Welcome to the June 18, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Seznec Receives the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award
• Japan Unveils ¥100-Billion Policy Package to Attract Foreign Researchers
• Danish Military Using Robotic Sailboats for Sea Surveillance
• U.S. Army's Newest Recruits: Tech Execs
• Amazon Plans $13-Billion Investment in Australia Datacenters
• Baidu Ramps Up AI Hiring as China Faces Talent Crunch
• Denmark to Replace Microsoft Office with Open Source Alternatives
• OpenAI Wins $200-Million U.S. Defense Contract
• Taiwan Imposes Technology Export Controls on Huawei, SMIC
• Tokyoites Push Back Against IT Giants' Encroaching Data Behemoths
• U.S. Seizes $7.74M in Crypto Tied to North Korea's Global Fake IT Worker Network
• Taiwan Seals Ukraine Combat-Tested Drone Software Deal
• Language Bias Persists in Scientific Publishing Despite AI Tools

Seznec Receives the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award

ACM Fellow André Seznec was named the recipient of the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award in recognition for his extensive impact on computing, most notably pioneering contributions to branch prediction and cache memories. Seznec’s inventions include the TAGE branch predictor and skewed-associative cache. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 100 papers, with many of his most notable contributions published solely under his name.
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Japan Unveils ¥100-Billion Policy Package to Attract Foreign Researchers

A ¥100-billion ($695-million) policy package released by the Japanese government aims to attract foreign researchers in fields such as AI and semiconductors by fostering an elite research environment, with plans to build hubs to promote top-level research, acquire advanced technology for use at institutions, and boost researchers' salaries. The government also plans to use profits generated from a 10-trillion-yen investment fund set up by the state to help universities produce internationally competitive research.
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Danish Military Using Robotic Sailboats for Sea Surveillance

The Danish Defense Ministry has launched four unmanned robotic sailboats to patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North seas. The 30-foot (10-meter) vessels from California's Saildrone are powered by wind and solar energy and equipped with radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar, and acoustic monitoring. The Ministry said the sailboats are part of a trial aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines.
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U.S. Army's Newest Recruits: Tech Execs

Palantir's Shyam Sankar, Meta Platforms' Andrew Bosworth, and OpenAI's Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew were sworn in as lieutenant colonels of the U.S. Army Reserve on June 13 as part of the inaugural cohort of a new Army innovation corps. As part of the tech-reservist program dubbed Detachment 201, the executives will serve around 120 hours per year advising the Army on commercial technology acquisitions, helping the U.S. Department of Defense recruit other tech workers, teaching soldiers how to use AI systems, and more.
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Amazon Plans $13-Billion Investment in Australia Datacenters

Amazon said it will invest A$20 billion (U.S.$13 billion) in Australia through 2029 to develop datacenters in Sydney and Melbourne. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this is the largest investment in the country by a global tech company. Amazon said it will support the expanded infrastructure with investments in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland.
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Baidu Ramps Up AI Hiring as China Faces Talent Crunch

Chinese Internet search giant Baidu has launched its biggest recruitment campaign yet, with a focus on AI talent. Baidu reported a 60% jump in job openings in its AI-focused annual recruitment drive, noting it "will train future AI navigators the way pilots are trained." Candidates are being sought for research areas such as large language model (LLM) algorithms, foundational LLM architecture, machine learning, speech technologies, and AI agents.
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Denmark to Replace Microsoft Office with Open Source Alternatives

Denmark's Agency for Digital Government said it will being transitioning next month from Microsoft Office software to LibreOffice, a suite of office tools developed by German non-profit The Document Foundation. The move comes amid increasing concerns in Europe about data sovereignty and U.S.-based tech giants' control of digital infrastructure and software ecosystems.
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OpenAI Wins $200-Million U.S. Defense Contract

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded a one-year, $200-million contract to OpenAI to "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains." OpenAI said in a blog post that the contract is part of its OpenAI for Government initiative, through which it will "help [DOD] identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations."
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Taiwan Imposes Technology Export Controls on Huawei, SMIC

An update to Taiwan's strategic high-tech commodities entity list by its International Trade Administration blacklists another 601 entities, including China's Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), along with several of their subsidiaries, due to national security concerns. Local governments must obtain approval from the Taiwanese government prior to shipping goods to users on the list, which will block Huawei and SMIC, at least partially, from accessing technologies, materials, and equipment critical to the development of AI semiconductors.
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Tokyoites Push Back Against IT Giants' Encroaching Data Behemoths

Residents of metropolitan Tokyo, Japan, are fighting plans to build large-scale datacenters in residential areas. A residential association in Hino is calling for a plan by Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd. to build a five-story, 72-meter-tall datacenter to be paused until the company complies with a city ordinance restricting apartment-building heights to 25 meters. A more-than-50-meter-tall datacenter project in Inzai and a datacenter project in Nagareyama also faced resident opposition, and the latter was withdrawn.
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U.S. Seizes $7.74M in Crypto Tied to North Korea's Global Fake IT Worker Network

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seized more than $7.74 million in cryptocurrency and other digital assets allegedly tied to a North Korean-backed global IT worker scheme. According to DOJ, the funds originally were restrained in connection with the April 2023 indictment against North Korean Foreign Trade Bank representative Sim Hyon-Sop, who allegedly conspired with IT workers to secure employment at U.S. cryptocurrency companies using false identities.
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Taiwan Seals Ukraine Combat-Tested Drone Software Deal

Through a strategic partnership with U.S. and German-based autonomous robot firm Auterion, Taiwan will gain access to uncrewed drone systems and drone swarming software that has been combat-tested in Ukraine, in an effort to deter China. The deal with the island-nation's research and development arm could result in millions of drones being equipped with software that Auterion's Lorenz Meier said has been proven "to deter aggression and destroy tanks, naval assets, and other really expensive equipment."
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Language Bias Persists in Scientific Publishing Despite AI Tools

Stanford University researchers found the use of large language models (LLMs) in scientific writing to help overcome language barriers may bias peer reviewers' scientific assessments. The researchers examined nearly 80,000 peer reviews at a large computer science conference and interviewed 14 conference participants from across the globe, and found that peer reviewers used common LLM phrases to infer authors were from non-English-speaking countries.
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