Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has announced plans to establish a State Digital Asset Fund to consolidate the country’s position in digital finance. The fund will accumulate a strategic crypto reserve through the National Bank’s Investment Corporation.
Crypto adoption in Kazakhstan has surged, doubling ownership from 4% in 2022 to 8% in 2024. Mining generated over $10 million in taxes, while licensed providers contributed $367,000 in the first eight months 2024.
Tokayev warned of rising online fraud, highlighting the need for anti-fraud centres, biometric ID systems, and enhanced legislation to protect citizens and state finances. He connected digital finance to urban development, unveiling Alatau City, a $7.2 billion fully digitalised smart city with crypto payments.
The initiative positions Kazakhstan as a regional leader in crypto strategy, combining economic growth, technological innovation, and digital infrastructure development.
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Yevgeny Masharov, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, said a national crypto bank would bring vast sums of crypto into the legal economy. He added that lawmakers also aim to ban quasi-legal exchanges while exploring the launch of state-run trading platforms.
Masharov suggested that a crypto bank could be a tool against online fraud, particularly schemes involving ‘droppers’ who launder cash and crypto for criminals. He argued that by keeping transactions within an official system, authorities would have more control over illicit flows.
The initiative follows similar moves in Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko has instructed officials to accelerate work on a national crypto bank. Moscow also views such a project as a way to support miners, enable safer cross-border payments, and reduce reliance on Western-controlled financial networks.
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Meta has plans to spend at least $600 billion on US data centres and AI infrastructure by 2028. The forecast, reported by The Information, was shared by CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a dinner with President Donald Trump and other technology leaders.
Capital expenditure is set to rise sharply over the next three years. Meta projects spending of $66–72 billion in 2025, nearly 70% higher than 2024, with another significant increase expected in 2026.
The company said the surge in investment will be driven primarily by the need to expand AI computing power.
Zuckerberg confirmed that Meta aims to deploy more than one million GPUs to train its next generation of AI models.
The company is also investing heavily in talent and infrastructure as it builds a dedicated team focused on developing artificial super intelligence, a concept referring to AI systems with capabilities beyond those of humans.
The spending commitment highlights how major US technology companies are racing to secure computing capacity for AI. Meta is pledging ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ towards expanding its data centre footprint in the years ahead.
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The US tech giant has expanded the capability of its Gemini app by allowing users to upload audio files for AI analysis across Android, iOS, and the web. The upgrade enables transcription of interviews, voice memos and lecture recordings instead of relying solely on typed or spoken prompts.
Free-tier users can upload clips of up to ten minutes with five prompts daily, while paid subscribers have access to three hours of uploads across multiple files. According to Gemini vice president Josh Woodward, the feature is designed to make the platform more versatile and practical for everyday tasks.
Google has also enhanced its Search AI mode with five new languages, including Hindi, Japanese and Korean, extending its multilingual reach.
NotebookLM, the company’s research assistant powered by Gemini, can now generate structured reports such as quizzes, study guides and blog posts from uploaded content, available in more than 80 languages.
These improvements underline Google’s ambition to integrate AI more deeply into everyday applications instead of leaving the technology confined to experimental tools. They also highlight growing competition in the AI market, with Google using Gemini 2.5 to expand its services for global users.
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Uber and Chinese startup Momenta will begin robotaxi testing in Munich in 2026, marking their first public deployment in continental Europe. The trials will start with human safety operators, with plans to expand across additional European cities.
Founded in 2016, Momenta is one of China’s leading autonomous vehicle companies, having tested self-driving cars since 2018. The company is already collaborating with automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW to integrate advanced driver assistance systems.
Uber is broadening its global AV network, which already spans 20 partners across mobility, delivery, and freight. In the US, Waymo robotaxis operate via Uber’s app, while international partnerships include WeRide in the Gulf and Wayve in London.
Competition in Europe is intensifying. Baidu from China and Lyft plan to roll out robotaxis in Germany and the UK next year, while Uber has chosen Munich, Germany, as its engineering base and a strong automotive ecosystem.
German regulators must still certify Momenta’s technology and approve geo-fenced operating areas. If successful, Munich will become Momenta’s first European launchpad, building on its Shanghai robotaxi service and global ADAS deployment.
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Google has announced an expansion of AI Mode in Search to five new languages, including Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese. The feature was first introduced in English in March and aims to compete with AI-powered search platforms such as ChatGPT Search and Perplexity AI.
The company highlighted that building a global search experience requires more than translation. Google’s custom version of Gemini 2.5 uses advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities to provide locally relevant and useful search results instead of offering generic answers.
AI Mode now also supports agentic tasks such as booking restaurant reservations, with plans to include local service appointments and event ticketing.
Currently, these advanced functions are available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US, while India received the rollout of the language expansion in July.
These developments reinforce Google’s strategy to integrate AI deeply into its search ecosystem, enhancing user experience across diverse regions instead of limiting sophisticated AI tools to English-language users.
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Shares in Amsterdam-based Nebius surged more than 50% in US premarket trading after the company announced a $19.4 billion deal with Microsoft. The agreement will provide cloud computing power for AI workloads and is set to run until 2031.
Under the pact’s terms, Nebius will generate $17.4 billion in revenue over the next six years, with Microsoft also retaining the option to purchase additional computing capacity.
Investors responded strongly, with Nebius shares climbing 60% in extended trading on Monday and continuing their rise on Tuesday. Rival AI infrastructure company CoreWeave also benefited, gaining more than 6% premarket.
Nebius, spun out from Russian internet firm Yandex in 2023, specialises in supplying GPUs for training AI models. The deal underscores the high demand for computing power as companies race to develop increasingly advanced AI systems.
Industry leader Nvidia recently reported soaring earnings and forecast that AI infrastructure spending could reach $4 trillion by 2030.
The boom in AI infrastructure comes amid mounting questions over whether valuations are sustainable. OpenAI has reportedly reached a $500 billion valuation, while rival Anthropic recently raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation.
Some analysts, including OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, have warned that the AI sector may already show signs of a bubble.
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Sam Altman, X enthusiast and Reddit shareholder, has expressed doubts over whether social media content can still be distinguished from bot activity. His remarks followed an influx of praise for OpenAI Codex on Reddit, where users questioned whether such posts were genuine.
Altman noted that humans are increasingly adopting quirks of AI-generated language, blurring the line between authentic and synthetic speech. He also pointed to factors such as social media optimisation for engagement and astroturfing campaigns, which amplify suspicions of fakery.
The comments follow OpenAI’s backlash over the rollout of GPT-5, which saw Reddit communities shift from celebratory to critical. Altman acknowledged flaws in a Reddit AMA, but the fallout left lasting scepticism and lower enthusiasm among AI users.
Underlying this debate is the wider reality that bots dominate much of the online environment. Imperva estimates that more than half of 2024’s internet traffic was non-human, while X’s own Grok chatbot admitted to hundreds of millions of bots on the platform.
Some observers suggest Altman’s comments may foreshadow an OpenAI-backed social media venture. Whether such a project could avoid the same bot-related challenges remains uncertain, with research suggesting that even bot-only networks eventually create echo chambers of their own.
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Despite the hype surrounding AI, new data suggests corporate adoption of AI is slowing.
A biweekly survey by the US Census Bureau found AI use among firms with over 250 employees dropped from nearly 14 percent in mid-June to under 12 percent in August, marking the largest decline since the survey began in November 2023.
Smaller companies with fewer than four workers saw a slight increase, but mid-sized businesses largely reported flat or falling AI adoption. The findings are worrying for tech investors and CEOs, who have invested heavily in enterprise AI in the hope of boosting productivity and revenue across industries.
So far, up to 95 per cent of companies using AI have not generated new income from the technology.
The decline comes amid underwhelming performance from high-profile AI releases. OpenAI’s GPT-5, expected to revolutionise enterprise AI, underperformed in benchmark tests, while some companies are rehiring human staff after previously reducing headcount based on AI promises.
Analysts warn that AI innovations may have plateaued, leaving enterprise adoption struggling to justify prior investments.
Unless enterprise AI starts delivering measurable results, corporate usage could continue to decline, signalling a potential slowdown in the broader AI-driven growth many had anticipated.
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A malvertising campaign is targeting IT workers in the EU with fake GitHub Desktop installers, according to Arctic Wolf. The goal is to steal credentials, deploy ransomware, and infiltrate sensitive systems. The operation has reportedly been active for over six months.
Attackers used malicious Google Ads that redirected users to doctored GitHub repositories. Modified README files mimicked genuine download pages but linked to a lookalike domain. MacOS users received the AMOS Stealer, while Windows victims downloaded bloated installers hiding malware.
The Windows malware evaded detection using GPU-based checks, refusing to run in sandboxes that lacked real graphics drivers. On genuine machines, it copied itself to %APPDATA%, sought elevated privileges, and altered Defender settings. Analysts dubbed the technique GPUGate.
The payload persisted by creating privileged tasks and sideloading malicious DLLs into legitimate executables. Its modular system could download extra malware tailored to each victim. The campaign was geo-fenced to EU targets and relied on redundant command servers.
Researchers warn that IT staff are prime targets due to their access to codebases and credentials. With the campaign still active, Arctic Wolf has published indicators of compromise, Yara rules, and security advice to mitigate the GPUGate threat.
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