employees with real-time visibility into the process to improve consistency, reduce manual work and support auditability.

The partnership links investment in the physical infrastructure that supports AI with the adoption of AI across enterprise operations, illustrating how cloud providers and industrial companies are increasingly collaborating across both domains.

Why does it matter?

The partnership highlights that scaling AI depends not only on chips and computing power but also on the physical networking infrastructure connecting data centres. Improvements in optical connectivity could help cloud providers deploy increasingly dense AI infrastructure more efficiently and reliably.

It also illustrates how infrastructure partnerships are becoming broader digital transformation initiatives. By combining hardware innovation with enterprise AI deployment, Microsoft and 3M are reflecting a wider trend in which AI investment spans both the technology underpinning AI services and the business processes that use them.

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Companies face new questions over AI control and governance

Enterprise AI adoption is moving beyond questions of which model to use towards deeper concerns about infrastructure, governance and ownership.

A Forbes Technology Council article argues that companies entering production with AI need to ask whether systems can operate securely inside their own environments and who controls the intelligence those systems generate over time.

It frames enterprise AI as requiring a new trust layer across the stack.

At the infrastructure level, businesses need visibility into how compute is accessed and governed. At the model level, they need control over data, operational knowledge and business value. At the application level, agents and workflows need clear permissions, access controls and safeguards.

Reasoning models and autonomous agents are also changing the economics of AI deployment. More advanced systems require continuous inference, more tokens and persistent access to business context, making compute capacity, latency and cost central to scaling AI beyond pilots.

The article warns that enterprises risk building long-term value outside their own systems if operational knowledge is generated and stored on external platforms without sufficient control.

It argues that the next phase of enterprise AI will depend less on access to individual models and more on secure, governed systems for owning and reusing operational intelligence.

Why does it matter?

The article captures a broader shift in enterprise AI: competitive advantage may come less from using the same general-purpose models as everyone else and more from how organisations govern the data, workflows and operational knowledge created around those models. That matters for digital sovereignty, vendor lock-in, security and long-term business value. As AI agents become embedded in daily operations, companies will need clearer rules on permissions, auditability, infrastructure dependence and ownership of AI-generated knowledge.

UK brings major cloud providers under financial oversight

The UK government has designated Microsoft, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle as Critical Third Parties (CTPs), bringing the major cloud providers under direct financial regulatory oversight for the first time.

From 13 July 2026, the four companies will come under direct oversight by the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), with the aim of strengthening the operational resilience of the UK financial system.

The new regime reflects the financial sector’s growing dependence on cloud infrastructure. Regulators will be able to assess the resilience of critical services, gather operational information and require providers to address risks that could disrupt banking, insurance or financial market infrastructure.

The oversight applies only to services considered systemically important to the financial sector, rather than to the companies’ wider commercial operations.

The UK government described the framework as a proportionate, risk-based approach designed to reduce the likelihood of widespread service disruptions affecting millions of consumers and businesses. It also said additional technology providers could be designated in the future if they meet the statutory threshold for systemic importance.

Microsoft, Google Cloud, AWS and Oracle all welcomed the framework, saying they would comply with the new requirements and continue supporting the resilience of the UK’s financial sector.

Why does it matter?

The designation marks a significant shift in financial regulation by extending direct oversight beyond banks and financial institutions to the technology providers that underpin critical financial services. As cloud infrastructure becomes increasingly central to banking, payments and financial markets, regulators are treating operational resilience as a systemic issue rather than solely a commercial responsibility.

The UK’s approach could also influence regulators in other jurisdictions. As financial institutions become more dependent on a small number of hyperscale cloud providers, governments may increasingly seek direct oversight of technology companies whose services have become essential to the stability of critical sectors.

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European Commission accepts SAP commitments in ERP antitrust case

The European Commission has accepted legally binding commitments from SAP to address competition concerns over maintenance and support (M&S) services for its on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

The commitments follow the Commission’s preliminary finding that SAP may have abused its dominant market position by limiting customer choice, increasing switching costs and restricting competition in the aftermarket for ERP support services.

Under the agreement, SAP will give customers greater flexibility in managing software licences and support contracts. Businesses will be able to split their SAP environments and choose different maintenance providers or support levels for different parts of their systems.

SAP will also allow licence termination in specific circumstances, including reduced support phases, failed implementation projects attributable to SAP, insolvency, major workforce reductions and business divestitures.

Additional commitments include broader access to alternative licensing models, the removal of reinstatement fees, lower back-maintenance charges, clearer contractual terms and an internal mechanism for handling customer complaints related to compliance with the commitments.

The Commission opened its formal antitrust investigation in September 2025 after identifying practices that could have discouraged customers from using independent support providers and increased the cost of leaving SAP’s maintenance services.

Following a market test, SAP revised its proposal before the Commission concluded that the final commitments adequately addressed its concerns. The commitments will apply globally for ten years under the supervision of an independent monitoring trustee.

Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera said the decision would give businesses using SAP’s on-premises ERP software greater freedom to choose maintenance and support providers while strengthening competition in enterprise software markets.

She added that the case sends a broader message that dominant technology companies should not use restrictive commercial practices to lock customers into their ecosystems, particularly as enterprises continue migrating to cloud-based services.

Why does it matter?

The decision reinforces the principle that customers should be able to choose maintenance and support providers without facing unnecessary contractual or financial barriers. For businesses relying on enterprise software, greater flexibility could reduce costs, increase negotiating power and make it easier to adopt competing services.

The case also shows that the European Commission is extending competition enforcement beyond consumer-facing digital platforms to enterprise software markets. As organisations increasingly depend on integrated cloud and business software ecosystems, regulators are paying closer attention to practices that may create customer lock-in and restrict competition after the initial software sale.

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CISA shares lessons from GitHub credential exposure

CISA has published details of an internal CISA incident response triggered after an investigative reporter alerted the agency to Amazon AWS GovCloud keys and other internal information exposed in a public GitHub repository.

The agency said the information was identified by a security researcher whose company continuously scans public code repositories. The repository was not part of CISA’s official GitHub environment but belonged to a contractor’s personal GitHub account.

According to CISA, its Office of the Chief Information Officer immediately took the repository offline and preserved it for forensic analysis. The agency also suspended its development environment, reset affected credentials and revoked the contractor’s system access.

The investigation found that the contractor had uploaded copies of a CISA build and deployment repository to a personal GitHub account while attempting to build cloud infrastructure independently. The repository contained infrastructure-as-code, build scripts, administrator credentials and build credentials.

Forensic analysis found no evidence that the exposed credentials had been used outside CISA environments and no customer or mission data was compromised.

CISA subsequently rotated all credentials associated with environments where the contractor had administrator privileges, expanded repository allow and deny lists, and restricted users’ ability to upload code to public repositories before restoring the development environment.

The agency said the incident reinforced the value of taking external vulnerability reports seriously, applying Zero Trust principles to development environments and maintaining detailed logging that enabled rapid investigation.

It also identified several areas for improvement, including stricter controls over public repositories, better secrets detection, clearer GitHub and cloud incident response playbooks, simpler reporting channels for security researchers, stronger development environment guardrails and more mature cryptographic key management.

CISA also said organisations should maintain clear reporting channels for incidents affecting their own environments and publish reporting instructions in multiple locations rather than relying solely on a security.txt file.

The agency said publishing its own incident response experience is intended to help other organisations strengthen their security practices and improve preparedness for similar incidents.

Why does it matter?

The incident illustrates how easily sensitive credentials can be exposed through routine developer workflows and personal code repositories, even within organisations responsible for cybersecurity. It also highlights the importance of rapid detection, credential rotation and strong access controls when managing cloud infrastructure.

By publicly documenting both its response and the lessons learned, CISA is encouraging organisations to treat incident reporting, secrets management, Zero Trust architecture and developer governance as integral parts of software security rather than afterthoughts.

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Digital investment gains momentum in South Africa

South Africa is strengthening its position as a digital investment destination, with growing commitments from global technology companies, according to the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa. The government says new investments in cloud infrastructure, AI and digital skills will support economic growth, job creation and innovation.

Recent announcements include Google’s plans for a Digital Exchange Port in the Eastern Cape, a digital innovation centre in Soweto and AI support for local start-ups. The government also highlighted previous investments by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Mastercard to expand cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity capabilities.

The Presidency says cloud computing and AI can improve productivity, support small businesses and enhance public services, while helping address challenges in education, healthcare and climate change. It also believes stronger digital infrastructure will reinforce South Africa’s role as Africa’s largest cloud market.

The government says digital expansion must be matched by safeguards that protect privacy, sovereignty and security. It adds that investment in domestic cloud infrastructure and collaboration between government, business and civil society will help build a secure and inclusive digital future.

Why does it matter?

The statement highlights the growing importance of digital infrastructure as a driver of economic development. The Presidency argues that cloud computing, AI and digital skills can improve business competitiveness, public services and employment while attracting further private investment.

It also reflects a broader focus on digital sovereignty. Alongside expanding AI and cloud adoption, the government emphasises the need to protect data, strengthen cybersecurity and develop domestic digital capabilities to reduce long-term dependence on external providers.

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