Welcome to the February 12, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• U.S., U.K. Refuse to Sign Paris Summit Declaration on ‘Inclusive’ AI
• Trump Taps RNC Executive as National Cyber Director
• EU Sets Out $200-Billion AI Spending Plan
• CISA Election Security Officials Placed on Leave
• China's Ex-U.K. Ambassador Debates Bengio at AI Summit
• Tech Companies Raise $27 Million for Child Safety Online
• Taiwan's Legacy Chip Industry Faces Chinese Competition
• NASA's Radiation Tolerant Computer Survives Van Allen Belts
• Meta Eliminating Jobs in Shift to Find AI Talent
• In Bedouin, Druze Tech Hubs, Young Women Are Top of the Game
• White House Encourages Americans to Provide Ideas for AI Strategy
• Russia's Zservers Sanctioned for Supporting Ransomware
• Musk-led Group Launches $97-Billion Bid for OpenAI

U.S., U.K. Refuse to Sign Paris Summit Declaration on ‘Inclusive’ AI

The U.S. and U.K. did not sign the final communiqué at the AI Action Summit in France. The document was backed by 60 signatories, including China. A U.K. government spokesperson said the statement had not gone far enough in addressing global governance of AI and the technology’s impact on national security. U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warned against cooperating with China.
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Trump Taps RNC Executive as National Cyber Director

U.S. President Trump is nominating Republican National Committee (RNC) executive Sean Cairncross as his national cyber director, marking the first significant cybersecurity nomination of the administration. If confirmed, Cairncross would lead the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director, which was established shortly before former U.S. President Joe Biden took office to be the president's principal adviser on cybersecurity matters.
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EU Sets Out $200-Billion AI Spending Plan

The European Union on Tuesday unveiled a plan to raise €200 billion ($206.15 billion) to invest in AI. The plan, dubbed InvestAI, includes a new €20-billion fund for AI gigafactories. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the AI Action Summit in Paris. “We want Europe to be one of the leading AI continents, and this means embracing a life where AI is everywhere.”
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CISA Election Security Officials Placed on Leave

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has placed members of its election security team on administrative leave. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, confirmed that CISA employees working on foreign influence operations and disinformation had been placed on administrative leave pending review. The affected staff had worked with election officials to counter a range of cybersecurity threats.
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China's Ex-U.K. Ambassador Debates Bengio at AI Summit

At the AI Action Summit in Paris, Fu Ying of China's Tsinghua University took aim at an international AI safety report led by ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate and the "godfather of AI" Yoshua Bengio and co-authored by 96 others. Fu Ying said open source is the best way to ensure AI does not cause harm, providing "better opportunities to detect and solve problems." Bengio argued that open source makes it easier for criminals to misuse AI.
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Tech Companies Raise $27 Million for Child Safety Online

A group of technology companies raised more than $27 million for a new initiative focused on building open-source tools to boost online safety for kids. The Robust Online Safety Tools (ROOST) project, announced Monday at the AI Action Summit in Paris, will provide free tools to detect, review, and report child sexual abuse material and use large language models to “power safety infrastructure,” according to a press release for the project.
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Taiwan's Legacy Chip Industry Faces Chinese Competition

Taiwan's semiconductor industry is worried about market share increasing among Chinese foundries for legacy or mature node chips made on 28 nanometer technology and larger. China's Nexchip, Hua Hong, and SMIC are cutting prices and implementing aggressive capacity expansion plans, jeopardizing the dominance of Taiwan's Powerchip, UMC, and Vanguard International. The Taiwanese firms have indicated a need to adapt, with UMC collaborating with Intel to produce smaller and more advanced chips and to diversify beyond legacy chipmaking.
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NASA's Radiation Tolerant Computer Survives Van Allen Belts

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said its self-healing Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC), which entered space Jan. 15 on Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar mission, survived a trip through the radiating Van Allen belts. RadPC features four RISC-V processors, a microcontroller, two kilobytes of data memory, field-programmable gate arrays, and three dosimeters to measure radiation. The computer can identify faults caused by a radiation strike and repair the issue in the background.
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Meta Eliminating Jobs in Shift to Find AI Talent

Meta Platforms on Monday began notifying staff of job cuts, starting a process that will ultimately lead to termination of 5% of its workforce, or 3,600 people. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees the terminations will focus on staff who “aren’t meeting expectations,” and told managers the cuts would create openings for which the company can hire the “strongest talent.”
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In Bedouin, Druze Tech Hubs, Young Women Are Top of the Game

Israel's Druze and Bedouin women have the opportunity to enter the high-tech workforce while embracing their religious traditions through tech hubs established in partnership with The Portland Trust. The Lotus Women's High-Tech Hub in Daliyat al-Karmel and the Samana hub in Zarzir enable Druze and Bedouin women, respectively, to learn coding and other tech skills. Leaders of both hubs work with the women's families so they understand the women receive training while maintaining all social rules.
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White House Encourages Americans to Provide Ideas for AI Strategy

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is calling on Americans to share policy ideas and proposals for the AI Action Plan, which will be developed in accordance with an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump last month. The AI Action plan will "define priority policy actions to enhance America's position as an AI powerhouse and prevent unnecessarily burdensome requirements from hindering private sector innovation," according to officials.
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Russia's Zservers Sanctioned for Supporting Ransomware

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced a joint effort with the U.K. and Australia to sanction Russian-based Internet hosting provider Zservers for its role in supporting global ransomware outfits like LockBit. Zservers has built a reputation as a safe haven for cybercriminals to evade law enforcement investigators. Officials accuse Zservers of subleasing IP addresses and running the programming interface malware used by LockBit and other Russian-related cybercriminals.
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Musk-led Group Launches $97-Billion Bid for OpenAI

Elon Musk and a group of investors offered to buy ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for $97.4 billion, well below the company’s most recent valuation of $157 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rejected the offer on X, posting, “No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk helped to found, and fund, OpenAI in 2015 but left three years later after Altman and other leaders rejected his suggestion that he take over the company.
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