The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), a multilateral initiative hosted by the OECD and launched by the G7, has officially welcomed Saudi Arabia as a new member. The move reflects the Kingdom’s commitment to shaping global AI governance and ethical technology use.
Accession is led by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority and supported by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Joining GPAI aligns with Vision 2030, which aims to localise advanced technologies and boost the digital economy’s contribution to GDP.
Through membership in GPAI, which unites over 40 countries, Saudi Arabia will help establish international AI standards, promote human-centric and responsible AI development, and strengthen global cooperation in the sector.
Officials also anticipate that the move will attract high-quality international investment, leveraging the Kingdom’s expanding regulatory framework and growing AI and data ecosystem.
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The German banking giant has applied for a digital asset custody licence from BaFin, marking a significant step in its expansion into cryptocurrency services. The move positions Deutsche Bank to offer safekeeping solutions for clients seeking exposure to digital assets.
Plans form part of a broader strategy to build a dedicated digital assets division, according to David Lynne, a commercial banking executive. DWS Group’s initiatives highlight rising institutional interest in crypto partnerships in Germany.
Previous experimentation includes a tokenised investment platform developed in Singapore with Memento Blockchain, enabling access to digital asset funds through fiat on-ramps.
Activity mirrors wider domestic momentum, as Deutsche WertpapierService Bank has already launched crypto infrastructure linking traditional and digital accounts.
Regulatory clarity and growing client demand appear to be key drivers, with Deutsche Bank signalling a cautious yet deliberate approach to integrating cryptocurrencies into its mainstream banking services.
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Nokia and KDDI Corporation demonstrated quantum-safe optical transport at Sakai Data Center, supporting advanced AI workloads. The network aims to deliver secure, uninterrupted data transfer while protecting sensitive AI operations.
The demonstration showcases KDDI’s scalable AI-ready infrastructure for real-time training, inference, and analytics. Quantum-safe encryption and resilient transport protect customer data and critical infrastructure across Japan’s distributed data centres.
Using Nokia’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) and 1830 Security Management Server (SMS), the partners validated high-capacity, secure optical connectivity. The solution delivers privacy, reliability, and fast quantum-safe encryption for modern AI workloads.
Executives from both companies emphasised the importance of secure, scalable networks in enabling AI-driven services. Nokia and KDDI will continue advancing quantum-safe data centre connectivity, supporting Japan’s digital infrastructure and key enterprise applications.
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A Chinese research team has developed an AI-powered system, DeepRare, to diagnose rare diseases with unprecedented accuracy.
The project, led by Shenhua Hospital and the university’s School of Artificial Intelligence, has already attracted over 1,000 specialised users from more than 600 medical and research institutions worldwide.
Tests show DeepRare achieves 57.18 percent accuracy using only clinical data, marking a 24-point improvement over previous models. Including genetic data raises accuracy above 70 percent, showing potential to improve diagnosis in areas without advanced testing.
The system draws on an extensive knowledge base of medical literature and real-world cases. Its cycle of hypothesis, validation, and self-review boosts reliability and fills reasoning gaps, surpassing the limits of traditional AI models.
By enhancing transparency and precision, DeepRare offers a practical tool for clinicians facing the persistent challenge of identifying rare diseases, potentially setting a new global standard for AI-assisted diagnostics.
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Italy has warned that digital addiction among teenagers is rising sharply, as health authorities link excessive social media and gaming use to family and educational challenges. Officials say bans alone will not resolve the issue.
According to Italy’s National Institute of Health, about 100,000 young people aged 15 to 18 are at risk of social media addiction. A further 500,000 are estimated to suffer from gaming disorder, recognised by the World Health Organisation as a medical condition.
A survey by digital ethics group Social Warning found that 77 percent of Italian teenagers consider themselves addicted to their devices. However, many say they lack the tools or support to change their behaviour.
Research by ‘Con i Bambini’, which funds projects tackling educational poverty in Italy, links digital dependency to isolation and strained parental relationships. The organisation says legislative measures can protect minors but cannot replace structured education and family support.
The debate extends across the EU. The European Parliament has called for a minimum age of 16 for social media platforms, while France, Italy, and Spain are considering national restrictions. Experts argue that prevention and digital literacy must complement regulation.
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OpenAI, with Paradigm and OtterSec, introduced EVMbench to test how AI agents detect, patch, and exploit smart contract flaws. The benchmark draws on 120 real vulnerabilities from 40 blockchain projects to better reflect live conditions.
Researchers report that leading agents can now discover and exploit end-to-end vulnerabilities in live blockchain instances. Over six months, exploit success rates rose sharply, prompting both praise for improved auditing capabilities and concern over the rapid scaling of offensive skills.
EVMbench evaluates agents across three modes: detect, patch, and exploit. Each stage reflects increasing technical complexity and mirrors the responsibilities faced in production blockchain environments, where contracts are often immutable, and errors can lead to irreversible losses.
Recent incidents underline the stakes. A vulnerability in AI-generated Solidity code reportedly mispriced an asset, triggering liquidations and losses. Such cases highlight the risks of deploying AI-written financial logic without rigorous human review and governance safeguards.
While EVMbench advances measurement of AI capabilities, it remains limited to curated vulnerabilities and sandboxed conditions. As blockchain adoption expands and criminal misuse evolves, researchers stress the need for responsible AI development alongside stronger innovative contract security practices.
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Swiss firm Procivis has secured a contract to deliver Lithuania’s end-to-end Digital Identity Wallet sandbox, supporting the country’s preparations under eIDAS 2.0. The project will establish a national testbed for digital ID use cases and interoperability across the European Union.
Selected by Lithuania’s digitalisation agency, Procivis will build a platform for public authorities and relying parties to test secure digital wallet use cases. The sandbox will validate readiness ahead of the EU’s 2027 digital identity wallet deadline.
The updated eIDAS 2.0 technical framework sets out how wallets will store and share trusted digital credentials and electronic identification. Governments and private organisations will be able to integrate services into the wallets, streamlining authentication, onboarding, and cross-border access.
Across Lithuania and the EU, testbeds and large-scale pilots have been central to turning regulatory requirements into interoperable infrastructure. Lithuania’s sandbox will also support activities under the EU’s LSP Aptitude consortium, which is testing cross-sector digital identity solutions.
Procivis said the collaboration aims to accelerate practical validation while ensuring compliance with European standards on security, interoperability, and data protection. The company stated that supporting a timely, budget-aligned implementation of eIDAS 2.0 remains central to its mission.
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Switzerland will host the 2027 edition of the global AI summit in Geneva, President Guy Parmelin announced on Thursday at the 2026 AI Summit in New Delhi. Speaking at a high-level session attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Parmelin said Switzerland was ready to welcome global leaders to discuss the future of AI.
Calling Geneva ‘the epicentre of multilateralism,’ Parmelin said the city offers a natural platform for international cooperation on emerging technologies. He added that Switzerland looks forward to organising the event and collaborating with the United Arab Emirates, which is set to host the summit in 2028.
The Swiss Federal Council had already signalled its interest in hosting the 2027 edition ahead of the New Delhi meeting. Last month, the government confirmed that financing had been secured and that organisational preparations were already complete.
The summit has been held annually since 2023, beginning in the United Kingdom and then in South Korea and France. The gatherings aim to promote global dialogue on both the opportunities and risks of AI, including its impact on healthcare, climate action, agriculture, and broader society.
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Agentic AI is emerging as a new stage of enterprise automation, enabling systems to reason, plan, and act across workflows. Adoption, however, remains uneven, with far fewer organisations scaling deployments beyond pilots.
Unlike traditional analytics or generative tools, agentic systems make decisions rather than simply producing insights. Without sufficient context, they struggle to align actions with real business conditions, revealing a persistent context gap.
Recent survey data highlights this disconnect. Although executives express confidence in AI ambitions, significant shares cite data readiness, infrastructure, and skills as barriers. Many identify AI as central to strategy, yet only a limited proportion tie deployments to measurable business outcomes.
Effective agentic AI depends on layered data foundations. Public data provides baseline capability, organisational data enables operational competence, and third-party context supports differentiation. Weak governance or integration can undermine autonomy at scale.
Enterprises that align data governance, enrichment, and AI oversight are more likely to scale beyond pilots. Progress depends less on model sophistication than on trusted data foundations that support transparency and measurable outcomes.
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Google has launched Gemini 3.1 Pro, an upgraded AI model for solving complex science, research, and engineering challenges. Following the Gemini 3 Deep Think release, the update adds enhanced core reasoning for consumer, developer, and enterprise applications.
Developers can access 3.1 Pro in preview via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, Gemini CLI, Antigravity, and Android Studio, while enterprise users can use it through Vertex AI and Gemini Enterprise.
Consumers can now try the upgrade through the Gemini app and NotebookLM, with higher limits for Google AI Pro and Ultra plan users.
Benchmarks show significant improvements in logic and problem-solving. On the ARC-AGI-2 benchmark, 3.1 Pro scored 77.1%, more than doubling the reasoning performance of its predecessor.
The upgrade is intended to make AI reasoning more practical, offering tools to visualise complex topics, synthesise data, and enhance creative projects.
Feedback from Gemini 3 Pro users has driven the rapid development of 3.1 Pro. The preview release allows Google to validate improvements and continue refining advanced agentic workflows before the model becomes widely available.
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