Critical infrastructure

EU pushes federated cloud plan to reduce dependence on foreign tech

Europe is building a federated cloud and AI infrastructure intended to reduce reliance on US and Chinese technology providers and avoid ongoing strategic vulnerability.

The project, known as EURO-3C, was announced in Barcelona by Telefónica and is backed by the European Commission. More than seventy organisations across telecommunications, technology and emerging companies have joined the effort.

Architects of the scheme argue that linking national infrastructures into a shared network of nodes offers a realistic path forward, particularly as Europe cannot easily create a hyperscale cloud provider from scratch.

The initiative follows a series of US cloud outages that exposed the risks of excessive dependence on external infrastructure and raised questions about sovereignty, resilience and long-term competitiveness.

Commission officials described the programme as a way to build a secure cross-border digital ecosystem that supports industries such as automotive, e-health, public administration and sovereign government cloud.

Telefónica stressed that agentic AI, capable of taking autonomous actions, will play a central role in enabling Europe to develop technology rather than import it.

The partners view the project as a foundation for a unified and independent digital environment that strengthens industrial supply chains and prepares European sectors for the next phase of cloud and AI adoption.

They present the initiative as a significant step toward reducing strategic exposure while stimulating domestic innovation.

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Europe turns to satellite networks as Deutsche Telekom expands Starlink collaboration

Deutsche Telekom is turning to satellite connectivity to address Europe’s persistent mobile coverage gaps, rather than relying solely on terrestrial networks.

The company announced a partnership with Starlink during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, arguing that non-terrestrial networks can help reach remote forests, mountains and islands that remain underserved despite broad coverage elsewhere.

A collaboration that aims to support direct-to-device satellite links by 2028, enabling future smartphones to connect to Starlink’s MSS spectrum without additional hardware.

Telecommunications leaders describe the plan as a step toward an ‘everywhere network’, extending reliable service to areas long constrained by topographical and conservation barriers. The partnership follows earlier joint work with SpaceX to eliminate dead zones.

Deutsche Telekom is also increasing its use of agentic AI, integrating autonomous network-enhancing systems intended to improve translation, search and service features across devices.

Executives say these capabilities work even on older phones, reducing dependence on apps and creating a more inclusive digital environment.

Although committed to European digital sovereignty, the company insists that global collaboration remains necessary for long-term competitiveness.

Leadership argues that precise regulation and controlled data environments aligned with European standards can balance international cooperation with privacy protection. They remain confident that European technology firms and start-ups will continue driving meaningful innovation across the sector.

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Free plan users can now transfer data to Claude

Anthropic has enhanced its Claude AI chatbot to make switching from other platforms easier. Users on the free plan can now activate Claude’s memory feature, which allows them to import data from other AI platforms using a new dedicated tool.

The update ensures that users don’t have to start over when transferring context and history from competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.

The memory import option, first introduced in October for paid subscribers, now appears under ‘settings’ → ‘capabilities’ for all users. The tool lets users copy a prompt from their previous AI and paste the output into Claude, seamlessly transferring past interactions.

The recent popularity of Claude has been driven by tools such as Claude Code and Claude Cowork, as well as the launch of the Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 models. Upgrades enhance Claude’s coding, spreadsheet, and complex task capabilities, boosting its appeal to new users.

Anthropic’s visibility has also increased amid debates with the Pentagon, as the company refuses to loosen AI safeguards for military use, drawing ‘red lines’ around mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

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Chrome unveils 3-phase quantum-resistant HTTPS upgrade with Merkle Tree Certificates

Google has outlined a plan to strengthen Chrome’s HTTPS security against future quantum-computing threats. Rather than expanding traditional X.509 certificate chains in Chrome with post-quantum cryptography, the company is developing a new model based on Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs).

The proposal from the PLANTS working group seeks to modernise the web public key infrastructure. Under the MTC model, a Certification Authority signs a single ‘Tree Head’ covering many certificates. Browsers receive a lightweight proof instead of a full certificate chain.

Google said this structure reduces authentication data exchanged during TLS handshakes while supporting post-quantum algorithms. By decoupling cryptographic strength from certificate size, the approach seeks to preserve performance as stronger security standards are adopted.

The company is already testing MTCs with real internet traffic. Phase one involves feasibility studies with Cloudflare, while phase two, in early 2027, will invite selected Certificate Transparency log operators to support initial public deployment.

By the third quarter of 2027, Google plans to establish requirements for onboarding certificate authorities to the quantum-resistant Chrome Root Store, which exclusively supports MTCs. The company described the initiative as foundational to maintaining long-term web security resilience.

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New public guidance launched to promote responsible AI use in Thailand

Thailand has published a draft public guidance document to help citizens use AI safely and responsibly. The ‘AI Guide for Citizens’ outlines key AI concepts, benefits, limitations, and practical examples for users engaging with generative AI tools.

Data safety is a central focus, with officials warning against entering personal identifiers, financial data, confidential information, or government secrets into public AI platforms.

The guide also details technical risks such as AI’ hallucinations,’ prompt injection, and data poisoning, advising users to verify outputs and treat AI as a support tool rather than a decision maker.

The guidance addresses ethical and legal responsibilities, warning against using AI to generate misinformation, deepfakes, or harmful content. It emphasises fairness and bias, noting AI systems can inherit human prejudices from training data.

Citizens encountering AI-related scams or harmful content are advised to collect evidence, report incidents to cybercrime authorities, and contact Thailand’s personal data protection agency if privacy is compromised.

The draft aligns Thailand’s AI policies with national rules and international standards, including ISO governance principles and the EU AI Act. The initiative aims to boost AI literacy and safeguards as AI becomes more integrated into daily life.

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Europe pressed to slow digital age-verification push amid privacy fears

Hundreds of academics urged governments to halt plans for mandatory age checks on social media, rather than accelerating deployment without assessing the risks.

The warning arrives as several European states consider restrictions on children’s access to online platforms and as companies promote verification tools such as live selfies or uploads of government-issued IDs.

Researchers argue that current systems expose people to privacy breaches, security vulnerabilities and malicious sites that ignore verification rules instead of offering meaningful protection.

They say scientific consensus has not yet formed on the benefits or harms of age-assurance technologies, making large-scale implementation premature and potentially discriminatory.

The letter stresses that any credible system would require cryptographic safeguards for every query, protecting data in transit rather than leaving identity checks to platforms without robust technical guarantees.

Academics believe such infrastructure would be complex to build globally and would create friction that many providers may refuse to adopt.

Concern escalated after early deployments in Italy and France, where verification is already mandatory.

Signatories, including Ronald Rivest and Bart Preneel, warn that governments risk introducing a socially unacceptable system that increases exposure to data misuse instead of ensuring children’s safety online.

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Samsung advances AI RAN with NVIDIA breakthrough

The South Korean electronics company, Samsung, has completed a multi-cell test that brings its virtualised RAN software together with accelerated computing from NVIDIA.

A validation that took place in a realistic network environment confirms that the combined architecture is nearing commercial readiness as AI-native networks continue to evolve.

The company plans to highlight the achievement at Mobile World Congress 2026 as part of its broader push toward software-driven networks that use AI instead of fixed hardware optimisation.

Samsung will demonstrate an AI-based MIMO beamformer running on NVIDIA infrastructure, which offers operators higher throughput and improved spectral efficiency by extracting more value from existing spectrum.

NVIDIA and Samsung are also advancing a unified processor design that integrates CPU and GPU within a single chipset, enabling faster and more efficient data exchange.

Recently, Samsung integrated its vRAN software with the NVIDIA ARC Compact platform equipped with the Grace CPU and L4 GPU, taking another step toward commercial AI-RAN deployments.

The firm says that experience from large-scale vRAN rollouts and close collaboration with industry computing partners strengthens its position in delivering AI-powered network platforms for operators worldwide.

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Microsoft reveals OAuth redirection abuse powering new phishing attempts

Researchers at Microsoft have identified phishing activity that abuses legitimate OAuth redirection behaviour instead of relying on credential theft.

Threat actors create malicious applications within attacker-controlled tenants and configure redirect pages that lead victims from trusted authentication domains to malware-delivery sites.

A technique that has been used against government and public-sector organisations and is designed to bypass email and browser defences by embedding URLs that appear genuine.

The attack begins with lures themed around documents, financial matters or meeting requests, each containing OAuth URLs crafted to trigger silent authentication.

Validation errors, session checks and Conditional Access evaluations provide attackers with information about session status without granting access to tokens, yet still deliver the victim to a malicious landing page.

Once redirected, victims encounter phishing frameworks or are served ZIP files containing shortcut files and HTML-based loaders. These PowerShell commands launch system discovery and extract files used for DLL side-loading.

Executing a legitimate process allows a malicious DLL to load unseen, decrypt the final payload and establish a connection to a remote command-and-control server for hands-on keyboard activity.

Microsoft Entra has removed identified malicious OAuth applications, although related activity continues to appear.

Microsoft emphasises that OAuth redirection follows standards such as RFC 6749 and RFC 9700, meaning attackers cannot exploit normal protocol behaviour instead of software vulnerabilities.

Stronger governance of OAuth applications, tighter consent controls and cross-domain monitoring are required to prevent trusted authentication flows from being turned into delivery paths for phishing and malware.

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Claude AI experiences temporary global outage

Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, experienced a global outage, leaving users unable to access the platform. Visitors reported error messages indicating the system had broken down, though the company said it was working to resolve the issue.

The Claude API, used by other websites to integrate the chatbot, remained operational. Anthropic confirmed that the outage was limited to the Claude web interface and did not affect other integrations, emphasising that engineers were actively resolving the issue.

The outage, tracked by Down Detector, began around noon in the UK and affected users worldwide. Messages on the platform reassured users that Claude would return soon and that the problem had been identified and was being fixed.

The interruption comes at a sensitive time for Anthropic, as the company navigates heightened attention surrounding access to its Claude AI system. The situation unfolds amid broader discussions about the role of advanced AI tools in defence contexts, with industry players facing increasing scrutiny over their policies and partnerships.

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Claws become the new trend in local agentic AI

A new expression has entered the AI vocabulary, with ‘claws’ becoming the latest term to capture the industry’s imagination.

The term refers to a growing family of open-source personal assistants designed to run locally on consumer hardware, often on Apple’s compact Mac mini rather than on cloud-based servers.

These assistants can access calendars, email accounts, coding tools, browsers and external model APIs, enabling them to carry out complex digital tasks autonomously.

Interest increased after AI researcher Andrej Karpathy described his experiments with claws, prompting broader attention across online communities.

Many users have begun adopting the tools as lightweight agentic systems capable of handling real work, from scheduling meetings to writing software overnight by linking to models from providers such as OpenAI.

The name originated with Clawdbot, which was recently rebranded as OpenClaw and became a prominent example in Silicon Valley.

A wave of variants, including NanoClaw, ZeroClaw and IronClaw, has followed, marking a surge in locally run assistants that appeal to users seeking greater autonomy, privacy and experimentation.

Growing enthusiasm for claws highlights a wider shift towards agentic AI running directly on personal devices.

Whether these systems become mainstream or remain a niche developer trend, they show how quickly the AI landscape can evolve and how new concepts often spread long before they fully mature.

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