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Science & Tech
Ukraine's military technology could benefit all of Europe — Deputy Minister Anna Gvozdiar
At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine was already punching above its weight in technology—having one of the most powerful IT hubs and digitized governments in the world. Now, three years into the war, tech innovation in Ukraine has become a battlefield advantage, one that Anna Gvozdiar, Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries, says could benefit all of Europe. Tony Maciulis spoke with Gvozdiar on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference for GZERO Reports about how Ukraine’s rapid advancements in military technology, including drones and electronic warfare systems, can offer Western allies “priceless” lessons in the fight against Russian aggression. With the future of US support far from certain, Gvozdiar says Ukraine is committed to protecting European security and that the stakes of the war could not be higher.
“We are fighting not for territory. We are fighting for values,” Gvozdiar says, “I think that Europe has to understand that this is about protecting a democracy.”
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The growing cyber threat: Ransomware, China, and state-sponsored attacks
"Ransomware attacks surged 252% last year—hospitals, schools, and local governments are paying the price," said Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, during a Global Stage discussion at the 2025 Munich Security Conference.
Smith highlighted the evolving cybersecurity threats in 2025. While defenses have improved, China’s recent Salt Typhoon attack exposed vulnerabilities in US telecom networks, and ransomware has exploded—with over half of payments flowing to Russia and Iran. Smith warns that some of these attacks are state-sponsored or state-tolerated, calling for greater international collaboration to counter them.
Watch the full conversation here: Is the Europe-US rift leaving us all vulnerable?
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft from the 2025 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical conversations on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
France positioned itself as a global leader in artificial intelligence at last week’s AI Action Summit in Paris, but the gathering revealed a country more focused on attracting investment than leading Europe's approach to artificial intelligence regulation.
The summit, which drew global leaders and technology executives from around the world on Feb. 10-11, showcased France’s shift away from Europe’s traditionally strict tech regulation. French President Emmanuel Macron announced $113 billion in domestic AI investment while calling for simpler rules and faster development — a stark contrast to the EU’s landmark AI Act, which is gradually taking effect across the continent.
Esprit d’innovation
This pivot toward a business-friendly approach has been building since late 2023, when France tried unsuccessfully to water down provisions in the EU’s AI Act to help domestic firms like Mistral AI, the $6 billion Paris-based startup behind the chatbot Le Chat.
“France sees an opportunity to improve its sluggish economy via the development and promotion of domestic AI services and products,” said Mark Scott, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “Where France does stand apart from others is its lip service to the need for some AI rules, but only in ways that, inevitably, support French companies to compete on the global stage.”
Nuclear power play
France does have unique advantages in its AI: plentiful nuclear power, tons of foreign investment, and established research centers from Silicon Valley tech giants Alphabet and Meta. The country plans to dedicate up to 10 gigawatts of nuclear power to a domestic AI computing facility by 2030 and struck deals this month with both the United Arab Emirates and the Canadian energy company Brookfield.
About 70% of France’s electricity comes from nuclear — a clean energy source that’s become critical to the long-term vision of AI companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
France vs. the EU
But critics say France’s self-promotion undermines broader European efforts. “While the previous European Commission focused on oversight and regulation, the new cohort appears to follow an entirely different strategy,” said Mia Hoffman, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. She warned that EU leaders under the second Ursula von der Leyen-led Commission, which began in September 2024, are “buying into the regulation vs. innovation narrative that dominates technology policy debates in the US.”
The summit itself reflected these tensions. “It looked more like a self-promotion campaign by France to attract talent, infrastructure, and investments, rather than a high-level international summit,” said Jessica Galissaire of the French think tank Renaissance Numérique. She argued that AI leadership “should be an objective for the EU and not member states taken individually.”
This France-first approach marks a significant departure from a more united European tech policy, suggesting France may be more interested in competing with the US and China as a player on the world stage than in strengthening Europe’s collective position in AI development.
Hard Numbers: AI-generated bank runs, Europe wants to supercharge innovation, Do you trust AI?, Dell’s big deal, South Korea’s GPU hoard
51.6 billion: Europe will invest $51.6 billion in artificial intelligence, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week. That’ll add to the $157 billion already committed by Europe’s private sector under the AI Champions Initiative launched at the AI Action Summit in Paris last week. The goal is to “supercharge” innovation across the continent, she said.
32: Just 32% of Americans say they trust artificial intelligence, according to the annual Edelman Trust Barometer published by the public relations firm Edelman on Thursday. By contrast, 72% of people in China said they trust AI. Meanwhile, only 44% of Americans said they are comfortable with businesses using AI.
5 billion: Dell shares rose 4% on Friday after press reports indicated it was closing a $5 billion deal to sell AI servers to Elon Musk’s xAI. Dell stock has soared 39% over the past year on increased demand for AI.
10,000: South Korea said Monday it will buy 10,000 graphics processors for its national computing center. The country is one of the few that are unrestricted from buying these chips from American companies. It’s unclear who South Korea will buy from, but Nvidia dominates the market, followed far behind by AMD and Intel.
The Meta logo, a keyboard, and robot hands are seen in this illustration taken on Jan. 27, 2025.
The company behind Facebook is now plotting a major investment in building humanoid robots, according to an internal memo seen by various media outlets and first reported on Friday. The company is establishing a new robotics division to help people with physical tasks. The robots will be powered by Meta’s own Llama models and will be run by Marc Whitten, the former CEO of the autonomous vehicle company Cruise.
Meta’s robots will initially focus on aiding people with household chores, according to Bloomberg. But it has a long-term goal not only to sell to consumers but also to make the “underlying AI, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a range of companies.”In this photo illustration, Intel logo is displayed on a smartphone with stock market percentages on the background.
Intel has publicly struggled to innovate in recent years, missing out on a windfall from artificial intelligence enjoyed by rivals.
While many semiconductor companies either design chips or manufacture them, Intel is an integrated device manufacturer — meaning, it does both. That said, it lost ground to chip-designing rivals like Nvidia and AMD and fabrication competitors like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and GlobalFoundries during the AI boom. As such, Intel’s stock has fallen 47% in the past year and 63% in the past five years.
Now, the vultures are circling. Broadcom is reportedly eyeing Intel’s chip design and marketing business while TSMC is considering bidding for some or all of Intel’s chip plants.
The proposed deals are still preliminary, but they come amid continuous struggles for Intel, which culminated in the resignation of its CEO Pat Gelsinger in early December. Even before that, in September, Qualcomm also inquired about a potential sale.
Any deal for Intel would be highly scrutinized by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, America’s two antitrust authorities, but also potentially considered for any national security ramifications, considering chip independence is a strategic priority for the US.
For now, Intel is still standing, but it very may be carved up in the months and years to come.
In this photo illustration, a DeepSeek logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with a South Korea Flag in the background.
South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission, the data privacy authority in the country, said the app “lacked transparency about third-party data transfers and potentially collected excessive personal information.” It’s unclear whether the third party in question is the Chinese government.
The government said the ban will only be lifted after DeepSeek adheres to the country’s privacy and security laws, which are considered among the world’s most stringent. While DeepSeek’s R1 model has quickly become one of the foremost large language models, it’s the first such one to hail from China — and thus, privacy advocates and global regulators have criticized its privacy policy, which states that the company will share data with China. “We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China,” the policy says. The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged South Korea not to “politicize” trade issues and said Chinese companies comply with local laws where they operate.
Italy already banned DeepSeek nationwide over privacy concerns, while Taiwan and Australia each banned the app on government devices. In the United States, there’s no federal prohibition on government devices, but legislation was introduced earlier this month to do just that. Meanwhile, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have all banned DeepSeek on state-owned devices.
Software is difficult to ban — especially since virtual private networks can mask one’s location — but countries concerned by Chinese access to their citizens’ data are trying their best.