Over 20,000 malicious IP addresses and domains linked to data-stealing malware have been taken down during Operation Secure, a coordinated cybercrime crackdown led by INTERPOL between January and April 2025.
Law enforcement agencies from 26 countries worked together to locate rogue servers and dismantle criminal networks instead of tackling threats in isolation.
The operation, supported by cybersecurity firms including Group-IB, Kaspersky and Trend Micro, led to the removal of nearly 80 per cent of the identified malicious infrastructure. Authorities seized 41 servers, confiscated over 100GB of stolen data and arrested 32 suspects.
More than 216,000 individuals and organisations were alerted, helping them act quickly by changing passwords, freezing accounts or blocking unauthorised access.
Vietnamese police arrested 18 people, including a group leader found with cash, SIM cards and business records linked to fraudulent schemes. Sri Lankan and Nauruan authorities carried out home raids, arresting 14 suspects and identifying 40 victims.
In Hong Kong, police traced 117 command-and-control servers across 89 internet providers. INTERPOL hailed the effort as proof of the impact of cross-border cooperation in dismantling cybercriminal infrastructure instead of allowing it to flourish undisturbed.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
The African School of Internet Governance (AfriSIG) convened in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, from 23 to 28 May 2025, bringing together a broad mix of African and international stakeholders for intensive internet, ICT, and data governance training. As a precursor to the African Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF), the school aimed to strengthen civil society, public, and private sector expertise in navigating Africa’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Katherine Getao spoke about cybersecurity and #GenevaDialogue at the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG), highlighting the importance of multistakeholder cooperation in implementing cyber norms.
Representing Diplo, Dr Katherine Getao delivered a keynote on ‘Cybersecurity and Cybercrime in Africa,’ emphasising the continent’s urgent need to build strong digital defences amid rising cyber threats. While the challenges are pressing, she pointed out that they also open avenues for youth employment and entrepreneurship, especially in the cybersecurity sector.
Dr Getao also stressed the significance of African participation in global policy dialogues, such as the Geneva Dialogue, to ensure the continent’s digital priorities are heard and reflected in international frameworks. Drawing from her experience with the UN Group of Governmental Experts, she advocated for Africa to be more active in shaping responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
The event’s panel discussions and workshops further explored how African voices can better leverage platforms like the Internet Governance Forum to influence global tech governance. For Diplo and initiatives like the Geneva Dialogue, AfriSIG was a key venue for aligning African digital development with international policy momentum.
Would you like to learn more about AI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
OpenAI has rolled out its most advanced AI model yet, o3-Pro, delivering significant improvements in reasoning and task complexity while introducing steep price reductions.
The model is now available to ChatGPT Pro and Team users, with Enterprise and Education access coming next week. Developers can also access it via OpenAI’s API.
O3-Pro is designed for high-performance use across technology, education, and science sectors. It supports advanced capabilities such as web browsing, code execution, file analysis, and memory retention during conversations.
Despite these upgrades, pricing has been reduced drastically—87% lower than o1-Pro—costing just $20 per million input tokens and $80 per million output tokens. The base o3 model has also seen an 80% price cut.
Evaluators consistently rated o3-Pro higher than previous models for clarity, instruction-following, and accuracy, with standout results in benchmarks like AIME 2024 and GPQA Diamond, where it beat Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude 4 Opus, respectively.
Although the model lacks image generation and Canvas support, its reasoning capabilities mark a major step forward in OpenAI’s AI offerings.
Would you like to learn more about AI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
IBM has set out a detailed roadmap to deliver a practical quantum computer by 2029, marking a major milestone in its long-term strategy.
The company plans to build its ‘Starling’ quantum system at a new data centre in Poughkeepsie, New York, targeting around 200 logical qubits—enough to begin outperforming classical computers in specific tasks instead of lagging due to error correction limitations.
Quantum computers rely on qubits to perform complex calculations, but high error rates have held back their potential. IBM shifted its approach in 2019, designing error-correction algorithms based on real, manufacturable chips instead of theoretical models.
The change, as the company says, will significantly reduce the qubits needed to fix errors.
With confidence in its new method, IBM will build a series of quantum systems until 2027, each advancing toward a larger, more capable machine.
Vice President Jay Gambetta stated the key scientific questions have already been resolved, meaning what remains is primarily an engineering challenge instead of a scientific one.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
Meta Platforms is set to acquire a 49 percent stake in Scale AI for nearly $15 billion, marking its largest-ever deal.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees The agreement as a significant move to accelerate Meta’s push into AI instead of relying solely on in-house development.
Scale AI, founded in 2016, supplies curated training data to major players such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta. The company expects to more than double its revenue in 2025 to around $2 billion.
Once the deal is finalised, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is expected to join Meta’s new AI team focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The effort aligns with Meta’s broader AI plans, including capital expenditure of up to $65 billion in 2025 to expand its AI infrastructure instead of falling behind rivals in the AI race.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
In a new blog post titled The Gentle Singularity, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted that AI systems capable of producing ‘novel insights’ may arrive as early as 2026.
While Altman’s essay blends optimism with caution, it subtly signals the company’s next central ambition — creating AI that goes beyond repeating existing knowledge and begins generating original ideas instead of mimicking human reasoning.
Altman’s comments echo a broader industry trend. Researchers are already using OpenAI’s recent o3 and o4-mini models to generate new hypotheses. Competitors like Google, Anthropic and FutureHouse are also shifting their focus towards scientific discovery.
Google’s AlphaEvolve has reportedly devised novel solutions to complex maths problems, while FutureHouse claims to have built AI capable of genuine scientific breakthroughs.
Despite the optimism, experts remain sceptical. Critics argue that AI still struggles to ask meaningful questions, a key ingredient for genuine insight.
Former OpenAI researcher Kenneth Stanley, now leading Lila Sciences, says generating creative hypotheses is a more formidable challenge than agentic behaviour. Whether OpenAI achieves the leap remains uncertain, but Altman’s essay may hint at the company’s next bold step.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a brief but significant leak of over 600 gigabytes of data, exposing information on millions of Chinese citizens.
The haul, containing WeChat, Alipay, banking, and residential records, is part of a centralised system, possibly aimed at large-scale surveillance instead of a random data breach.
According to research from Cybernews and cybersecurity consultant Bob Diachenko, the data was likely used to build individuals’ detailed behavioural, social and economic profiles.
They warned the information could be exploited for phishing, fraud, blackmail or even disinformation campaigns instead of remaining dormant. Although only 16 datasets were reviewed before the database vanished, they indicated a highly organised and purposeful collection effort.
The source of the leak remains unknown, but the scale and nature of the data suggest it may involve government-linked or state-backed entities rather than lone hackers.
The exposed information could allow malicious actors to track residence locations, financial activity and personal identifiers, placing millions at risk instead of keeping their lives private and secure.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
OpenAI has revealed that its annualised revenue has surged to $10 billion as of June 2025, nearly doubling since December 2024, when it stood at $5.5 billion.
The rapid growth is driven by the widespread adoption of its ChatGPT AI models across consumer and business markets, putting the company on course to meet its earlier goal of $12.7 billion in revenue for the whole year.
The $10 billion figure excludes licensing income from Microsoft, a major investor, and some large one-off contracts, according to an OpenAI spokesperson. Despite recording a loss of about $5 billion last year, OpenAI’s impressive revenue scale places it well ahead of many rivals benefiting from the AI boom.
Other players in the AI space are also seeing strong growth. For instance, Anthropic recently surpassed $3 billion in annualised revenue, driven by startup demand using its code-generation models. Meanwhile, OpenAI plans to raise up to $40 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $300 billion.
Since launching ChatGPT over two years ago, OpenAI has expanded its offerings with various subscription plans and services. The company reported 500 million weekly active users as of March 2025, underscoring its dominant position in the AI market.
Would you like to learn more aboutAI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms CEO, is reportedly building a new team dedicated to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), aiming for machines that can match or exceed human intellect.
The initiative is linked to an investment exceeding $10 billion in Scale AI, whose founder, Alexandr Wang, is expected to join the AGI group. Meta has not yet commented on these reports.
Zuckerberg’s personal involvement in recruiting around 50 experts, including a new head of AI research, is partly driven by dissatisfaction with Meta’s recent large language model, Llama 4. Last month, Meta even delayed the release of its flagship ‘Behemoth’ AI model due to internal concerns about its performance.
The move signals an intensifying race in the AI sector, as rivals like OpenAI are also making strategic adjustments to attract further investment in their pursuit of AGI. This highlights a clear push by major tech players towards developing more advanced and capable AI systems.
Would you like to learn more about AI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
As millions of high school students across China began the rigorous ‘gaokao’ college entrance exam, the country’s leading tech companies took unprecedented action by disabling AI features on their popular platforms.
Apps from Tencent, ByteDance, and Moonshot AI temporarily blocked functionalities like photo recognition and real-time question answering. This move aimed to prevent students from using AI chatbots to cheat during the critical national examination, which largely dictates university admissions in China.
This year, approximately 13.4 million students are participating in the ‘gaokao,’ a multi-day test that serves as a pivotal determinant for social mobility, particularly for those from rural or lower-income backgrounds.
The immense pressure associated with the exam has historically fueled intense test preparation. However, screenshots circulating on Chinese social media app Rednote confirmed that AI chatbots like Tencent’s YuanBao, ByteDance’s Doubao, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi displayed messages indicating the temporary closure of exam-relevant features to ensure fairness.
China’s ‘gaokao’ exam highlights a balanced approach to AI: promoting its education from a young age, with compulsory instruction in Beijing schools this autumn, while firmly asserting it’s for learning, not cheating. Regulators draw a clear line, reinforcing that AI aids development, but never compromises academic integrity.
This coordinated action by major tech firms reinforces the message that AI has no place in the examination hall, despite China’s broader push to cultivate an AI-literate generation.
Would you like to learn more about AI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!
