Economic Archives | Page 158 of 683 | Digital Watch Observatory

UAE executes first government payment using Digital Dirham

The United Arab Emirates has completed its first government financial transaction using the Digital Dirham, marking a significant milestone in its transition towards a fully digital economy.

The Ministry of Finance and Dubai Finance carried out the transaction in collaboration with the Central Bank of the UAE, confirming the country’s leadership in advancing next-generation financial technologies.

Part of the Central Bank’s Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme, the pilot phase of the Digital Dirham aims to accelerate digital payment adoption and strengthen the UAE’s position as a global financial hub.

Senior officials, including Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, described the initiative as a strategic step toward improving transparency, efficiency, and integration across government financial systems.

The first pilot transaction was executed through the government payments platform mBridge, which facilitates instant settlements using central bank digital currencies.

A transaction was completed in under two minutes, demonstrating the system’s technical efficiency and reliability. The mBridge platform, fully integrated with the Digital Dirham initiative, enables secure, intermediary-free settlements, reducing costs while improving accuracy and transparency.

Officials emphasised that the Digital Dirham will serve as a cornerstone for a sustainable digital economy, reinforcing national financial stability and global competitiveness.

The initiative reflects the UAE’s commitment to adopting cutting-edge technologies that promote integration and innovation across the public and private sectors.

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EU regulators, UK and eSafety lead the global push to protect children in the digital world

Children today spend a significant amount of their time online, from learning and playing to communicating.

To protect them in an increasingly digital world, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, the European Commission’s DG CNECT, and the UK’s Ofcom have joined forces to strengthen global cooperation on child online safety.

The partnership aims to ensure that online platforms take greater responsibility for protecting and empowering children, recognising their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The three regulators will continue to enforce their online safety laws to ensure platforms properly assess and mitigate risks to children. They will promote privacy-preserving age verification technologies and collaborate with civil society and academics to ensure that regulations reflect real-world challenges.

By supporting digital literacy and critical thinking, they aim to provide children and families with safer and more confident online experiences.

To advance the work, a new trilateral technical group will be established to deepen collaboration on age assurance. It will study the interoperability and reliability of such systems, explore the latest technologies, and strengthen the evidence base for regulatory action.

Through closer cooperation, the regulators hope to create a more secure and empowering digital environment for young people worldwide.

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TikTok faces scrutiny over AI moderation and UK staff cuts

TikTok has responded to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee regarding proposed cuts to its UK Trust and Safety teams. The company claimed that reducing staff while expanding AI, third-party specialists, and more localised teams would improve moderation effectiveness.

The social media platform, however, did not provide any supporting data or risk assessment to justify these changes. MPs previously called for more transparency on content moderation data during an inquiry into social media, misinformation, and harmful algorithms.

TikTok’s increasing reliance on AI comes amid broader concerns over AI safety, following reports of chatbots encouraging harmful behaviours.

Committee Chair Dame Chi Onwurah expressed concern that AI cannot reliably replace human moderators. She warned AI could cause harm and criticised TikTok for not providing evidence that staff cuts would protect users.

The Committee urges the Government and Ofcom to take action to ensure user safety before implementing staffing reductions. Dame Onwurah emphasised that without credible data, it is impossible to determine whether the changes will effectively protect users.

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Αnthropic pledges $50 billion to expand the US AI infrastructure

The US AI safety and research company, Anthropic, has announced a $50 billion investment to expand AI computing infrastructure inside the country, partnering with Fluidstack to build data centres in Texas and New York, with additional sites planned.

These facilities are designed to optimise efficiency for Anthropic’s workloads, supporting frontier research and development in AI.

The project is expected to generate approximately 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction positions as sites come online throughout 2026.

An investment that aligns with the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, aiming to maintain the US leadership in AI while strengthening domestic technology infrastructure and competitiveness.

Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, highlighted the importance of such an infrastructure in developing AI systems capable of accelerating scientific discovery and solving complex problems.

The company serves over 300,000 business customers, with a sevenfold growth in large accounts over the past year, demonstrating strong market demand for its Claude AI platform.

Fluidstack was selected as Anthropic’s partner for its agility in rapidly deploying high-capacity infrastructure. The collaboration aims to provide cost-effective and capital-efficient solutions to meet the growing demand, ensuring that research and development can continue to be at the forefront of AI innovation.

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Meta expands AI infrastructure with $1 billion sustainable facility

The US tech giant, Meta, has announced the construction of its 30th data centre in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a $1 billion investment that will power the company’s growing AI infrastructure while benefiting the local community and environment.

A facility, designed to support Meta’s most demanding AI workloads, that will run entirely on clean energy and create more than 100 permanent jobs alongside 1,000 construction roles.

The company will invest nearly $200 million in energy infrastructure and donate $15 million to Alliant Energy’s Hometown Care Energy Fund to assist families with home energy costs.

Meta will also launch community grants to fund schools and local organisations, strengthening technology education and digital skills while helping small businesses use AI tools more effectively.

Environmental responsibility remains central to the project. The data centre will use dry cooling, eliminating water demands during operation, and restore 100% of consumed water to local watersheds.

In partnership with Ducks Unlimited, Meta will revitalise 570 acres of wetlands and prairie, transforming degraded habitats into thriving ecosystems. The facility is expected to achieve LEED Gold Certification, reflecting Meta’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and community-focused innovation.

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AI agents redefine customer service efficiency

Companies are transforming routine customer interactions into effortless experiences using AI-powered agents. Instead of endless phone transfers, users now get instant answers or bookings through Agentforce-powered systems.

The focus is not on selling more products, but on improving satisfaction with existing services.

Travel platform Engine is already seeing results. Its Agentforce assistant, Eva, can process partial booking cancellations in seconds by combining customer data with internal booking tools.

By narrowing Eva’s focus to a handful of topics, Engine improved both response speed and customer satisfaction by six points. The result is less frustration, reduced hold times, and smoother travel management.

Retailer Williams Sonoma, Inc. is also personalising customer interactions through its virtual assistant, Olive. Beyond processing returns, Olive provides menu suggestions, wine pairings, and meal preparation schedules to help customers host effortlessly.

The aim, according to Chief Technology and Digital Officer Sameer Hassan, is to deliver experiences that teach and inspire rather than promote sales.

Luxury fitness brand Equinox follows a similar path. Its AI assistant now helps members find and book classes directly, reducing clicks and improving usability. As EVP and CTO, Eswar Veluri said simplifying patterns is key to enhancing member experience through innovative tools.

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Police warn of scammers posing as AFP officers in crypto fraud

Cybercriminals are exploiting Australia’s national cybercrime reporting platform, ReportCyber, to trick people into handing over cryptocurrency. The AFP-led Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre (JPC3) warns scammers are posing as police and using stolen data to file fake reports.

In one recent case, a victim was contacted by someone posing as an AFP officer and informed that their details had been found in a data breach linked to cryptocurrency. The impersonator provided an official reference number, which appeared genuine when checked on the ReportCyber portal.

A second caller, pretending to be from a crypto platform, then urged the target to transfer funds to a so-called ‘Cold Storage’ account. The victim realised the deception and ended the call before losing money.

Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson said the scam’s sophistication lay in its false sense of legitimacy and urgency. Criminals verify personal data and act quickly to pressure victims, she explained. However, growing awareness within the community has helped authorities detect such scams sooner.

Authorities are reminding the public that legitimate officers will never request access to wallets, bank accounts, or seed phrases. Australians should remain cautious, verify unexpected calls, and report any suspicious activity through official channels.

The AFP reaffirmed that ReportCyber remains a safe platform for genuine reports and continues to be a vital tool in tracking and preventing cybercrime nationwide.

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AI adoption surges with consumers but stalls in business

In a recent analysis, Goldman Sachs warned that while AI is rapidly permeating the consumer market, enterprise integration is falling much further behind.

The report highlights consumer-facing tools, such as chatbots and generative creative applications, driving the usage surge, but finds that business uptake is still ‘well below where we expected’ a year or two ago.

Goldman’s analysts point out a striking disjunction: consumer adoption is high, yet corporations are slower to embed AI deeply into workflows. One analyst remarked that although nearly 88 % of companies report using AI in some capacity, only about a third have scaled it enterprise-wide and just 39 % see measurable financial impact.

Meanwhile, infrastructure spending on AI is exploding, with projections of 3-4 trillion US dollars by the end of the decade, raising concerns among investors about return on investment and whether the current frenzy resembles past tech bubbles.

For policy-makers, digital-economy strategists and technology governance watchers, this gap has important implications. Hype and hardware build-out may be outpacing deliverables in enterprise contexts.

The divide also underlines the need for more precise metrics around productivity, workforce adaptation and organisational readiness in our discussions around AI policy and digital diplomacy.

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Chubb launches digital insurance engine with AI recommendations

A global insurance leader, Chubb, launched a new AI-driven embedded insurance optimisation engine within its Chubb Studio platform during the Singapore FinTech Festival. The announcement marks a significant step in enabling digital distribution partners to offer personalised insurance products more effectively.

The engine uses proprietary AI to analyse customer data, identify personas, recommend relevant insurance products (such as phone damage, travel insurance, hospital cash or life cover) at the point of sale, and deliver click-to-engage options for higher-value products.

Integration models range from Chubb-managed to partner-managed or hybrid, giving flexibility in how partners embed the solution.

From a digital-economy and policy perspective, this development highlights how insurance firms are leveraging AI to personalise customer journeys and integrate insurance seamlessly into consumer platforms and apps.

The shift raises essential questions about data utilisation, transparency of recommendation engines and how insurers strike the balance between innovation and consumer protection.

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Google launches Private AI Compute for secure cloud-AI

In a move that underscores the evolving balance between capability and privacy in AI, Google today introduced Private AI Compute. This new cloud-based processing platform supports its most advanced models, such as those in the Gemini family, while maintaining what it describes as on-device-level data security.

The blog post explains that many emerging AI tasks now exceed the capabilities of on-device hardware alone. To solve this, Google built Private AI Compute to offload heavy computation to its cloud, powered by custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and wrapped in a fortified enclave environment called Titanium Intelligence Enclaves (TIE).

The system uses remote attestation, encryption and IP-blinding relays to ensure user data remains private and inaccessible; ot even Google’s supposed to gain access.

Google identifies initial use-cases in its Pixel devices: features such as Magic Cue and Recorder will benefit from the extra compute, enabling more timely suggestions, multilingual summarisation and advanced context-aware assistance.

At the same time, the company says this platform ‘opens up a new set of possibilities for helpful AI experiences’ that go beyond what on-device AI alone can fully achieve.

This announcement is significant from both a digital policy and platform economy perspective. It illustrates how major technology firms are reconciling user privacy demands with the computational intensity of next-generation AI.

For organisations and governments focused on AI governance and digital diplomacy, the move raises questions about data sovereignty, transparency of remote enclaves and the true nature of ‘secure ‘cloud processing.

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