Middle East CIOs Move From Cloud-First to Sovereign-First in a High-Risk Digital Era
Middle East CIOs are moving from a cloud‑first mindset to a sovereign‑first strategy as geopolitical tension, stricter data and AI regulations, and recent cloud outages expose systemic risk. The shift emphasizes control over data, infrastructure, operations, and artificial intelligence rather than pure cost efficiency. Organizations are adopting integrated sovereign platforms that blend cloud, AI, and security under local governance, while small language models are deployed at the edge to meet compliance and resilience needs. The emerging “trust mark” certification aims to standardize secure, locally governed infrastructure, making digital sovereignty the new baseline for operational continuity.
Will the UK’s Datacentre Strategy Deliver?
The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has set a 2030 goal of delivering 6 GW of AI‑capable datacentre capacity. Recent analysis shows current build‑out is lagging, making the target unlikely without rapid acceleration in power and cooling investments....
Oslo’s Robots Aren’t yet Taking over, but Are Already Punching Above Their Weight
Oslo’s robotics scene, anchored by deep‑tech expertise in sensors and autonomy, is delivering industrial‑grade solutions despite being a small community. Soniar introduced ADAR, the world’s first compact 3D ultrasound safety sensor, while Saga Robotics deploys autonomous UVC‑light robots to farms...
Welcome to Agentic AI. Welcome to Per-Agent Licensing
Microsoft is rolling out a per‑agent licensing model for its AI tools, bundling Copilot and new Agent 365 features into a subscription that charges customers for each AI sub‑routine they run. The approach departs from the traditional compute‑or‑storage consumption model used...
Privacy, Power, and Encryption: Why End-to-End Security Matters
The article argues that end‑to‑end encryption (E2EE) is the most reliable defense against today’s pervasive surveillance by governments, corporations and cyber‑criminals. It explains how E2EE works, its widespread adoption in messaging, password managers and cloud storage, and why any “exceptional...
CYBERUK ’26: UK Lagging on Legal Protections for Cyber Pros
The UK’s 1990 Computer Misuse Act (CMA) is increasingly seen as an obstacle for cyber‑security professionals who need to conduct authorised hacking as part of their work. Ahead of the CYBERUK conference, the CyberUp Campaign released a report urging Westminster...
Interview: Bernard Seiser, Vice-President of Digital, Data and IT, AOP Health
Bernard Seiser, vice‑president of digital, data and IT at AOP Health, joined the Vienna‑based rare‑disease specialist in September 2024 after senior roles at Bayer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. He has crafted a 2030‑oriented digital strategy that already moved the legacy Navision ERP...
Finance Regulators to Address AI Risks After MPs Say They Are ‘Not Doing Enough’
UK regulators are stepping up AI oversight after a Treasury Committee report accused them of inaction. The Bank of England announced trials of AI agents in trading markets to study herding effects, while the FCA said it will issue best‑practice...
Cyber Essentials Closes the MFA Loophole but Leaves some Organisations Adrift
The UK’s Cyber Essentials scheme has long been a baseline for cyber‑hygiene, especially for firms seeking government contracts. Effective 27 April, version 3.3 upgrades multi‑factor authentication (MFA) from a recommendation to a binary pass‑or‑fail rule. Any cloud service used without enabled MFA...
UK Businesses Must Face up to AI Threat, Says Government
The UK government warned that frontier AI models, exemplified by Anthropic’s Mythos, can autonomously discover and exploit software vulnerabilities, a capability that is doubling every four months. Business Secretary Liz Kendall said these models shift cyber threats from a few...
Ordnance Survey Works with Snowflake to Tackle Flood Risk
Ordnance Survey has teamed with Snowflake to launch Intelligent Flood Readiness, an AI‑driven model that blends building, deprivation and flood‑risk data to pinpoint vulnerable properties across England. The analysis reveals that 1.2 million people live outside existing flood‑protection schemes, with 68%...
Danske Bank Upgrade Error Exposed 20,000 Customer Addresses
Danske Bank disclosed that a human error during a planned system upgrade unintentionally revealed the personal addresses of 20,600 Danish customers in domestic payment details. The flaw persisted for three months until a fix was applied in October, after the...
England Rugby Chooses Capgemini as It Targets Half a Million New Fans
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has hired Capgemini as its digital transformation partner for a four‑year "Plan 2030: More than a game" initiative. The strategy aims to add 500,000 new passionate fans to the current 5.2 million base by leveraging digital platforms,...
Department for Transport Shows How Its AI System Avoids Bias
The UK Department for Transport, in partnership with Google Cloud and the Alan Turing Institute, launched the Consultation Analysis Tool (CAT) to automate thematic analysis of public‑consultation feedback. CAT leverages Gemini models on Google’s Vertex AI platform and employs a majority‑vote...
Finnish Quantum Computing Champion IQM Determined to Make ‘Impossible’ Engineering Breakthrough
IQM, Europe’s largest quantum‑computing firm, is raising roughly €300 million (about $330 million) to fund R&D and acquisitions aimed at overcoming the engineering limits of superconducting qubits. CEO Jan Goetz argues that breakthroughs—especially in cabling‑free, tiled qubit architectures—can prove DARPA’s warning that current...
Novo Nordisk Partners with OpenAI to AI-Power Drug Development
Novo Nordisk announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to embed advanced artificial‑intelligence across its drug discovery pipeline. The collaboration will leverage OpenAI’s models to sift through massive datasets, accelerate candidate selection and shorten regulatory submission timelines via the NovoScribe platform....
How a Risky Move Paid Off for Nvidia
Nvidia’s two‑decade‑long gamble on AI‑focused GPUs finally paid off, delivering an 85% year‑over‑year jump in AI chip revenue to roughly $15 billion. The surge propelled the company’s stock up about 30% after it beat earnings expectations, confirming the value of its...
Flood Warning: How Citizens’ AI Agents Will Swamp Public Services
UK public services are experimenting with AI to streamline tasks such as planning data extraction, probation transcription and stroke assessment. However, the article warns that citizen‑owned AI agents could soon eliminate the friction that currently limits demand for services, enabling...
UK Reliance on US Big Tech Companies Is ‘National Security Risk’, Claims Report
A report by the Open Rights Group warns that the UK’s reliance on a handful of US‑based big‑tech firms for data centres, cloud services and digital infrastructure creates a national‑security risk. Strained UK‑US relations could trigger sanctions that disrupt critical...
If We Can’t Kick the Habit, How Do We Manage AI’s Energy Needs?
Sam Altman likened AI inference to the energy a human consumes over 20 years, highlighting AI as a shortcut in human decision‑making. The International Energy Agency forecasts that electricity demand from AI‑optimized datacentres will quadruple by 2030, while overall datacentre...
AI’s Dumb Genius Problem
The piece contends that AI’s next breakthrough lies not in bigger language models but in a missing “context engine” that links models to real‑world outcomes. It compares current AI use to brilliant minds working without a briefing, and cites Google’s...
European Union Deep Tech Plan Too Late for Quantum Champions IQM and Pasqal
Europe’s two leading quantum‑computing firms, Finland’s IQM and France’s Pasqal, announced U.S. SPAC listings to secure the capital needed for next‑generation hardware. Their moves coincide with the European Commission’s rushed €3 bn (≈$3.2 bn) ScaleUp Europe fund, designed to keep late‑stage deep‑tech...
Azure Customers up in Arms over ‘Full’ UK South Region
Microsoft Azure is experiencing severe capacity shortages in its UK South region, particularly for AMD‑based VMs, HPC workloads, and GPU‑equipped instances. Customers report denied quota requests and migration delays, blaming Microsoft’s aggressive rollout of Copilot AI and GPU‑heavy servers. The...
Hyperscaler Datacentres Set to Dominate by 2031
Hyperscale cloud providers are set to dominate the datacentre market, projected to hold 67% of global capacity by 2031—a fourteen‑fold increase from 2018. AI workloads are the primary catalyst, driving a near‑doubling of hyperscale capacity within three years. By Q4 2025,...
AI Skills for IT Pros: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload Podcast
Artificial intelligence is reshaping IT operations, prompting a wave of reskilling among professionals. In a Computer Weekly podcast, Matt Stava, CEO of Spinnaker Support, urges IT workers to retool with AI tools and pursue emerging AI certifications. He warns that...
How ‘Wikipedia of Cyber’ Helps SAP Make Sense of Threat Data
SAP, the world’s largest enterprise‑software provider, is tackling the massive scale of its security telemetry—over 150 TB per month—by partnering with Boston‑based Uptycs. The collaboration introduces Juno AI, an analyst platform that blends artificial intelligence with human expertise to deliver real‑time,...
UAE Advances Sovereign AI Ambitions with Launch of Falcon Perception
Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute unveiled Falcon Perception, a 600‑million‑parameter multimodal model that can see, read and interpret visual data using natural‑language prompts. The system combines vision and language in a single dense transformer, cutting inference latency and hardware demands...
High Court Dismisses Judicial Review Against eVisa System
The High Court dismissed a judicial review challenging the Home Office’s eVisa system, ruling that the secretary of state acted lawfully by requiring digital‑only proof of immigration status. The judges recognised ongoing data‑quality issues but deemed the 12‑month stabilisation plan...
‘Hot’ Property: Azzurri Group’s Chicken Chain and the Greenfield Tech Opportunity
Azzurri Group secured the UK‑Ireland master franchise for US‑origin Dave’s Hot Chicken in 2024 and plans to roll out at least 180 European outlets, with about 14 in the UK and Ireland by the end of 2026. The restaurant chain...
Interview: Thierry Martin, Head of Enterprise Data and Analytics, Toyota Motor Europe
Toyota Motor Europe’s head of enterprise data and analytics, Thierry Martin, detailed how the company built a continent‑wide data mesh on Snowflake, launching over 100 data products in its internal marketplace. He described the broader tech stack—including Calibra, Dataiku, Qlik,...
UK Government Lacks Ambition to Fight Tax Fraud, Says PAC
The UK Public Accounts Committee warned that tax fraud and error cost the Treasury between £55 bn and £81 bn a year (roughly $68 bn‑$101 bn). It criticised the government’s reliance on legacy IT and the absence of a clear digital strategy, despite claims...
UAE Positions Cyber Security as Pillar of National Resilience and Digital Growth
The United Arab Emirates has formalized a nationally coordinated cyber‑security framework that links government, strategic industries and private partners. Continuous monitoring, AI‑enhanced threat detection and 24/7 response teams are embedded in a unified structure to protect critical infrastructure. The strategy...
Bank of England IT Project Offers Lessons for Wider Government
Britain’s central bank completed a nine‑year, £431 million (≈$540 million) overhaul of its Real‑Time Gross Settlement system, delivering a resilient, interoperable platform that processes about £800 billion (≈$1 trillion) of payments daily. The National Audit Office praised the project for value for money despite...
The UAE CIO: From Technology Operator to Digital Value Architect
The United Arab Emirates is redefining the CIO role from a traditional IT operator to a strategic digital value architect. Driven by ambitious national AI‑first policies and massive sovereign cloud investments, CIOs now sit at the nexus of technology, strategy,...
Cyber Pros Must Grasp the Vibe Coding Nettle, Says NCSC Chief
National Cyber Security Centre chief Richard Horne warned that AI‑enhanced software generation, dubbed “vibe coding,” must be secured before it becomes mainstream. He argued that while insecure AI‑generated code could spread vulnerabilities, well‑trained models could produce secure‑by‑design software, reshaping development....
Irish Government Launches CNI Resilience Plan
The Irish government unveiled a National Strategy on the Resilience of Critical Entities to meet the EU’s Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive, with implementation required by October 2026. The plan targets essential services such as digital infrastructure, water, energy, transport and...
HSS ProService ‘Uber-Ifies’ with Functional Programming and Agentic AI
HSS ProService has transformed from a physical rental operation with 130 depots into a pure‑play digital marketplace that connects construction managers with suppliers. The shift relies on a functional programming stack built in Scala and Cats, enabling a self‑healing finance...
Interview: Huy Dao, Director of Data and Machine Learning Platform, Booking.com
Booking.com’s data and machine‑learning platform, led by Huy Dao, has completed a seamless migration from on‑prem Hadoop to a Snowflake‑based cloud ecosystem. The new Booking Data Exchange serves over 1,500 practitioners, handling petabytes of data and billions of daily predictions...
Zopa Bank Continues Its Transformation with Further Growth
Zopa Bank added half a million new customers last year, bringing its total base to 1.7 million, and posted a 90% profit jump to £65 million. Sales rose 24% to £377 million and deposits grew 17% to £6.4 bn. The fintech‑turned‑bank leveraged its in‑house tech...
AI Tools Offer ‘Near-Real-Time’ Analysis of Data From Seized Mobile Phones and Computers
Israeli firm Cellebrite unveiled AI‑powered tools that let police interrogate call logs, texts, images and videos from seized devices at near‑real time speeds. The Guardian Investigate platform aggregates data in a cloud, maps phone locations, builds timelines and highlights anomalous...
Digital IDs Edge Closer to Practical Reality for UK Businesses
The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has moved its Digital Company ID blueprint from concept to a live, interoperable prototype, showcasing practical deployments for UK businesses. Over 18 months, a coalition of industry leaders—including UK Finance, Mastercard, Monzo...
Beyond Integration Theatre: Building Stronger Cyber Platforms
Chief information security officers are confronting a threat landscape where the integration layer—APIs, OAuth tokens, and automation workflows—has become the new enterprise perimeter. While unified platforms promise simplicity, attackers exploit weakly governed connections, turning integrations into single points of failure....
NetApp Targets E-Series at AI and Neoclouds with EF50 and EF80
NetApp has refreshed its E‑Series portfolio with two all‑flash models, the EF50 and EF80, aimed at AI training, inferencing and high‑performance computing workloads. The new arrays claim a 2.5× performance increase, delivering over 100 GB/s read and 57 GB/s write throughput while...
Nuclear Fusion HPC: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload Podcast
UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has installed Sunrise, a new supercomputer built on AMD EPYC CPUs and MI 355X GPUs, delivering roughly 6 exaflops at 8‑bit precision and 50 petaflops at 64‑bit. Designed specifically for nuclear‑fusion research, Sunrise merges AI and high‑performance computing...
UK Government ‘Flying Blind’ with Poor Data in Charting Regional Growth
The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee released a report warning that the UK government lacks reliable data to track regional innovation and growth. It highlights severe gaps in metrics for innovation clusters, spin‑outs, and R&D spending, especially...
Welsh Government Boosts Funding for Cyber Education
The Welsh Government’s Tech Valleys programme is injecting £740,000 into the National Digital Exploitation Centre (NDEC), a partnership between the University of South Wales and Thales. The funding will enable NDEC to reach an additional 10,000 primary‑school pupils in southeast...
‘Work Is Broken’: Can Agentic AI Fix It?
Enterprise workflows remain fragmented, prompting CIOs to label "work is broken." Agentic AI is touted as a cure, yet Gartner warns up to 40% of projects may be cancelled by 2027 due to governance, cost and execution hurdles. Early pilots...
Platformisation without Illusion: Separating Integration From Theatre
Enterprises are racing toward platformisation, promising fewer tools and clearer security outcomes. In reality many CISOs encounter "integration theatre," where platforms appear unified but only share superficial data, leaving true cross‑domain enforcement absent. The article argues for a "modular monolith"...
Lloyds Bank to Sell More Customer Data and Cut Costs by 35%
Lloyds Banking Group announced its Technology Strategy 3.0, targeting hundreds of millions of pounds in technology cost reductions by 2028. The plan calls for retiring legacy applications, automating compliance checks, expanding in‑house data capabilities and selling more anonymised customer data to...
Stack Overflow on AI: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload Podcast
Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar says AI agents can write functional code faster, though often less elegant than expert developers. He frames agentic AI as a platform shift that will fundamentally reshape roles for designers, product managers and engineers. The...