Critical internet resources

Rising AI demand fuels new climate questions

A growing debate over AI dominated COP30 in Brazil, as delegates weighed its capacity to support climate solutions against its rapidly rising environmental costs.

Technology leaders argued that AI can strengthen energy management, refine climate research and enhance conservation programmes.

Participants highlighted an expanding number of AI-driven tools showcased at the summit, reflecting both enthusiasm and caution about their long-term influence.

Several countries noted that AI systems could help smaller delegations review complex negotiation documents and take part more effectively.

Environmental advocates warned that ballooning electricity use and water demand from data centres risk undermining climate targets.

Campaigners pressed for tighter rules, including mandatory public-interest testing for new facilities and reliance on on-site renewable energy.

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Diplomatic progress slows Nexperia crisis

The Dutch government has paused its intervention in chipmaker Nexperia after officials described promising diplomatic progress with China, easing a months-long standoff that had disrupted global supply chains. The suspension follows talks in which Beijing began relaxing export limits it had imposed on Nexperia’s finished chips, restrictions that had deepened shortages for major carmakers including BMW, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, and Bosch.

The dispute began in September when the Netherlands seized control of Nexperia from its Chinese owner Wingtech, invoking the Goods Availability Act, a Cold War-era law that had never been used before. Dutch authorities stated that the takeover was necessary to safeguard national security and prevent Wingtech founder Zhang Xuezheng from relocating production to China, citing allegations of mismanagement and attempts to undermine European operations.

Beijing retaliated by restricting chip exports, while management on both sides blocked shipments and orders amid a worsening internal corporate conflict.

Economy Minister Vincent Karremans stated that the government was encouraged by China’s efforts to restore chip supplies and would continue negotiations alongside European and international partners. The EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič and several major automakers welcomed the announcement, though industry leaders cautioned that it remains too early to predict how quickly supply chains will stabilise.

With the Chinese side now selling stockpiled chips to ease shortages and the European side planning its response, the easing of tensions marks a temporary reprieve in a dispute that highlighted the fragility of Europe’s semiconductor dependencies and the geopolitical risks tied to them.

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Web services recover after Cloudflare restores its network systems

Cloudflare has resolved a technical issue that briefly disrupted access to major platforms, including X, ChatGPT, and Letterboxd. Users had earlier reported internal server error messages linked to Cloudflare’s network, indicating that pages could not be displayed.

The disruption began around midday UK time, with some sites loading intermittently as the problem spread across the company’s infrastructure. Cloudflare confirmed it was investigating an incident affecting multiple customers and issued rolling updates as engineers worked to identify the fault.

Outage tracker Down Detector also experienced difficulties during the incident, later showing a sharp rise in reports once it came back online. The pattern pointed to a broad network-level failure rather than isolated platform issues.

Users saw repeated internal server error warnings asking them to try again, though services began recovering as Cloudflare isolated the cause. The company has not yet released full technical details, but said the fault has been fixed and that systems are stabilising.

Cloudflare provides routing, security, and reliability tools for a wide range of online services, making a single malfunction capable of cascading globally. The company said it would share further information on the incident and steps taken to prevent similar failures.

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Misconfigured database triggered global Cloudflare failure, CEO says

Cloudflare says its global outage on 18 November was caused by an internal configuration error, not a cyberattack. CEO Matthew Prince apologised to users after a permissions update to a ClickHouse cluster generated a malformed feature file that caused systems worldwide to crash.

The oversized file exceeded a hard limit in Cloudflare’s routing software, triggering failures across its global edge. Intermittent recoveries during the first hours of the incident led engineers to suspect a possible attack, as the network randomly stabilised when a non-faulty file propagated.

Confusion intensified when Cloudflare’s externally hosted status page briefly became inaccessible, raising fears of coordinated targeting. The root cause was later traced to metadata duplication from an unexpected database source, which doubled the number of machine-learning features in the file.

The outage affected Cloudflare’s CDN, security layers, and ancillary services, including Turnstile, Workers KV, and Access. Some legacy proxies kept limited traffic moving, but bot scores and authentication systems malfunctioned, causing elevated latencies and blocked requests.

Engineers halted the propagation of the faulty file by mid-afternoon and restored a clean version before restarting affected systems. Prince called it Cloudflare’s most serious failure since 2019 and said lessons learned will guide major improvements to the company’s infrastructure resilience.

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CelcomDigi convergence project earns ZTE top 5G service honour

ZTE has won the Best Mobile/5G Service Innovation award at the 2025 Global Connectivity Awards for its work on Malaysia’s CelcomDigi dual-network convergence. The project integrates network assets across four regions and six operators, marking the largest deployment of its kind in the country.

The company introduced an intelligent, integrated, and connected management model built on big-data platforms for site deployment, optimisation, and value analysis. Eight smart tools support planning, commissioning, and operations, enabling end-to-end oversight of project delivery and performance.

Phase-one results show a 15 percent rise in coverage, 25 percent faster downloads, higher traffic, and a more than 60 percent reduction in complaints. ZTE also deployed AI-based energy-saving systems to reduce emissions and advance sustainability goals across the network.

The project incorporates talent-building measures by prioritising localisation and working with Malaysian universities. ZTE says this approach supports long-term sector resilience alongside near-term performance gains.

CAPACITY’s Global Connectivity Awards, held in Malaysia, evaluate innovation, execution, and industry impact. ZTE states that it will continue to develop new project management models and partner globally to build more efficient, intelligent, and sustainable communications networks.

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Electricity bills surge as data centres drive up costs across the US

Massive new data centres, built to power the AI industry, are being blamed for a dramatic rise in electricity costs across the US. Residential utility bills in states with high concentrations of these facilities, such as Virginia and Illinois, are surging far beyond the national average.

The escalating energy demand has caused a major capacity crisis on large grids like the PJM Interconnection, with data centre load identified as the primary reason for a multi-billion pound spike in future power costs. These extraordinary increases are being passed directly to consumers, making affordability a central issue for politicians ahead of upcoming elections.

Lawmakers are now targeting tech companies and AI labs, promising to challenge what they describe as ‘sweetheart deals’ and to make the firms contribute more to the infrastructure they rely upon.

Although rising costs are also attributed to an ageing grid and inflation, experts warn that utility bills are unlikely to decrease this decade due to the unprecedented demand from rapid data centre expansion.

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Google launches WeatherNext 2 for faster forecasts

WeatherNext 2, Google’s latest AI forecasting model, offers significantly faster and more precise weather predictions. Developed by DeepMind and Google Research, the model produces forecasts eight times faster with hourly resolution, aiding decisions from supply chains to daily commutes.

The model generates hundreds of weather scenarios from a single starting point, enabling agencies and businesses to plan for all potential outcomes, including extreme events.

Its predictions outperform the previous WeatherNext model on 99.9% of variables, providing more accurate forecasts for temperature, wind, humidity, and other factors.

A Functional Generative Network (FGN) powers WeatherNext 2, allowing it to predict both individual weather elements and complex interconnected systems. The system enables applications such as forecasting regional heatwaves or wind farm output, while keeping predictions physically realistic.

Forecast data is available through Google Earth Engine, BigQuery, and an early access programme on Vertex AI, while WeatherNext 2 now powers Search, Gemini, Pixel Weather, and Google Maps’ Weather API.

Google plans to expand access further, supporting researchers, developers, and businesses to make informed decisions and accelerate scientific discovery.

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Europe ramps up bid for digital independence

European leaders gathered in Berlin for the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty, where France and Germany unveiled a series of major commitments aimed at boosting the EU’s technological autonomy and competitiveness. The event brought together more than 900 policymakers, industry figures, and researchers from across the bloc to outline new measures aimed to reducing reliance on non-EU technologies, strengthening digital infrastructure, and supporting European innovation.

Paris and Berlin identified seven strategic areas for action, including simplifying the EU digital regulation, strengthening competition in strategic markets, and establishing higher protection standards for Europe’s most sensitive data. The two countries also endorsed the expansion of digital commons, backed the rollout of the EU Digital Identity Wallet, and committed to broadening the use of open-source tools within public administrations.

A new Franco-German task force will work on defining what constitutes a European digital service, developing indicators of sovereignty, and shaping policy tools to reinforce strategic sectors, including cloud services, AI, and cybersecurity.

The summit also highlighted ambitions to make Europe a leader in frontier AI by fostering public-private collaboration and attracting large-scale investment. European tech companies pledged over €12 billion for key digital technologies, signalling a strong private-sector commitment to the sovereignty agenda.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron both praised the progress made, stressing that Europe must shape its technological future on its own terms and accelerate the development and adoption of homegrown solutions.

With political momentum, cross-border cooperation, and significant financial backing, the summit marked one of the EU’s most coordinated pushes yet to build a secure, competitive, and sovereign digital ecosystem.

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Outage at Cloudflare takes multiple websites offline worldwide

Cloudflare has suffered a major outage, disrupting access to multiple high-profile websites, including X and Letterboxd. Users encountered internal server error messages linked to Cloudflare’s network, prompting concerns of a broader infrastructure failure.

The problems began around 11.30 a.m. UK time, with some sites briefly loading after refreshes. Cloudflare issued an update minutes later, confirming that it was aware of an incident affecting multiple customers but did not identify a cause or timeline for resolution.

Outage tracker Down Detector was also intermittently unavailable, later showing a sharp rise in reports once restored. Affected sites displayed repeated error messages advising users to try again later, indicating partial service degradation rather than full shutdowns.

Cloudflare provides core internet infrastructure, including traffic routing and cyberattack protection, which means failures can cascade across unrelated services. Similar disruption followed an AWS incident last month, highlighting the systemic risk of centralised web infrastructure.

The company states that it is continuing to investigate the issue. No mitigation steps or source of failure have yet been disclosed, and Cloudflare has warned that further updates will follow once more information becomes available.

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Berlin summit links digital strategy to wider European security

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron will host a Berlin summit to reduce Europe’s reliance on US tech platforms and to shape a more independent EU digital strategy. The meeting coincides with planned revisions to EU AI and data rules.

The push for digital independence reflects growing concern that Europe risks falling behind the US in strategic technologies. Leaders argue that regulatory changes must support competitiveness while maintaining core privacy and safety principles.

Germany is also hosting a two-day European security conference in Berlin, featuring German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. The parallel agendas highlight how digital strategy and geopolitical security are increasingly linked in EU policy debates.

The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, has meanwhile backed the EU enlargement in the Western Balkans during a visit to Montenegro, signalling continued geopolitical outreach alongside internal reforms.

The Berlin discussions are expected to shape Europe’s stance ahead of upcoming AI and data proposals, setting the tone for broader talks on industrial policy, technology sovereignty, and regional security.

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