As part of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s historic state visit to the United States, on April 9, 2024, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, and Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Moriyama Masahito announced two new research partnerships in Artificial Intelligence between the University of Washington and the University of Tsukuba and between Carnegie Mellon University and Keio University.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday his country will invest 9.4 trillion won ($6.94 billion) in artificial intelligence by 2027 as part of efforts to retain a leading global position in cutting-edge semiconductor chips.

The announcement, which also includes a separate 1.4 trillion won fund to foster AI semiconductor firms, comes as South Korea tries to keep abreast with countries like the United States, China and Japan that are also giving massive policy support to strengthen semiconductor supply chains on their own turf.

UKTIN spoke to Barry Evans, Chair of UKTIN’s NTN Expert Working Group to learn more about its Future Capability Paper, which was published today. You can find more information on the future capability paper series here.

Read the NTN Future Capability Paper

Google has announced a $1billion investment to expand its Central Pacific Connect Initiative, which includes delivering two new subsea cables, Proa and Taihei.

The Cables

Partners on the two new cable systems include Japanese telecom operators KDDI and ARTERIA, the Private Equity firm Citadel Pacific, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

Both cables will be delivered by NEC.

A new study from Juniper Research, the foremost experts in telecommunications markets, found that the global number of travel eSIM users will grow from 40 million in 2024 to over 215 million by 2028.

Travel eSIMs provide an alternative to operators’ roaming services, by allowing travellers to download a temporary local profile onto their device and avoid roaming charges.

Eutelsat Group announces it has launched low Earth orbit services in Antarctica for British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a world-leading centre for polar science and polar operations.

Microsoft AI, the newly launched Microsoft organisation that is tasked with helping the company advance its consumer AI products has announced it is opening an AI hub in London.

Microsoft AI was launched last month, with DeepMind and Inflection co-founder Mustafa Suleyman leading the new organisation as its inaugural CEO.

Virgin Media O2 Business has been selected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as a strategic partner to provide mobility data.  The anonymised data will be used to support UK Government work at national and local levels, providing insights that reveal population dynamics, travel patterns, and other movement trends.

Telefónica Tech has launched its global vulnerability management service into a solution that manages the entire attack surface of companies to anticipate threats and prevent attacks.

The new service, based on Tenable’s exposure management platform, identifies all exposed assets in organisations by covering risks associated with IT equipment, cloud, containers, web applications and identity platforms.

The UK and US have signed a landmark deal to work together to test advanced AI.

The agreement, which was signed on Monday, will see both countries work together to develop “robust” methods for evaluating the safety of AI tools and its systems.

This agreement represents a landmark moment, as the UK and the United States deepen our enduring special relationship to address the defining technology challenge of our generation,” said Michelle Donelan, the UK’s secretary of state for science, innovation and technology.