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The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has sent its first formal delegation to mainland China since the party’s founding, seeking to maintain cross-strait peace through dialogue amid heightened tensions with Beijing. The nine-member delegation from the island’s smaller opposition party left for Shanghai on Tuesday for a four-day visit focused on youth exchanges, urban governance, artificial intelligence (AI), technological innovation and entrepreneurship. “The trip aims to build goodwill and mutual...
By Augusten Blah The report in The Shillong Times some days ago that nine two-wheelers were stolen across Meghalaya within just six days should concern every citizen. It is not merely another crime statistic, it is a reminder that for many families, a motorcycle/scooty is their primary means of livelihood, transportation, and daily survival. Losing [...]
US courts are expanding AI hiring lawsuits to scrutinize tool design and monitoring. Employers face legal liability if they cannot document vendor testing and oversight.
Wealth & Finance International recognised AI Account for helping SMEs and accounting firms automate everyday finance tasks, enabling them to focus on busine
Mainstream media, particularly in Hong Kong, have historically been conservative in their research and development spending. Media executives prefer to shop for off-the-shelf solutions, treating technology as back-office support rather than a core growth engine. This mode of operation now faces an existential challenge amid the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI), large language models and Web3 technologies. Concurrently, these developments offer Hong Kong’s media industry fresh...
Korea's 2026 minimum wage is set at 10,700 won per hour, up 3.7%, with sector-based differential rates rejected again for the 39th consecutive year since 1988.
David A. Graham / The Atlantic : Acting AG Todd Blanche has shown he's willing to stifle the free press, through subpoenas of WSJ, NYT, and WaPo reporters and a search of a WaPo reporter's home — The acting attorney general is showcasing his willingness to intimidate reporters whose revelations have upset the president.
<p><i>This story was produced in partnership with the </i><a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/journalism/initiatives/ai-accountability-network"><i>Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network</i></a><i>.</i></p> <p>At Howrah station in Kolkata, the trains never really stop, and neither do the cameras. At one of India’s busiest railway terminals, around a million people pour through it every day, with crowds so dense that following a single face can be near impossible, at least with the human eye.</p> <p>Yet mounted high above the entrance and exit gates, platforms, food courts and waiting rooms, around 100 live facial-recognition cameras silently keep track. The system, installed in the past year, lifts faces from the live feed and cross-checks them against a database of photos: wanted offenders, criminal suspects, missing people. A match alerts railway police to the exact spot a person was seen, and authorises police to approach them.</p> <p>Some commuters seem unaware that they are being surveilled in this way. Barnali Biswas, a private sector employee who passes through six days a week, was unbothered when questioned by a reporter, saying she thought it was probably good for safety. “People with nothing to do with crime had nothing to fear,” she said.<br><br>This kind of camera, enabled with facial-recognition software, is increasingly familiar across India. And in eastern India, one supplier of that software is the Spanish firm Herta Security.</p> <p>According to local partners and company documents, Herta supplies hundreds of railway stations across the region, Delhi’s largest prison complex, a pilgrimage site in Ayodhya, and the city control rooms of Ahmedabad.</p> <p>Herta confirmed the use of its technology in India but in a written statement said that it would “not disclose confidential customer information”. Its software may also be deployed at Howrah station itself, though local railway officials would not confirm this when asked.</p> <p>A source at one of Herta’s Indian partners told Investigate Europe that they estimated that more than 4,000 cameras across the world’s largest democracy are now powered by the Spanish firm’s technology.</p> <p>At least part of that roll-out is linked to the Nirbhaya Fund, a pot of public money created to tackle sexual violence after a shocking 2012 Delhi bus gang rape. Women’s rights groups in India argue the millions of euros earmarked for the fund have been spent on mass surveillance rather than on more direct victim protection and support.</p> <p>According to four leading legal scholars who specialise in EU artificial intelligence (AI) and biometrics law, two of these deployments would be deemed unlawful if they operated inside the European Union: the system on Indian Railways’ Eastern Region and a city-wide surveillance programme in Ahmedabad.</p> <p>Herta said it took such concerns seriously, adding that its products are “developed in line with European data-protection principles, regardless of the market in which they are deployed”. However, the company said that it could not “control how public authorities or system integrators implement the technology in specific environments”.</p> <p>Italian member of the European Parliament, Brando Benifei, however, said the findings raised troubling questions for European lawmakers: “The fact that surveillance technologies banned in Europe are being exported and deployed elsewhere, such as in India’s railway stations, exposes a dangerous double standard.”</p> <p>While the EU has heavily restricted similar surveillance on its own citizens, Investigate Europe has found that it funded the Spanish company to develop its technology. Since 2020, Herta has received more than €3.3m in EU research funding for projects involving “crowd behaviour analysis” and facial recognition.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Surveillance made in Spain"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Surveillance made in Spain</h2> <p>Herta Security was founded in Barcelona in 2009 by former Bosch employee Javier Rodríguez Saeta, a specialist in biometrics – automated identification based on people’s physical features or behaviour. “Back in 2005,” Rodríguez would later recall <a href="https://www.telecinco.es/noticias/economia/reconocimiento-facial-mas-rapido-mundo-encuentra-cara-miles-segundo-herta-espana_18_2862045375.html">in a 2019 interview</a>, “I already thought that in the future it would be necessary to identify people who did not want to be identified.”</p> <p>Today the company’s flagship product, BioSurveillance Next, is designed for what its own <a href="https://hertasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheet_BioSurveillance-NEXT-min.pdf">marketing materials describe as </a><a href="https://hertasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheet_BioSurveillance-NEXT-min.pdf">crowd-scale deployment</a>. Rodríguez has spoken of using it for “demonstrations, sports races, religious gatherings and airports”. The data sheet advertises real-time searches against databases of up to 100 million subjects.</p> <p>The technology is underpinned by graphics-processing units – the same chips that power most current artificial intelligence and accelerate facial recognition so it can be performed in real time. In 2015, AI chipmaker Nvidia recognised Herta as <a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/201504/facial-recognition-firm-herta-security-recognized-at-gtc-summit">a top-emerging company </a><a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/201504/facial-recognition-firm-herta-security-recognized-at-gtc-summit">in the sector</a>. By 2019, Herta claimed to have amassed more than 200 clients across 50 countries.</p> <p>The market Herta serves has expanded rapidly in recent years. Such technology is now used at sports stadiums in the United States, by police forces in the United Kingdom and has also been trialled by police forces across the EU.</p> <p>However, the technology is heavily restricted in Europe. Since 2025, the EU AI Act has <a href="https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/5/">largely prohibited the use of real-time remote biometric identification systems</a> – above all, facial recognition – in public spaces for law enforcement purposes. Those drafting the law identified this as one of the few uses of AI they considered unacceptable.</p> <p>The ban allows three narrow exceptions: targeted searches for victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation or kidnapping, or missing persons; the prevention of a specific, imminent terrorist threat; and the identification of suspects of a closed list of serious crimes including terrorism, murder and rape. Even then, each individual use must be authorised by a judge in advance and logged in an EU database.</p> <p>Herta has a track record of working with clients beyond EU borders. In a marketing presentation from 2021 and seen by Investigate Europe, Herta lists several projects. These include city-wide surveillance schemes known as “safe-city projects” in Jamaica, Thailand and Mumbai in India. Other uses of its software include police forces in Colombia and Indonesia; football stadiums in Belarus and Russia; and airports in Mexico, Nicaragua and Nigeria. It is not clear whether these partnerships are still active today.</p> <p>Herta’s software has also been used in Europe. Notably, the company’s technology was trialled by the German Federal Police in 2017 and 2018 <a href="https://netzpolitik.org/2018/ueberwachungstest-am-suedkreuz-geschoente-ergebnisse-und-vage-zukunftsplaene/">at a </a><a href="https://netzpolitik.org/2018/ueberwachungstest-am-suedkreuz-geschoente-ergebnisse-und-vage-zukunftsplaene/">Berlin train station</a>.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-3-1200px.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-3-1200px_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-3-1200px_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-3-1200px.jpg 1280w" alt="Sporting arenas to police forces: Herta’s global footprint. A selection of end users of Herta’s products, according to market materials. The map shows: Golden Globe Awards, USA; AICM Airport, Mexico; Nicaragua Airport, Nicaragua; Jamaica Eye, Jamaica; Colombian Police, Colombia; Estadio Centenario, Uruguay; Dutch Police, Netherlands; Spanish National Police, Spain; Benin Airport, Nigeria; German Police, Germany; Minsk Arena, Belarus; Samara Stadium, Russia; Sofia City Hall, Bulgaria; Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE; Ahmedabad Safe City, Easter Railways, Kakinada Smart City, Mumbai, India; and Phuket Safe City, Thailand. " data-credit="Investigate Europe" height="315" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>In 2019, Rodríguez was <a href="https://www.telecinco.es/noticias/economia/reconocimiento-facial-mas-rapido-mundo-encuentra-cara-miles-segundo-herta-espana_18_2862045375.html">asked about the risk that Herta’s products might be misused</a>. “In Europe,” he said, “we are very well protected, we have very clear legislation that sets out the uses of this technology. There’s nothing to fear.”</p> <p>At that time, the EU-wide ban on real-time facial recognition in public spaces was not in place. The AI Act’s prohibition only took effect in February 2025. He did not address the protections available to citizens in his other markets such as India, where similar strict legislation is absent.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The Indian portfolio: Railways, prisons and temples"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The Indian portfolio: Railways, prisons and temples</h2> <p>Herta’s expansion into India has unfolded over a decade. Around 2014, the company supplied four or five cameras for the Mumbai Safe City project, according to a local business partner.</p> <p>A former senior researcher at Herta, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the data Herta acquired through its early Indian deployments was central to overcoming problems with the algorithm’s poor performance on non-white faces.</p> <p>Herta told Investigate Europe that it “does not use customer operational data from deployments as a default mechanism to train or improve its algorithms”. Any use of personal or biometric data for algorithmic training “would require a clear legal basis”.</p> <p>The real breakthrough came eight years later. In 2022, a Delhi-based company <a href="https://www.railtel.in/images/Contract-Details/SEP%20ER%202022.pdf">won an €11.5m tender contract for a video surveillance system</a> covering hundreds of train stations in eastern India. The facial recognition layer of the system runs on Herta software.</p> <p>Eastern Railway <a href="https://www.thestatesman.com/bengal/er-enhances-security-with-advance-video-surveillance-1503385192.html">announced last year</a> that 540 facial-recognition systems were operational at 143 stations. The full plan covers 392 stations, among them some of the largest stations in the region. Herta’s local partners said that the systems could be fitted in more than 1,500 cameras in the future.</p> <p>Authorities regularly cross-reference faces against a watchlist of people of interest. It is not clear what criteria are used to list people, but one of Herta’s local business partners said there were around one million subjects on the watchlist.</p> <p>The scale of the system is unlike anything available in Europe, they added: “On the busiest station, if I just implement one camera, you run 10,000 people in five minutes.” If the system returns a match, an alert is sent to an armed police force authorised to stop them, they claimed.</p> <p>In 2022, Delhi Police said it <a href="https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-polices-frt-use-is-80-accurate-and-100-scary/">treated facial-recognition matches at 80% similarity as positive </a><a href="https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-polices-frt-use-is-80-accurate-and-100-scary/">identifications</a>. With millions of travellers, even a small error rate is not insignificant. Significantly, the watchlist data is not public, nor are the criteria for inclusion, and there is no route to contest a false match.</p> <p>Herta’s presence on the Indian rail network is not confined to the Eastern Region. Under a programme run by the Railway Land Development Authority, which modernises stations nationwide, Herta’s software has reached terminals as far as Jaipur and Secunderabad, according to Herta’s local partner.</p> <p>Its software also runs facial-recognition systems across three of Delhi’s prison complexes – Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini – the local partner claimed. The government contract for the deployment is reportedly worth 352m rupees (€3.2m).</p> <p>The system is not confined to public or state infrastructure. It also runs at the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya, where the local partner claims that the surveillance system alerts local police when individuals on a watchlist are identified. Similar deployments at two other temples are in progress, they added.</p> <p>Herta also operates in the context of safe-city programmes. In a marketing presentation obtained by Investigate Europe, the company claimed to have deployed 140 facial-recognition cameras in Ahmedabad, and lists further deployments in several other cities.</p> <p>Investigate Europe sought comments regarding the deployments by Eastern Railway, the authority implementing the Safe City Ahmedabad project, and the authorities responsible for managing Delhi’s prisons. All enquiries went unanswered.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="A rape and its consequences"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>A rape and its consequences</h2> <p>Herta’s expansion in India is apparently linked to a policy shift triggered by an infamous rape case. In December 2012 a young physiotherapy student, boarded a private bus in Delhi with a male friend after watching a film in the local cinema. Unknown to them, the bus was off-duty. Its driver and five other men had stopped to pick the two of them up under the pretence of carrying passengers.</p> <p>Over an hour, the six men beat the woman's friend, gang-raped her, and threw both of them, seriously injured, from the bus. She died of her injuries two weeks later. The case triggered widespread protests across India and forced a national debate about gender violence, public safety and the state’s failure to protect women.</p> <p>In 2013, the government <a href="https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/erelcontent.aspx?relid=95115®=48&lang=2">announced a new fund</a>. Civil society groups that campaigned in the wake of the case had asked for victim support, legal aid and shelter networks, recalled a human rights lawyer involved in the discussion at the time.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-1-1200px.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-1-1200px_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-1-1200px_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-1-1200px.jpg 1280w" alt="Source: India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development, Categorisation by Investigate Europe. Where the Nirbhaya Fund money went: Category-by-category spending under India’s Nirbhaya Fund reveals how much of the money was directed toward surveillance technology rather than direct support for cities. 2.3bn rupees/20.9m euros (4.2%) to ‘Other prevention and empowerment’. 8.2bn rupees/75.7m euros (15.1%) to ‘Courts and prosecution capacity’. 16.7bn rupees/153.1m euros (30.6%) to ‘Direct victim support’. And 27.3bn rupees/250.2m euros (50.1%) to ‘Surveillance and policing infrastructure’. " data-credit="Investigate Europe" height="315" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>The initial commitment of 10bn rupees (€92m) was for “the empowerment, safety and security of women and girl children”. The fund came to be known by the same unofficial name the Indian press had given the young woman: Nirbhaya, meaning ‘Fearless’.</p> <p>Over the years, the Indian government allocated more money towards the fund. By March 2025 around 58bn rupees (€532m) had been disbursed. Indian government data published in February 2024 showed that roughly 50% went to surveillance and policing functions, versus 31% for direct victim support services and emergency helplines.</p> <p>Some argue these new surveillance systems have not made women significantly safer. In 2014, the year after the Nirbhaya Fund was established, 340,000 crimes against women in India were reported by <a href="https://ncrb.gov.in/">the National Crime Records Bureau</a>. By 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, that figure had risen by roughly a third to 450,000.</p> <p>Flavia Agnes, a Mumbai-based lawyer who estimates she has worked on around 100,000 cases of violence against women over a 40-year career, said the design of the response to the national outcry was wrong from the start.</p> <p>“I have not come across cases where this kind of surveillance has helped to identify the accused,” she said. Most violence against women in India does not happen in the places the cameras can see such as train stations, she explains, but in the home. “About 95% of the rape cases take place by known people.”</p> <p>Audrey D’Mello, who directs a centre providing legal aid to survivors of violence in Mumbai, has not seen evidence of the surveillance working in her field. The infrastructure built in the name of women’s safety, she said, has rarely been about women’s safety. She is more cynical about the government’s project. “They also realised that it’s easier to push in the name of women,” she added.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-2-1200px.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-2-1200px_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-2-1200px_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/computerweekly/IE-SURVEILLANCE-HERTA-VISUAL-2-1200px.jpg 1280w" alt="Source: India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and National Crime Records Bureau. India is registering more crimes against women: The number of recorded cases has risen by more than 40% since 2013, reaching around 442,000 in 2024. The number in 2013 was 309,546. " data-credit="Investigate Europe" height="315" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>There is no direct evidence suggesting that the use of surveillance cameras in public spaces have not increased women’s safety in the country.</p> <p>The Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development, which oversees the Nirbhaya Fund, did not respond to requests for comment.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Prohibited in the EU, deployed abroad"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Prohibited in the EU, deployed abroad</h2> <p>Four scholars who work on EU artificial intelligence and biometrics law said the deployments in the Indian Railways Eastern Region and the Safe City Ahmedabad programme would be unlawful in the EU.</p> <p>“Such a deployment in an EU member state would quite clearly violate” the EU’s AI Act, said Rita Matulionyte from Macquarie Law School in Sydney.</p> <p>Catherine Jasserand, of KU Leuven in Belgium, reached the same conclusion. “I don’t think these two cases constitute good examples of the live use of facial-recognition technology by police in public spaces,” she stated.</p> <p>“The two deployments are too broad to fall under one of the exceptions,” she said, referring to the carve-outs for searches for vulnerable people, terror threats and suspects of serious crimes.</p> <p>Even under those exceptions, EU law requires it first to pass a national statute authorising the practice, with detailed rules on supervision, reporting and judicial control. Spain, where Herta is based, has passed no such law, meaning the company could not legally run the system at home as in India.</p> <p>India’s own legal framework offers no comparable protection. India has no comprehensive data protection law in force, and what it has passed <a href="https://fpf.org/blog/the-digital-personal-data-protection-act-of-india-explained/">exempts policing and law enforcement so broadly</a> that deployments like these remain effectively unregulated.</p> <p>“India is definitely one of the leading adopters of facial recognition technology in the world without any safeguards,” said Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based digital rights lawyer and founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="EU-funded crowd control"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>EU-funded crowd control</h2> <p>Herta has received EU public money to develop the kind of technology that it sells in India. According to analysis by Investigate Europe, the company has received at least €3m in EU research funding over the past five years, with further support from Spanish national programmes. The largest single grant, worth €2.36m between 2022 and 2024, supported a Herta project called Future.</p> <p>The technology developed under the project was, according to Herta, designed to perform “crowd behaviour analysis to identify abnormal activities and potential threats in large gatherings, public events, and high-traffic areas”.</p> <p>A separate page <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240720185209/future-project.es/about-future">on the project’s website, since taken down but preserved in web archives</a>, described its facial-recognition layer as a tool for law enforcement agencies “to swiftly and accurately identify suspects and terrorists”.</p> <p>The use case described by Herta – real-time identification of suspects in crowded public spaces – is precisely the scenario the EU largely prohibited on its own soil soon after the Future project ended. However, it is a blueprint it appears to be adopting in India.</p> <p>“As with many technology companies, knowledge gained through research projects may contribute to the general evolution of our expertise, methodologies and product roadmap,” a Herta spokesperson said. “However, EU research funding is not used to finance, operate or subsidise specific commercial deployments in India or elsewhere.”</p> <p>The European Commission did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.</p> <p>Italian MEP Brando Benifei led negotiations for the European Parliament in finalising the AI Act. While the use of such facial-recognition technology is now largely banned at home, Benifei believes the law must go further and prevent exports outside the EU altogether.</p> <p>“The European Union cannot claim to be a global champion of digital rights if we allow our companies to profit abroad from tools deemed too dangerous for European citizens,” he said. “We should find arrangements to not allow the export and use abroad of systems we would not permit at home.”</p> <div align="center"> <hr align="center" noshade width="100%" size="0"> </div> <p><i>Editors: Ella Joyner, Mei-Ling McNamara.</i></p> <p><i>Additional reporting: Snigdhendu Bhattacharya and Shivnarayan Rajpurohit.</i></p> <p><i>This story was supported by the </i><a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/journalism/initiatives/ai-accountability-network"><i>Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network</i></a><i>. It is being published with media partners including Computer Weekly (UK), EUObserver (Belgium), InfoLibre (Spain), Tech Policy Press (US) and The Reporters’ Collective (India).</i></p> </section>
The UK government said on July 14 it will introduce an overnight social media curfew for children aged 16 and 17, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month announced an under-16 social media ban.
As China stages its AI governance debut in Shanghai, the Philippines and its neighbors need more than applause. They need a policy floor.
AI agents paired with expert human engineers to transform enterprise data, a crucial step toward becoming an Agentic Enterprise ATLANTA, July 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xebia, a global AI-first, digital transformation, and engineering leader, announced Xebia Axis: Agentic Data Foundation, a solution that gets enterprise data ready for AI with the speed of automation and the discipline of governed engineering. It combines proprietary AI agents with human data engineering teams to assess, migrate, monitor, and operate enterprise data platforms, completing migrations roughly three times faster than conventional, human-led delivery without trading away governance or data quality. The solution addresses a change in how enterprise data is consumed. Data platforms were designed for people who can work around inconsistencies. Autonomous AI agents act on data as they find it. Xebia Axis makes the data, governance, and controls that those agents rely on consistent, auditable, and production-ready. Human teams set strategy and govern quality, while agents execute with roughly 10 times the leverage of a purely human-led team. At a Glance *What it is: A single solution that assesses, builds, migrates, monitors, and operates enterprise data platforms, providing the foundation for an Agentic Enterprise. *How it works: Human teams set strategy and govern quality throughout the lifecycle. Proprietary AI agents perform assessment, migration, monitoring, and remediation tasks. *Six modules: Readiness, Platform, Knowledge, Migration, Observability, and Operations. *Timeline: Organizations move from data sprawl to a production-ready, self-healing data platform in weeks rather than the months legacy approaches require. *Governance: Access control, audit logging, data residency, and bias controls are part of the platform rather than added afterward. *Interoperability: Works across major cloud platforms and large language models; no single-vendor requirement. "Enterprises have spent years moving data to the cloud, but many still cannot put AI into production because the underlying data and governance are not ready," said Anand Sahay, Chief Executive Officer, Xebia. "Xebia Axis closes that gap, so our clients can move to an Agentic Enterprise faster than competitors still wrestling with legacy data platforms." How Xebia Axis Works Xebia Axis covers the full data lifecycle in one solution rather than the separate tools enterprises typically assemble for each stage. Six modules run from initial assessment through ongoing operations: Readiness maps the data estate and produces a prioritized migration blueprint; Platform generates governed, policy-validated infrastructure as code; Knowledge converts content held in documents, email, and disconnected systems into a governed data layer for AI; Migration automates data and pipeline conversion with parity checks before cutover; Observability monitors data quality, service levels, and agent activity; and Operations performs root-cause analysis after go-live and submits fixes as pull requests for human review. Agents operate within controls for access, audit logging, and data residency, and data remains within the client's environment. Xebia Axis works across major cloud platforms, including Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Databricks, Snowflake, and Microsoft Fabric, and major large language models, including Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, and Mistral AI. "The same agent technology that makes data debt urgent also makes it faster to resolve," said Niels Zeilemaker, Xebia's Global CTO Data & AI. "Xebia Axis puts purpose-built agents alongside senior engineers to build and run data platforms in production, with governance built into the platform itself." Built on Partner Platforms Xebia Axis is built to run on the platforms enterprises already rely on. As a partner of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Databricks, and Snowflake, Xebia deploys it natively on each. It provisions governed environments, migrates workloads, and operates pipelines within the customer's chosen stack. Because the solution is platform- and model-agnostic, organizations can integrate these clouds and data platforms with their preferred large language models and adapt as their architecture evolves. Early Xebia Axis Engagements Across Industries *A global bank used the solution to consolidate fraud and credit data from separate batch systems into one governed platform with real-time access for its detection models. Cloud data-platform modernizations for banks of this size and medium complexity typically reduce infrastructure costs by 30 to 50 percent within the first two years. *A global airline applied Xebia Axis to modernize fragmented operational and customer data. By automating estate discovery, code conversion, and validation, Axis completes migrations roughly three times faster than conventional means. It brings traditional migrations, which usually last 12 to 18 months, down to a few months. *A global retailer used the solution to consolidate duplicate pipelines into a single, governed, continuously monitored platform to address data-quality failures. The retailer has benefited from more consistent, trustworthy data across its reporting and operations, with issues caught and resolved before they reach downstream systems. Availability Xebia Axis is available globally today. Organizations can begin with Xebia Axis for Readiness as a standalone assessment, which produces a data readiness score, estate inventory, and migration roadmap in two to four weeks; assessment fees are credited toward a subsequent migration. More information is available at: www.Xebia.AI/Axis Recently, Xebia launched Xebia Ace, an AI-Native Engineering solution. It is an AI-Native software engineering framework designed for pragmatic, outcome-driven modernization and digital transformation, which embeds AI across the entire SDLC to accelerate delivery by up to 40%. About Xebia Xebia is a global AI-first, digital transformation, and engineering partner. With over 25 years of experience and a team of 4,500+ professionals across 16 countries, Xebia specializes in artificial intelligence, data and cloud, intelligent automation, and digital products and platforms. With a strong focus on engineering excellence and a people-first culture, it equips organizations to apply emerging technologies that accelerate business innovation and drive sustainable competitive advantage. Xebia leads with a responsible and human-centric approach to AI, ensuring organizations shape a better tomorrow for all. Media Contact Maureen Elsberry Global VP of Communications at Xebia maureen.elsberry@xebia.com Copyright 2026 GlobeNewswire, Inc.
LONDON, July 15 — The UK government said yesterday it will introduce an overnight social media curfew f...
Chinese stocks showed stability as investors shifted focus from technology to traditional sectors. Disappointing second-quarter economic growth data did not significantly impact market sentiment. Consumer and financial stocks saw gains while technology shares experienced profit-taking. Hong Kong equities outperformed mainland markets, supported by major technology companies. European investors maintain strong interest in Chinese equities, focusing on localization efforts.
For one analyst, the US stock market is dangerously exposed to a massive AI investment bubble, but one company has a higher risk of implosion than any other.
Reports of ChatGPT service disruptions surfaced online today as users took to reddit and other social media platforms to report problems accessing OpenAI's AI chatbot. According to reddit users, they could reach the ChatGPT website just fine but are unable to log in, while the app seems to work perfectly fine. Some users reported errors such as “Encountered invalidated oauth token for user, failing request” and “elevated errors.” However, on our end, along with a couple of colleagues have experienced no problems whatsoever, leading us to believe it could be a regional issue. Partial outages can occur for a variety of reasons, including infrastructure issues, regional networking problems, or phased deployments that temporarily impact certain users. In such cases, service availability may vary depending on location, server assignment, or the specific AI model being accessed. As of publication, OpenAI has not publicly announced a widespread outage, and the full scope and cause of the reported disruptions remained unclear.
Book publishers sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech giant of illegally using copyrighted works to train its artificial intelligence models and generate content that competes with human authors. The lawsuit marks the latest legal battle over how AI developers use books and other creative works to build their systems.
Book publishers sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech giant of illegally using copyrighted works to train its artificial intelligence models and generate content that competes with human authors. The lawsuit marks the latest legal battle over how AI developers use books and other creative works to build their systems.
Multiple book publishers suedGoogleon Tuesday for allegedly stealing copyrighted content, using it totrain artificial intelligence(AI) models and then generating content that "directly"competes with the original authors' work. "The scale and speed at which Gemini can create books and compete with human writers is unprecedented," the lawsuit says. Thelawsuit, which requests class action status, was filed in
The recent disclosures mandated under the European Union’s tax transparency regulations have illuminated more than the fiscal strategies of multinational technology giants. They have exposed structural asymmetries embedded in the global digital economy. Public reporting on Microsoft’s European tax arrangements—showing how profits can be concentrated in favourable jurisdictions while revenues are generated across multiple markets—has... This article Africa and digital sovereignty in the age of Artificial Intelligence was originally created by Converseer .
San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen said one person died and another was missing after a fire on a pontoon boat off San Francisco.
Regulators in four regions are drafting rules for autonomous clinical AI. This shift to independent medical action creates new patient safety and liability risks.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
Customers can now buy KnowBe4's security tools through AWS Marketplace, speeding deployment as firms race to protect employees and AI agents.
The product is allegedly a new type of computer featuring no screen, but does tap into some of ChatGPT's features.
Finnish defense technology company NestAI said on Tuesday that it would begin developing artificial intelligence (AI) models for battlefield applications, as Europe seeks greater control over critical defense technologies, reported Xinhua. Peter Sarlin, founder and chairman of NestAI, told Finnish language business daily Kauppalehti that the initiative was intended to strengthen Europe's technological sovereignty in defense. "The intelligence at the core of European defense must be European-owned, and it must be built and developed on Europe's own terms," Sarlin said. He said NestAI aimed to develop AI platforms that armed forces could own, control and continuously improve, rather than relying on fixed systems supplied from abroad. Europe remained heavily dependent on U.S. technology in defense-related AI, he added, underscoring the need for stronger European control over critical models and infrastructure. Unlike general-purpose large language models, NestAI's project will focus on specialized AI systems for defense and battlefield applications. According to Sarlin, battlefield AI systems must be able to adapt as adversaries, technologies and operational conditions evolve. Simulation-based training would allow defense forces to rehearse rapidly changing scenarios involving new drones, electronic interference and emerging tactics. NestAI said the models would be developed in line with established military doctrines and rules of engagement, with AI-generated decisions recorded and made available for subsequent review. Pilot versions of the models will initially be provided to the Finnish and Estonian defense forces, with other allied countries expected to follow. NestAI signed letters of intent with the Finnish and Estonian defense ministries last week. The company has also recently announced cooperation with Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia. Elina Lappalainen, an analyst with a leading Finnish language national daily Helsingin Sanomat, noted that although drones and their control systems are already manufactured in Europe, the AI software underpinning critical functions is often developed abroad, leaving European users vulnerable to possible restrictions on access. She cited recent U.S. restrictions affecting access to advanced language models developed by Anthropic, the U.S. AI company behind the Claude family of models, as "a wake-up call" for Europe.
Lightspeed is in discussions to lead the funding round, sources say.
La demanda de Apple contra OpenAI no es simplemente otro episodio de la eterna batalla por la propiedad intelectual en Silicon Valley: es, sobre todo, una señal.
Roughly half of machine identities hold privileged access, threatening law firm security. One compromised automated account exposed data for 21,000 customers.
ChatGPT appears to be facing technical difficulties, with users and OpenAI itself reporting problems with more than a dozen key functions. The post ChatGPT down? OpenAI confirms “partial outage” as error reports grow appeared first on SmartCompany .
As VMware itself warns of critical flaw in its load balancer
Palantir's Q1 2026 results showed U.S. revenue more than doubling year-over-year, driven by surging AI demand across government and enterprise. But with the stock trading at 139x earnings, the real question is whether the growth justifies the price tag. The post Palantir’s U.S. Revenue Just Doubled — But Is the Stock Already Priced for Perfection? appeared first on Memeburn .
The number of active users on the Google Gemini app in Southeast Asia has more than doubled in a year, driven by Gen Z and local language capability.
The reported hardware plans come days after Apple filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of using confidential information and trade secrets taken from former Apple employees.
New release enables organizations to dramatically increase productivity by automating both human-led and fully agentic customer workflows on a single platform
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 15: L&T Technology Services Limited (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), a global leader in Engineering Intelligence Solutions & ER&D Consulting Services, announced its results for the first quarter ended June 30, 2026.
New AWS-Strand Partners research shows AI use spreading fast across Thai businesses, but most remain stuck at basic adoption with skills and governance gaps
LTM, a Larsen & Toubro Group company, is spearheading one of India's largest enterprise AI workplace transformations by deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot for approximately 140,000 employees across the L&T Group. This initiative aims to enhance productivity, accelerate issue resolution, and improve customer outcomes through AI-assisted workflows. LTM's AI assistant, RAIma, has already shown a 70% improvement in IT/HR query resolution and a 15% increase in employee engagement and HR productivity. The deployment includes AI tools like Agent A.S.K. for sales and RAIma for HR support, underscoring L&T Group's commitment to embedding AI into daily operations and advancing its AI transformation journey. The collaboration with Microsoft also focuses on establishing responsible AI practices and governance frameworks.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley has visited 13 plants in the past year and plans to see at least two more before the year's end. The plant visits are part of the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker's efforts to improve quality after warranty costs have ...
Sydney startup BlueNexus raises A$2.0M seed to power its agent management platform: a 20-minute no-code wizard to build, run and monetise AI agents.
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 15: LTM, a Larsen & Toubro Group company and the Business Creativity partner to the world's largest enterprises, today announced that it is leading the deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot across the L&T Group, driving one of India's largest enterprise AI workplace transformations.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants to overhaul the global semiconductor industry with trillions of dollars in investment, The Wall... ▷ Sam Altman
AI in Social Media Market is projected to grow from US$4.8 Bn in 2026 to US$42.5 Bn by 2033, driven by faster content creation, engagement, and marketing ROI
According to Cambridge ‘AI ethicist’ Dr Eleanor Drage, the biggest risks of AI are not the dystopian doomsday scenarios that consume us
By Oravee Smithiphol, Tech Intelligence & Insights Manager, SCB 10X
The newest OpenAI text-generator is a marked improvement over its predecessor – but it still has its pitfalls. We’ve all had... ▷ ChatGPT