Laser-etched glass can store data for millennia, Microsoft says


By AFP
February 18, 2026


Cooling vents on data centres in Virginia. Researchers hope that storing data on glass will save energy - Copyright AFP/File ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
Frédéric Bourigault and Daniel Lawler

Thousands of years from now, what will remain of our digital era?

The ever-growing vastness of human knowledge is no longer stored in libraries, but on hard drives that struggle to last decades, let alone millennia.

However, information written into glass by lasers could allow data to be preserved for more than 10,000 years, Microsoft announced in a study on Wednesday.

Since 2019, Microsoft’s Silica project has been trying to encode data on glass plates, in a throwback to the early days of photography, when negatives were also stored on glass.

The system uses silica glass, a common material that is resistant to changes in temperature, moisture and electromagnetic interference.

These are all problems for energy-hungry data centres, which use fast-degrading hard drives and magnetic tapes that require backing up every few years.

In the journal Nature, Microsoft’s research arm said Silica was the first glass storage technology that had been demonstrated to be reliable for writing, reading and decoding data.

However, experts not involved in the project warned that this new tech still faces numerous challenges.

– How to write inside glass –

First, bits of data are turned into symbols, which correspond to three-dimensional pixels called voxels.

A high-powered laser pulse then inscribes these minuscule voxels into square glass plates that are roughly the size of a CD.

“The symbols are written layer by layer, from the bottom up, to fill the full thickness of the glass,” the study explained.

To read the data requires a special microscope that can see each layer, then decode the information using an algorithm powered by artificial intelligence.

The Microsoft researchers estimated that the glass could survive for more than 10,000 years at a blistering 290 degrees Celsius, which suggests the data could last even longer at room temperature.

However, the researchers did not look into what happened when the glass was deliberately smashed — or corroded by chemicals.

Unlike data centres, the glass does not require a climate-controlled environment, which would save energy.

Another advantage is that the glass plates cannot be hacked or otherwise altered.

The Microsoft researchers emphasised that future storage is important because the amount of data being produced by humanity is now doubling roughly every three years.

– ‘Carry the torch ‘ –

One of the glass plates holds the equivalent of “about two million printed books or 5,000 ultra-high-definition 4K films”, according to Feng Chen and Bo Wu, researchers at Shandong University in China not involved in the study.

In a separate Nature article, the pair warned there were more challenges ahead, including finding a way to write the data faster, to mass produce the plates and to ensure people can easily access and read the information.

However, they praised Silica for creating a “viable solution for preserving the records of human civilisation”.

“If implemented at scale, it could represent a milestone in the history of knowledge storage, akin to oracle bones, medieval parchment or the modern hard drive,” they said.

“One day, a single piece of glass might carry the torch of human culture and knowledge across millennia.”

LES GRANDE ENNUI

‘Close our eyes’: To escape war, Muscovites flock to high culture

THEY HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED WAR

Russians are increasingly turning to culture and art to detach - Copyright AFP HECTOR RETAMAL

 AFP

February 18, 2026

Béatrice LE BOHEC

In front of Moscow’s ornate Bolshoi Theatre, its soft yellow lights illuminating a snowstorm in the Russian capital, Valentina Ivakina had come to “escape today’s problems”.

It is a knowing reference to the war that has been raging between Russia and Ukraine for the past four years, with Muscovites increasingly turning to culture and art to detach from the reality of the conflict, unleashed by the Kremlin’s February 2022 offensive.

Concert halls are packed, the famed Tretyakov Gallery is teeming even on a midweek afternoon. A Marc Chagall exhibition at the Pushkin Museum: sold out.

Museum attendance in Moscow, which competes with Saint Petersburg as Russia’s cultural capital, jumped 30 percent in 2025, according to deputy mayor Natalya Sergunina.

Ivakina has spent much of the winter bouncing from show to show.

On a stormy evening, the 45-year-old marketing specialist was heading to a Sergei Prokofiev opera at the Bolshoi’s historic stage. The night before, at its New Stage, she was at a ballet based on an Anton Chekhov work. A week ago, the theatre.

“It’s a certain attempt to escape reality,” she said, standing on the glittering square in front of the Bolshoi as she talked about having “fewer opportunities to go somewhere and leave the country.”

Russians have become accustomed to alluding about the war in code, avoiding specific phrases or opinions that could land them years in prison under military censorship laws.

Usually a single phrase — “the context” — is enough to know the underlying topic of conversation.

The conflict, launched when Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has become Europe’s deadliest since World War II, killing tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Immediately hit with sanctions, Russia has been pushed off the world stage — athletes banned, artists’ shows cancelled and tourist visas harder to obtain.

At home, the state has pushed the war into daily life — promoting the army, soldiers, and masculine narratives of “patriotic values” as core Russian values.

Those who openly oppose are liable to arrest and prosecution.

– ‘Silent conspiracy’ –

“There seems to be very few things left to cling to,” said Viktor Chelin, a photographer coming out of the Chagall exhibition, titled “The Joy of Earthly Gravity”, with his wife.

Trips to the museum are “a kind of silent conspiracy,” he told AFP.

“You walk around and understand that you’re united with others by the admiration of a certain beauty.”

“Something enormous happened in Russia, which we are all afraid of. We close our eyes to it, but try to live and maintain and certain normality,” said Chelin, 30.

Wearing a cap pulled low, he talked about “the feeling, as they say, of a feast in time of plague,” a reference to the 1830s play by Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s national poet, written during a cholera epidemic.

He and his wife moved to Georgia for two years after Russia launched its offensive, before returning to Saint Petersburg.

They are now regular visitors to the grand Hermitage Museum, housed in the former palace of the Tsars.

“We’re not even going to see specific works of art, we’re grounding ourselves, as if we’re connecting to something familiar,” he said.

Sociologist Denis Volkov of the Levada Centre — designated a “foreign agent” by Russian authorities — said escapism is prevalent across Russia.

“People don’t want to follow events, they don’t want to get information about what’s happening on the battlefield,” he told AFP.

“There’s been a continuous desire to cut down the flow of bad news, to filter it out somehow, not to discuss it with relatives or friends. Perhaps that’s where this surge in interest in culture comes from.”

He added, however, that the mindset also chimes with the line being put out by the authorities — that life in Russia continues as normal, despite the war.

“Festivals, parties, concerns — it reflects the authorities’ policy that life goes on. They fight somewhere over there, and here we live our lives without worry,” Volkov said.

Outside of the Chagall exhibition in Moscow, former piano teacher Irina refutes the idea of trying to escape from the war.

In her short fur coat and bright pink lips, she said she is well aware of “everything that’s happening in the world, and where black and white lie.”

“We live with it, yes, we live with it,” she said. “We often go to all the exhibitions that nourish us and lift our spirits.”

THEY SHOULD HIDE IN THEIR ROOMS AND PUT ON THE PHONOGRAPH

Sokolov plays Scriabin

Piano Sonata No. 9 "Black Mass", Op. 68 (1912-13) A late piano sonata in one movement by Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915). A highly chromatic, dissonant work, this sonata exploits the harsh sound of the tritone interval, which has traditionally been associated with the Devil, for mystical effect.

Greece to claim Nazi atrocity photos found on Ebay: minister


By AFP
February 18, 2026


The Nazis executed 200 Greek Communists May 1, 1944 shortly after the killing of a German general and his staff - Copyright AFP Angelos TZORTZINIS

Greece will claim a World War II photo trove posted for sale online believed to show for the first time one of Nazi Germany’s worst atrocities in the country, the culture ministry said Wednesday.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said an “entire collection” of photographs apparently taken by a German army lieutenant serving in wartime Greece had been declared a national monument “due to its particular historical value”.

“They allow us to frame the drama of occupied Greece also through the eyes of the occupier,” she said in a statement.

“With today’s declaration of the collection as a monument, the Ministry of Culture acquires the legal basis to claim it and acquire it on behalf of the Greek state,” Mendoni said.

Greek Communist party lawmaker Giorgos Lambroulis on Wednesday said the party had so far identified four men in the photographs.

Twelve of the photographs had originally appeared on the Ebay site Crain’s Militaria on Saturday before being taken down on Monday.

The ministry says the photographs appeared to show “the last moments” of 200 Greek Communists.

They were executed on May 1, 1944 in retaliation for the killing of a German general and his staff by Communist guerrillas a few days earlier.

The execution at the Kaisariani shooting range in Athens was a seminal event of the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation of Greece, which was marked by several atrocities, mostly against Greek villagers.

Greece’s Jewish community was also decimated during this period.

The mayor of Kaisariani, Ilias Stamelos, on Wednesday called the find “astonishing”.

“These are the first documents to come to light (regarding this event),” he told state TV ERT.

Until now, the only testimony of the 200 victims’ final moments were from the handwritten notes they threw out of the trucks taking them to execution.

One of the pictures shows groups of the men marching through a field. Several others show them standing against a wall at the shooting range.

One photo appears to show the men being marched into the shooting range, after discarding their overcoats outside.

Mendoni said that ministry experts on Friday would visit the collector in Evergem, Belgium, to examine the photographs.

PRIVATIZED UTILITIES

UK manufacturers struggle under sky-high energy bills


By AFP
February 17, 2026


The UK has some of the highest energy prices in Europe - Copyright AFP Paul ELLIS
Pol-Malo Le Bris and Olivier Devos

Molten glass drops through chutes before being blown into bottles at manufacturer Encirc’s northwest England plant, where intensive operations are under strain from exorbitant energy prices weighing on Britain’s heavy industry.

“We’re paying a lot more energy costs than our European competitors,” said Oliver Harry, head of corporate affairs at Encirc, which makes over a third of the UK’s glass bottles.

Britain has some of the highest energy prices in Europe, driven by its reliance on natural gas and the costs of transitioning to renewables, which are passed on to bills.

The country’s industrial electricity prices were also the steepest in Europe in 2024, according to the latest annual government data.

Standing in the intense heat of the factory’s two huge furnaces, Harry warned: “We’re already seeing an increase in imports into the UK as customers turn to cheap, more unsustainable glass producers”, notably from China and Turkey.



– More action needed –



Across energy-intensive industries — from steel and chemicals to glass and cement — companies are warning that government support does not go far enough to keep them competitive.

The government said it will increase discounts on electricity network charges to 90 percent from April, which will save around 500 of the UK’s biggest energy users a cumulative £420 million ($570 million) per year in electricity bills.

“Lowering bills is central to every decision we make,” a government spokesperson told AFP.

But the steel sector, already weakened by the closure of traditional coal-fired blast furnaces, argues that more action is needed.

“The industry still faces industrial power prices almost 40 percent higher than in France and Germany,” Gareth Stace, director general of the steel union, UK Steel, told AFP.

The union has called for stronger protections similar to those in France, Italy, Spain and the UAE to shield heavy industry from high wholesale power costs.



– Decarbonisation –



Electricity is so expensive in the UK largely because more than a quarter of its power still comes from gas, which surged in price after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

While wholesale prices have since fallen, they remain elevated.

Under the liberalised electricity market, the last power station switched on to meet demand sets the price for all generators, and in the UK, that station is usually gas-powered.

“In France, nuclear sets the price fairly often and nuclear is cheaper … so it’s not always the same expensive gas that sets the price,” Sam Frankhauser, professor of economics and climate change policy at Oxford University, told AFP.

In other countries “there’s moments in the day where somebody cheaper sets the price and in the UK, those moments don’t exist” as it is almost always a natural gas plant setting the price, he added.

At Encirc’s Elton factory, where bottles clatter along the conveyor belts to be filled and labelled, executives say energy prices are inseparable from the push to decarbonise.

By the end of the decade, “we’re going to be producing glass bottles that are 80 percent reduced carbon,” said Harry.

“The UK managed to decarbonise the grid phenomenally because of the exit of coal,” said Gregor Singer, professor at the London School of Economics.

“It’s really unfortunate that this gas price shock came now, exactly at that point where you sort of exited coal but you don’t quite have enough renewables yet.”

“In the medium to long run… it’s almost guaranteed that prices are coming down,” he said.

Germany’s Merz casts doubt on European fighter jet plan


By AFP
February 18, 2026


A mock-up of the European New Generation Fighter for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) at the Paris Air Show in 2023 - Copyright AFP/File JULIEN DE ROSA

Bryn Stole with Valerie Leroux in New Delhi

Germany does not need the same new fighter jets as France, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday, signalling that Berlin could abandon a flagship joint defence project for Europe.

“The French need, in the next generation of fighter jets, an aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons and operating from an aircraft carrier,” Merz told the German podcast Machtwechsel.

“That’s not what we currently need in the German military,” he said.

The Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS) project was launched in 2017 to replace France’s Rafale jet and the Eurofighters used by Germany and Spain, to come into service around 2040.

But the scheme, jointly developed by the three countries, has stalled in the past year as France’s Dassault Aviation gotten into disputes with Airbus Space and Defence over control of the project.

The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said in response that he “remains committed to the success” of the project.

“The military needs of the three participating states have not changed, and these needs included from the outset French [nuclear] deterrence as well as the other missions of the future aircraft,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement while Macron was travelling in India.

“Given the strategic stakes for Europe, it would be incomprehensible if industrial differences could not be overcome, especially as we must collectively demonstrate unity and performance in all areas concerning its industry, technology, and defence,” it added.

Discord over FCAS has stoked concerns that French-German ties are under strain, following recent disagreements on defence spending and on French efforts to derail an EU trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries.

Germany’s foreign minister sought Wednesday to shut down talk of worsening relations with France, telling AFP that Paris remains Berlin’s “closest partner and most important friend in Europe”.

Failure to get FCAS off the ground would also be a blow to broader efforts by European NATO allies to demonstrate tight defence cooperation in the face of threats from Russia and doubts about American security commitments.



– ‘At odds’ –



Airbus is Germany’s lead contractor for FCAS, while Spanish defence contractor Indra Sistemas is also involved with the roughly 100 billion euro ($118 billion) FCAS project.

Merz had previously promised a decision on FCAS by the end of last year but postponed making the final call.

Merz said on the podcast that France and Germany were now “at odds over the specifications and profiles” of the kind of aircraft they needed.

“The question now is: do we have the strength and the will to build two aircraft for these two different requirement profiles, or only one?” he asked.

If this issue is not resolved, he said Germany would “not be able to continue the project”, adding that there were “other countries in Europe” ready to work with Berlin.

For Germany and potentially Spain, several other options have been floated by industry sources and in media reports, most prominently a partnership with Swedish aerospace firm Saab.

The FCAS project was launched with fanfare in 2017 by Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor Angela Merkel, with Spain joining two years later.

The plan envisions not only a fighter jet but an interlinked drone swarm and a digital cloud system.

German industrial interests and some politicians have bristled at Dassault’s alleged efforts to revise FCAS agreements and take greater control of the aircraft portion of the project.

The powerful IG Metall industrial trade union, which represents many Airbus workers in Germany, has joined with German aerospace industry leaders to back a split with France.

Juergen Kerner, IG Metall’s vice president, joined German Aerospace Industries Association president Marie-Christine von Hahn last week in urging Berlin to find new partners on the fighter jet.

Building separate jets could make military sense because of France’s very particular requirements, but would almost certainly hike overall costs.

Dassault’s CEO, Eric Trappier, has insisted that his company can develop a fighter jet alone.

But the costs could put the French government’s already strained budget under further pressure.

Germany, on the other hand, has launched a massive military investment programme with vows from Merz to build Europe’s largest conventional armed forces.

After Greenland, Arctic island Svalbard wary of great powers


By AFP
February 18, 2026


People in Svalbard are going about their daily lives despite speculation the Norwegian archipelago could be the next Arctic territory coveted by Washington - Copyright AFP Oriane Laromiguière

Oriane LAROMIGUIERE, with Pierre-Henry DESHAYES in Oslo 

and Jonathan KLEIN in Stockholm

There are no outward signs of jitters, at least not yet: people in Svalbard are going about their daily lives as normal despite speculation that this Norwegian archipelago could be the next Arctic territory coveted by the United States or Russia.

“Today Greenland, tomorrow Svalbard?” — Terje Aunevik, mayor of Svalbard’s main town Longyearbyen, says he has been asked the question many times.

US President Donald Trump’s expansionist ambitions have turned the global spotlight on the Arctic, where geo-strategic and financial stakes are mounting.

“The Arctic is no longer a quiet corner on the map,” the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told a conference in Tromso in northern Norway in early February. “It is the front line of the global power competition.”

Longyearbyen is an unusual place. A former mining community turned tourist destination and academic hotspot, it lies in the fastest-warming region on the planet.

One of the northernmost towns in the world, located halfway between continental Norway and the North Pole, Longyearbyen is home to 2,500 people.

It is plunged in darkness with no sun for four months in winter, then bathed in round-the-clock daylight in summer.

Venturing outside the town means carrying a mandatory rifle in case of encounters with polar bears.



– Strategic importance –



Some political observers have suggested that Trump’s desire to control the Arctic may extend beyond Greenland to Svalbard, or that Russia may want to match his appetite and seize the archipelago.

In addition to the riches believed to lie under its seabed, Svalbard — twice the size of Belgium — is strategically located, controlling the northern part of the so-called “Bear Gap”.

The military term refers to the maritime zone where the Barents Sea meets the Norwegian Sea. It is this zone Russia’s Northern Fleet missile-launching submarines based on the Kola Peninsula must cross to disappear into the deep waters of the Atlantic.

Svalbard’s “strategic relevance does not necessarily lie in the island itself, but in the waters around it,” Barbara Kunz, director of the European Security Programme at Stockholm peace research institute SIPRI, told AFP.

“Russia wants to protect its nuclear deterrence, and so it wants to make sure that nobody can approach its northern coast”, while the United States “would like to prevent” Russian submarines from having access to the Atlantic, she said.

Longyearbyen’s residents, who hail from around 50 countries, are staying cool-headed amid the speculation.

“Maybe we talk a bit more about what’s happening in Greenland and with Trump and everything, but at the same time I feel like we’re not more anxious than we usually are,” shop employee Charlotte Bakke-Mathiesen told AFP.

“We’re just in our own bubble.”



– Svalbard treaty –



In his office, where his mayor’s chain is displayed alongside a polar bear femur, Terje Aunevik echoed that sentiment.

“The situation is as it is, but I don’t feel it as a threat,” he said.

“I strongly believe that both our allies and our neighbours are living very well with Norway having sovereignty over this island.”

By “neighbours”, he means the 350 or so Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians who live in the Svalbard town of Barentsburg, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) away as the crow flies.

It is hard to believe that Barentsburg, a small mining community under Russian control for almost a century, is located on NATO territory: a Lenin bust takes centre stage in the town, where all of the signs are written in Cyrillic lettering.

A treaty signed in 1920 recognises Norway’s “full and absolute” sovereignty over Svalbard, but it also gives citizens of the almost 50 signatory powers — which include China, Russia and the US — equal rights to exploit its resources.

Since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Norway has tried to tighten its control of Svalbard, for example by blocking the sale of land to foreigners and drastically reducing voting rights.

Moscow has argued that Oslo is not respecting the Svalbard treaty and has increased its provocations in recent years.

It held a quasi-military parade in Barentsburg celebrating Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany and erected a giant unauthorised Orthodox cross in Pyramiden, another small Russian community.



– ‘Anything can happen’ –



“The Russians have other more strategic priorities right now and have no interest in an escalation beyond the hybrid actions they’ve been conducting for a long time,” polar geopolitics researcher Mikaa Blugeon-Mered said when asked about a possible Russian takeover attempt.

“For Norway, the United States is a much bigger concern today when it comes to Svalbard, because it is more likely to carry out an operation that could destabilise the territory’s precarious balance,” he said.

“With the current Trump administration, anything can happen.”

For a long time, experts spoke of “Arctic exceptionalism”: the concept that the region had its own set of unwritten rules of cooperation, a zone of peace immune to geopolitical rivalries.

But now, said Barbara Kunz, “the era of High North, low tension is over”.

Deadly Indonesia floods force a deforestation reckoning

By AFP
February 18, 2026


Flooding and landslides made worse by deforestation killed over 1,000 people in Sumatra last year - Copyright AFP Ebrahim Hamid

Sara HUSSEIN

Permits revoked, lawsuits filed, the threat of state takeovers. Deadly flooding in Indonesia has prompted unprecedented government action against companies accused of environmental destruction that worsened the disaster.

But environmentalists who have long warned about the risks of rampant deforestation fear the current response will not solve the problem, and could even make it worse.

Officials from President Prabowo Subianto down have acknowledged the role of deforestation and overdevelopment in last year’s flooding and landslides, which killed over 1,000 people in Sumatra.

Mining, plantations, and fires have caused the clearance of large tracts of lush Indonesian rainforest, removing trees that absorbed rain and helped stabilise soil.

Now, Indonesia is prioritising “protecting the environment, protecting nature”, Prabowo told attendees at this year’s World Economic Forum.

Several dozen companies have had their permits revoked, and the government will reportedly hand management of around a million hectares of land to a state enterprise.

Initially, the government said that would include the Martabe gold mine, which conservationists have regularly accused of environmental damage.

More recently, officials said they were still reviewing potential violations by the site.

But there has been no suggestion of halting development in the worst-affected and most ecologically sensitive areas, like Batang Toru, where Martabe is located.



– World’s rarest great ape –



The area is home to the world’s rarest great ape, the tapanuli orangutan, just 800 of which were believed to exist in the wild before the disaster.

“Revoking permits is not immediately a win,” said Panut Hadisiswoyo, a conservationist and orangutan specialist.

“The idea of revoking should be to stop the devastation, but by continuing these operations, this means industry will continue in this vulnerable area.”

Conservationists have lobbied for a moratorium on development in Batang Toru, where tapanuli orangutans suffered first habitat loss and then the flood disaster.

Using satellite data and information on the pre-existing tapanuli orangutan population, experts have calculated nearly 60 animals may have been killed in what they called an “extinction-level event” for the species.

Between 2001 and 2024, Sumatra lost 4.4 million hectares of forest, an area larger than Switzerland, “making the hilly forest landscapes more vulnerable to landslides and flooding”, said Amanda Hurowitz, senior director at conservation group Mighty Earth.

Much of that deforestation happened in areas with government permits, and it is not clear that transferring operations to the state will improve matters.

“It’s a concern that the state-backed takeover may not guarantee better environmental practices, and that production may be prioritised over conservation,” Hurowitz told AFP.

“We have yet to see any plans.”



– ‘Blessing in disguise’ –



Indonesia’s environment and forestry ministries did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Other experts have warned that revoking permits and seizing operations has disrupted plans to audit and investigate companies and determine their precise responsibility for the disaster.

And so far, the government has not outlined plans for forest recovery and environmental remediation, said Timer Manurung, executive director of Indonesian environmental group Auriga Nusantara.

“It’s not only revocation but it also has to include remediation, taking responsibility for the destruction,” he told AFP.

The government’s lawsuits are seeking close to $300 million from six companies, some of which will be set aside for environmental recovery.

But much more money would be needed for real remediation, and other companies are likely to be culpable too, experts said.

And there is no sign yet that other projects linked to large-scale deforestation, including a food and energy plantation plan in South Papua, will be halted in this drive.

The one saving grace, said Timer, has been the public’s “very significant rising awareness” of deforestation in Indonesia since the disaster.

That has been “a blessing in disguise”.

OpenAI’s Altman says world ‘urgently’ needs AI regulation


By AFP
February 19, 2026


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi - Copyright AFP Ludovic MARIN

Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, told a global artificial intelligence conference on Thursday that the world “urgently” needs to regulate the fast-evolving technology.

An organisation could be set up to coordinate these efforts, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.

Altman is one of a host of top tech CEOs in New Delhi for the AI Impact Summit, the fourth annual global meeting on how to handle advanced computing power.

“Democratisation of AI is the best way to ensure humanity flourishes,” he said on stage, adding that “centralisation of this technology in one company or country could lead to ruin”.

“This is not to suggest that we won’t need any regulation or safeguards,” Altman said.

“We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies.”

Many researchers and campaigners believe stronger action is needed to combat emerging issues, ranging from job disruption to sexualised deepfakes and AI-enabled online scams.

“We expect the world may need something like the IAEA for international coordination of AI”, with the ability to “rapidly respond to changing circumstances”, Altman said.

“The next few years will test global society as this technology continues to improve at a rapid pace. We can choose to either empower people or concentrate power,” he added.

“Technology always disrupts jobs; we always find new and better things to do.”

Generative AI chatbot ChatGPT has 100 million weekly users in India, more than a third of whom are students, he said.

Earlier on Thursday, OpenAI announced with Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) a plan to build data centre infrastructure in the South Asian country.

Tech chiefs address India AI summit as Gates cancels


By AFP
February 19, 2026


Frenzied demand for generative AI has fuelled anxiety over the risks to society - Copyright AFP Arun SANKAR

Katie Forster

Indian leader Narendra Modi and tech chiefs including OpenAI’s Sam Altman will speak Thursday on artificial intelligence’s opportunities and threats at a summit in New Delhi, but Microsoft founder Bill Gates cancelled just hours before his speech.

Gates, facing questions over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, withdrew just hours before his speech to “ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities,” the Gates Foundation said.

The AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual international gathering focused on the rapidly advancing field, following previous summits in Paris, Seoul and Britain’s wartime code-breaking hub Bletchley.

Frenzied demand for generative AI has turbocharged profits for many companies, while fuelling anxiety about the risks to society and the planet.

Modi will speak on stage with French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday at the huge event that has drawn tens of thousands of attendees including dozens of world leaders and ministers.

Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Meta’s Alexandr Wang also on the bill.

Another Gates Foundation official will take the place of Gates, who said this month he regrets “every minute” he spent with Epstein.

The mere mention of someone’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing by that person.

– New investments –

As the first global AI meeting held in a developing country, the five-day summit, which wraps up Friday, has also been a chance for India to boost its position in the booming sector.

The nation expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, and US tech titans have unveiled new deals, investments and infrastructure for the South Asian country this week.

On Thursday, ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced a plan to build hyperscale AI data centre capacity in the South Asian country.

The previous day Google said it planned to build subsea cables as part of an existing $15 billion AI infrastructure investment.

“Since my childhood growing up in Chennai, India has undergone an incredible transformation,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.

“India is going to have an extraordinary trajectory with AI and we want to be a partner,” he added.

US chip behemoth Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company — also said it was teaming up with Indian cloud computing providers to provide advanced processors for data centres that can train and run AI systems.

AI data centres are under construction worldwide on a massive scale, as companies race to develop super-intelligent systems.

The huge amounts of electricity needed to power them and water to cool hot servers has sparked alarm at a time when countries have pledged to decarbonise their grids to try and slow climate change.

– Gridlock –

Last year India leapt to third place in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford researchers, although experts say it has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is in town to attend the AI summit and hold talks with Modi, including on rare earths.

Leaders are expected to deliver a statement at the end of the week about how they plan to handle AI technology.

One fear is disruption to the job market, especially in India where millions of people are employed in call centres and tech support services.

“We are creating human imitators. And so of course, the natural application for that type of system is replacing humans,” leading computer science researcher Stuart Russell told AFP.

Some say the broad focus of the event and vague promises made at previous global AI summits mean that concrete commitments are unlikely.

Many researchers and AI safety campaigners believe stronger action is needed to combat issues ranging from sexualised deepfakes to AI-enabled online scams and intrusive surveillance.

Siddharth Soni, the 23-year-old founder of an Indian AI-designed jewellery startup, said he could see both sides.

“We’re losing artisans. We’re losing the value of art, using AI, actually. That is one of the sad parts,” he told AFP.

'Who are they for?' Ex-Trump lawyer appalled at buildup of MAGA prison network

Matthew Chapman
February 18, 2026

 RAW STORY

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stand guard outside the Whipple Building near a U.S. flag, during a protest against the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, and a rally against increased immigration enforcement across the city, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Former Trump administration White House lawyer Ty Cobb delivered a dire warning Wednesday on MS NOW about the growing network of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities that are planned and funded — and suggested that Trump having that much detention power and resources at his disposal is horrifying.

Cobb's warning came in the middle of a discussion with anchor Ari Melber, about the possibility ICE might try to engage in election interference by stationing agents at polling places.

"What is your legal view of the limits on ICE under current law?" asked Melber, himself an attorney. "To be out in a way that might be voter intimidation in any voting period when we get to the midterms?"

"So that's an excellent question," said Cobb. "I think we're going to see the courts gradually parse through that. You know, ICE actually has no local law enforcement authority in any of the states. They're only supposed to manage the limited number of federal crimes entrusted to them, and they shouldn't be there. But it's going to take a series of court battles, I think, to prevent them from being there. And it may come down to a conflict between, you know, state National Guards and ICE absent, absent an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which I think we will see in advance of, of the election. So I think — I think people should be very, very concerned and very, very animated about what's coming."

To understand the reason for fear, Cobb continued, consider Garry Kasparov, the Russian world chess champion turned dissident of the Putin regime.

Kasparov, he said, "has been very outspoken about, you know, the gulags that are being built around the country and the fact that they're intended not only to house, you know, illegally detained immigrants, of which we have thousands now, but also likely dissidents and people of color on a going forward basis. You know, what is happening in this country."

"You don't think that's just an international parallel gone too far?" Melber pressed him. "You believe that's something that Trump would, would try to do and get away with?

"So I'll put it this way," said Cobb. "You know, Trump is deporting people on a trajectory and at a pace that's not very different from the number of deportations that happened under Obama. However, the number of illegally detained people is extraordinarily high. And he's building, you know, dozens of prisons to house up to 8,000 people. We've never needed that before. That's — that's, you know, well over 150,000 beds. Who are they for and who are they going to be for when, when detainees are gone?"

"This is, this is — this is, as Garry Kasparov says, this is not a drill," he added.

Trump's ICE routinely lies that observers are breaking federal law: report

Daniel Hampton
February 18, 2026 

RAW STORY


DHS agents operate as people take part in a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policies outside the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 30, 2026. REUTERS/Jill Connelly

Federal immigration officers are routinely lying to people watching and tracking them, alleging they're violating federal law, with legal experts clapping back that the vast majority of community observers are simply exercising their constitutional rights.

A Minneapolis-area woman named Jess learned this the hard way when agents smashed her car window with a baton and detained her for eight hours for legally tracking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

"We followed at a distance. We never got in front of them. We never honked our horns. We never made any sort of noise. We were just keeping an eye on them," Jess told NPR, explaining that she fears federal retaliation.

When the vehicles she was following suddenly turned around and rushed toward her with guns drawn, officers shattered her window and dragged her from the car in handcuffs. She's now waiting to learn if the feds will charge her with a crime for doing something legal.

And she's not alone.

Dozens of people told the outlet that immigration officers falsely claimed they were impeding federal investigations while engaging in perfectly lawful behavior.

Legal experts say observing officers, recording them, following at a safe distance, and even shouting at them are all constitutionally protected activities.

"A lot of the activities that the government is claiming are interfering or obstructing, in the vast majority of those examples, they're engaged in perfectly lawful conduct," Scarlet Kim, a senior staff attorney with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the ACLU, told the outlet.

The ACLU is suing the Trump administration over these First Amendment violations.

Courts across the country have thrown out charges against observers.

Civil rights attorney Will Stancil called the tactics "gross intimidation," which he experienced firsthand: three ICE vehicles once surrounded and escorted him home.