It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Microsoft argued in an amicus brief that blacklisting Anthropic was an unprecendented response to a contract dispute that portended ill for the technology sector as well as the US military - Copyright AFP/File RONNY HARTMANN
Microsoft on Tuesday warned a judge that the Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic could hamper US warfighters and imperil the country’s drive to lead in artificial intelligence.
In a brief, Microsoft backed Anthropic’s request for an order stopping the Pentagon from implementing its ban on the use of Anthropic AI until the matter is settled in court.
Anthropic filed suit this week against the Trump administration, alleging the US government retaliated against the company for refusing to let its Claude AI model be used for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans.
In the complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco, Anthropic seeks to have its designation as a national security supply-chain risk declared unlawful and blocked.
Anthropic is the first US company ever to have been publicly punished with such a designation, a label typically reserved for organizations from foreign adversary countries, such as Chinese tech giant Huawei.
The label not only blocks use of the company’s technology by the Pentagon, but also requires all defense vendors and contractors to certify that they do not use Anthropic’s models in their work with the department.
– AI overhaul –
Microsoft argued in an amicus brief that blacklisting Anthropic was an unprecendented response to a contract dispute that portended ill for the technology sector as well as the US military.
“This is not the time to put at risk the very AI ecosystem that the administration has helped to champion,” Microsoft said in the brief.
A temporary restraining order would allow time to avoid disrupting the American military’s ongoing use of advanced AI, Microsoft argued.
“Otherwise, Microsoft and other technology companies must act immediately to alter existing product and contract configurations used by Department of War.”
“This could potentially hamper US warfighters at a critical point in time.”
The row erupted days before the US military strike on Iran.
Anthropic’s Claude is the Pentagon’s most widely-deployed frontier AI model and the only such model currently operating on its classified systems.
Anthropic had infuriated Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth by insisting the technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
President Donald Trump subsequently ordered every federal agency to cease all use of Anthropic’s technology.
“AI should not be used to conduct domestic mass surveillance or put the country in a position where autonomous machines could independently start a war,” Microsoft said in the filing.
More than three dozen AI industry insiders from OpenAI and Google, including Google chief scientist Jeff Dean, argued in support of Anthropic in an amicus brief filed with the court on Monday.
In its lawsuit, Anthropic said it was founded on the belief that its AI should be “used in a way that maximizes positive outcomes for humanity” and should “be the safest and the most responsible.”
“Anthropic brings this suit because the federal government has retaliated against it for expressing that principle,” the lawsuit says.
Monday, March 09, 2026
Trump's Claude ban: The first salvo battle over who controls AI
Issued on 09/03/2026 - FRANCE24
PLAY 06:43 min
A struggle to control artificial intelligence is playing out just as the United States increasingly deploys the technology in conflicts from Venezuela to Iran.
In its interventions in Venezuela and Iran, the United States military has reportedly used Anthropic's Claude chatbot to analyse battlefield data. At the same time, a monumental argument has broken out over the future capabilities of the game-changing technology.
Donald Trump's administration has ripped up its partnership with Anthropic and banned defence contractors from using Claude, after Anthropic insisted it should not be used for fully autonomous weapons or for mass surveillance of US citizens. These are not current uses, but the Pentagon notably sees ruling them out as an obstacle to keeping up with China.
For Samuel Hammond, Chief Economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, the ban is counterproductive.
"Designating Anthropic a supply chain risk is usually reserved for adversaries," he said, "for Chinese companies seeking to attack our systems".
It's the first time such a sanction has ever been applied to an American company. And now, the Trump administration has drafted strict rules for AI companies to obey in future government contracts, according to the Financial Times.
Hammond argues that Anthropic's market success contradicts the depiction of the company as radical "leftwing nut jobs" by President Trump.
"There's misinformation going on within the Department of Defense, within elements of the White House that believe Anthropic is a very left-wing company with extreme views," said Hammond, "When, in fact, they are currently the number one download on the App Store."
Anthropic has threatened to sue the Pentagon, while also trying to contain the fallout and defend its values.
When asked whether right-wing libertarian think tanks such as his had helped boost support for Trump, paving the way for him to wield power in this way, Hammond said, "This feels like a betrayal, both of their stated mission [in AI policy] and of broad libertarian values. It's not a libertarian value to seek to destroy a particular company."
"Who is the ultimate arbiter of how these tools are used? ... This is a longer-term process that we're going to have to work out through the democratic process."
Watch this week's Tech 24 for more on what happens when a power-hungry government is confronted with the possibility that someone else might want to call the shots on the most useful and promising technology of the age.
The Pentagon took the unprcedented action of blacklisting Anthropic over its refusal to give unlimited control of its AI technology - Copyright AFP Brendan SMIALOWSKI
Anthropic filed suit Monday against the Trump administration, alleging the US government retaliated against the AI company for refusing to let its Claude AI model be used for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans.
In the 48-page complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco, Anthropic seeks to have its designation as a national security supply-chain risk declared unlawful and blocked.
In its lawsuit, Anthropic said it was founded on the belief that its AI should be “used in a way that maximizes positive outcomes for humanity” and should “be the safest and the most responsible.”
“Anthropic brings this suit because the federal government has retaliated against it for expressing that principle,” the lawsuit says.
Anthropic is the first US company ever to have been publicly punished with such a designation, a label typically reserved for organizations from foreign adversary countries, such as Chinese tech giant Huawei.
The label not only blocks use of the company’s technology by the Pentagon, but also requires all defense vendors and contractors to certify that they do not use Anthropic’s models in their work with the department.
“The consequences of this case are enormous,” the lawsuit states, with the government “seeking to destroy the economic value created by one of the world’s fastest-growing private companies.”
The suit names more than a dozen federal agencies and cabinet officials as defendants.
The dispute erupted after Anthropic infuriated Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth by insisting its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
President Donald Trump subsequently ordered every federal agency to cease all use of Anthropic’s technology.
Hours later, Hegseth designated Anthropic a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security” and ordered that no military contractor, supplier or partner “may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” while allowing a six-month transition period for the Pentagon itself.
The row erupted days before the US military strike on Iran. Claude is the Pentagon’s most widely deployed frontier AI model and the only such model currently operating on the Defense Department’s classified systems.
In its lawsuit, Anthropic argues the actions taken against it violate the First Amendment by punishing the company for protected speech on AI safety policy, exceed the Pentagon’s statutory authority, and deprive it of due process under the Fifth Amendment.
“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the complaint states.
Founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, both former staffers at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Anthropic has positioned itself as a safety-focused alternative in the AI race.
Trump admin sued as company claims 'extreme punishment' for defying president
U.S. President Donald Trump, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at his side, looks on as he speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight from Dover, Delaware, to Miami, Florida, U.S., March 7, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
The Trump administration was hit with a major lawsuit on Monday by AI developer Anthropic after it enacted an “extreme punishment” on the company over its refusal to allow its AI system to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, NBC News reported.
“This is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners,” an Anthropic spokesperson told NBC News. “We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government.”
Last month, Axios reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was getting “close” to cutting ties with Anthropic and classifying the company as a supply chain risk, a classification that would bar any business working with the federal government from maintaining ties with Anthropic.
The issue, Axios reported, was Anthropic's insistence that its AI technology wasn’t “used to spy on Americans en masse, or to develop weapons that fire with no human involvement.”
That insistence was apparently too much for the Trump administration, which ultimately cut ties with the company earlier this month and made good on its pledge to classify the company as a supply chain risk.
Now, Anthropic is hitting back with a lawsuit over what it described as the Trump administration’s “unlawful campaign of retaliation.” The lawsuit, filed in California, accuses the Trump administration of violating its First Amendment rights, Politico reported, and of acting unlawfully in designating it as a supply chain risk.
Sunday, March 08, 2026
OpenAI robotics chief quits over AI’s potential use for war and surveillance
A top robotics executive at OpenAI said Saturday she had resigned over the company’s deal with the US Department of Defence to allow its artificial intelligence to be used for war and potential domestic surveillance.
OpenAI's top robotics executive said Saturday she had resigned over the artificial intelligence giant's deal with the US government to allow its technology's deployment for war and domestic surveillance.
The company behind ChatGPT secured a defence contract with the Pentagon last month, hours after rival Anthropic refused to agree to unconditional military use of their technology.
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman later posted to X saying the startup would be modifying a contract so its models would not be used for "domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals", after criticism it was giving too much power to military officials without oversight.
Caitlin Kalinowski said she cared deeply about "the Robotics team and the work we built together", but that "surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorisation are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got".
"This was about principle, not people," she wrote in a post on X.
Kalinowski wrote in a followup post that she took issue with the haste of OpenAI's Pentagon deal.
"To be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without the guardrails defined," she wrote.
"It's a governance concern first and foremost. These are too important for deals or announcements to be rushed."
Anthropic's refusal to authorise use of its Claude AI models had prompted backlash from US officials.
Kalinowski previously worked at Meta, developing their augmented reality glasses.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has said the company has “no choice” but to challenge in court the Pentagon’s formal designation of the artificial intelligence firm as a risk to US national security.
The CEO, writing in a blog post on Thursday, insisted however that the ruling’s practical scope is narrower than initially suggested, signaling that the designation would not have a catastrophic effect on the company.
Amodei said the Department of War — the name preferred by the Trump administration for the Department of Defense — confirmed in a letter that Anthropic and its products, including its widely-used Claude AI model, have been deemed a supply chain risk.
It is the first time a US company has ever been publicly given such a designation, a label typically reserved for organizations from foreign adversary countries, like Chinese tech company Huawei.
Amodei, in his blog post, said the company disputes the legal basis of the action but sought to reassure customers.
“It plainly applies only to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts,” he wrote.
The designation will require defense vendors and contractors to certify that they don’t use Anthropic’s models in their work with the Pentagon.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said the company disputes the legal basis of the action – Copyright AFP/File FABRICE COFFRINI
But Amodei argued that under the relevant statute, the intention is “to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier” and requires the Department of Defense to use “the least restrictive means necessary.”
Microsoft, one of Anthropic’s biggest partners, agreed with that reading, telling US media its lawyers studied the designation and concluded that Anthropic products, including Claude, can remain available to its customers other than the Department of War.
– ‘Sloppy’ –
The dispute erupted after Anthropic infuriated Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth by insisting its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
Washington hit back, saying the Pentagon operates within the law and that contracted suppliers cannot dictate terms on how their products are used.
Amodei also used the statement to apologize for an internal company memo leaked to the press this week, in which he told staff the actions against the company were politically motivated.
“The real reasons” the Trump administration “do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump (while OpenAI/Greg have donated a lot),” Amodei said, referring to Greg Brockman, the president of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, who has donated $25 million to Trump.
Amodei called the memo an “out-of-date assessment of the current situation,” written under duress on a day that saw his company under extreme pressure from the government.
OpenAI initially swooped in to replace Anthropic in its contract with the US military, but that move backfired when senior OpenAI staff expressed discomfort with the deal.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later said the deal was “sloppy” and that he was working to revise it.
The standoff with the Pentagon has had some silver lining for Anthropic, which was founded in 2021 by former staffers of OpenAI, with a focus on AI safety.
The conflict has helped propel the Claude app to the top of download rankings on Apple and Google smartphones.
Anthropic also indicated to AFP that the number of paying users of its Claude model had doubled since the beginning of the year and that its app is currently downloaded more than a million times a day.
Questions over AI capability as tech guides Iran strikes
Artificial intelligence tools can also be found built into semi-autonomous attack drones and other weapons - Copyright AFP ATTA KENARE
Tiphaine Le Liboux and Thomas Urbain
The latest bout of fighting between the United States, Israel and Iran has seen AI deployed as never before to sift intelligence and select targets, although the technology’s use in war remains hotly debated.
Different forms of artificial intelligence have reportedly been used to guide the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in an American raid.
And experts believe the technology has helped select targets for the thousands of US and Israeli strikes on Iran since February 28 — although exact uses have yet to be confirmed.
Today “every military power of any significance invests hugely in military applications of AI,” said Laure de Roucy-Rochegonde of French think tank IFRI.
“Almost any military function can be boosted with AI,” from “logistics to reconnaissance, observation, information warfare, electronic warfare and cybersecurity,” she added.
AI tools can also be found built into semi-autonomous attack drones and other weapons.
But one of their best-known uses is in shortening the so-called “kill chain”, the time and decision-making between detecting a target and striking it.
US forces use the Maven Smart System (MSS) built by Palantir, which the company says can identify and prioritise potential targets.
The Washington Post reported this week that Anthropic’s Claude generative AI model has been integrated with Maven to boost the tool’s detection and simulation capabilities.
Palantir and Anthropic did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
AI algorithms “allow us to move much faster in handling information, and above all to be more comprehensive,” said Bertrand Rondepierre, head of the French army’s AI agency AMIAD.
The technology can sift through vast quantities of data, including “satellite images, radar, electromagnetic waves, sound, drone images and sometimes real-time video,” he added.
– Human control –
AI’s deployment in war poses a slew of moral and legal questions, notably on the extent of human control over their actions.
The debate was brought to the fore during the fighting in Gaza, where Israeli forces used a programme dubbed “Lavender” to identify targets — within a certain margin of error.
That application worked “because it covered a very limited area”, de Roucy-Rochegonde said.
Israel also has a “mass surveillance system” that could feed data about the enclave’s inhabitants into Lavender.
“It seems less likely that such a system has been set up in Iran,” she added.
“If something does go wrong, then who’s responsible?” Peter Asaro, chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), said in an interview with AFP.
The widely reported bombing of an Iranian school — which authorities there say killed 150 people — could be a case of mistaken AI targeting, he added.
Neither the United States nor Israel has acknowledged responsibility for the strike.
AFP was unable to reach the scene of the school to verify what happened there.
But the site was close to two facilities controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran’s powerful ideological elite.
“They didn’t distinguish it from the military base as they should have, (but) who is they?” he asked — human or machine?
If AI was used, he argued that the key question is “how old was the data” used for the targeting, and whether the misdirected strike stemmed from “a database error”.
– Step by step –
Rondepierre said that AIs “operating without anyone being in control” are “science fiction”.
In France, at least, “military commanders are at the heart of the action and the design of these systems,” he insisted.
“No military decision-maker would agree to use an AI if he didn’t have trust in and control over what it’s doing,” Rondepierre added.
“They know what the risks involved are, what the capabilities of these systems are and what contexts they can use them in, with what level of trust.”
Today was just the “beginning” on use of AI by the world’s armed forces, said Benjamin Jensen of Washington-based think tank CSIS, who has taken part in tests of AI in military decision-making over the past decade.
The world’s armies “haven’t fundamentally rethought how we plan, how we conduct operations, to take advantage” of AI’s capabilities, he added.
“It’s going to take a generation for us to really figure this out.”
Friday, March 06, 2026
Is Europe losing the robotics race to China, and does it matter?
Chinese firms like nitree and Agibot are dominating the global robotics market.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz was treated to a live display of humanoid robots dancing, doing backflips and boxing in Hangzhou in western China in February.
On his return, Merz said Germany was “simply no longer productive enough.”
The fact that humanoid robots took centre stage at the Chinese New Year celebrations showcased China’s dominance of the market at the beginning of 2026, with Hangzhou-based Unitree dominating innovation in the sector. Some 87 percent of all humanoid robots that were delivered in 2025 were made in China.
But while Unitree’s humanoid robots have attracted a lot of column inches, and eyeballs, the actual amount of robots shipped by global manufacturers is relatively modest: just over 13,000 were sold last year. Unitree is in second place,with more than 4,000 below Agibot with over 5,000. (5,168), Forbes reported.
That has not stopped investors pouring money into the sector: Barclays research in January 2026 found that the global humanoid robotics market, currently worth $2-3 billion, could reach $200 billion by 2035. It is suggested that Europe may hold a competitive edge in the supply chain due to its historical strength in engineering and automotive manufacturing.
Europe’s fight
Those in the sector aren’t so sure: Rodion Shishkov, founder of London-based construction technology company All3, told Euronews Next that the amount of capital available to robotics startups in Europe is a fraction of that available in the United States and China. As a result, his startup is fighting for fuel while his Chinese and American rivals have plenty in the tank.
“Here in Europe I have to fight - and I mean, literally, fight - for tens of millions of euros of investment while a similarly-positioned, similarly-developed company in the United States can obtain billions of dollars with the same effort,” Shishkov told Euronews Next.
The shortfall is even more acute, Shishkov said, because the kind of functional non-humanoid robots that All3 is developing for use on European construction projects right now are playing second fiddle - funding-wise - to much-hyped humanoid startups. This despite the fact that in many use cases- humanoid startups are far less efficient.
“You need to think of function first. If there is a huge hole to be dug, we don’t need a humanoid robot with a spade, we need an excavator. If there is a self-driving car, do we need a humanoid robot driving it, no. We need to stop starting with the shape and start with the function,” he said.
Andrei Danescu, CEO of autonomous robot and AI logistics startup Dexory, said that Merz’s trip to China “risks framing a very serious technology race as a beauty contest. The question is not whether a robot walks on two legs, it's whether it solves a real problem.
He cited collaborative arms on factory floors, autonomous logistics vehicles in warehouses, or surgical assistants in operating theatres as examples of robots that were already reshaping industries in Europe. but Danescu warned that Europe should not be complacent about Chinese investment in robotics.
The robot supply chain
“China is making serious, sustained investments across the full robotics stack, hardware, software, manufacturing integration, and other regions are moving with real urgency too. This is not a moment for complacency, for bureaucratic stillness,” he said.
Europe's robotics ecosystem is small but strong, in precision engineering, in industrial automation, in some critical applications. But strength is not the same as momentum.”
Danescu called for European regulators to provide speed-enablement and clarity on standards, on liability frameworks for autonomous systems and on public investment that matches the strategic ambition of other global players.
“The AI Act is a start, but robotics needs its own focused attention - policy, funding, strategy. We cannot regulate our way to competitiveness, but we can certainly regulate our way out of it,” he said.
Sam Baker spent a decade working with robots in industrial manufacturing settings before joining venture capital firm Planet A as an investor. He said one of the major challenges he encountered - and which is still ongoing today - is integrating robots into established workflows in industries like construction, where they need to operate alongside human employees.
In that, he said, the biggest bottleneck is safety.
“Not a lot of people are talking about itboth from a regulatory perspective and a standards perspective. How do you deploy this kind of automation - whether that is humanoids or bipedals or co-bots - that have industrial levels of strength amongst humans,” he told Euronews Next.
“There's nothing written right now that tells you exactly how you need to do it and what your safety concept needs to look like.”
Some companies are already trialling non-humanoid robots in factory settings: BMW recently announced that it will trial humanoid robots at one of its factories in Leipzig in Germany. In a press release, the automaker said the robots would be integrated into existing production lines and could also be utilised to develop batteries and components.
The move has raised eyebrows in robotics circles, but Baker believes it is likely the right approach.
“They're not going in and saying: ‘We've definitely got this use case where we can generate this much ROI and speed up this process by X.’ They're saying: ‘OK, here's something that seems like it could work with this kind of form factor. Let's give it a shot and see what happens,” he said.
As for competition with China, Baker thinks that in terms of hardware, that ship has sailed.
“We would be naive to think that we can really achieve sovereignty and independence from Chinese hardware supply chains in robotics,” Baker said.
“I think it is an excellent time to build a robotics business in Europe. There's just a lot of white space to be filled on the intelligence and data side. And there's a lot of room for experimentation, which doesn't have to be very expensive.”
COMMENT: China’s AI-driven industrial surge is redrawing the balance of power
A decisive shift in global economic power is under way, driven by China’s industrial strategy focused on robots and AI. China’s accelerating technological self-sufficiency is a game changer, according to George Noble, former fund manager at Fidelity Overseas Fund.
“We’re watching the biggest shift in global economic power unfold in real time,” Noble said, arguing that while the US remains preoccupied with domestic political disputes and expansive fiscal programmes, Beijing has embarked on “the most AGGRESSIVE industrial strategy since the Marshall Plan”.
Artificial intelligence has become the most visible battleground.
“[In the week of the Chinese New Year] five Chinese AI companies — Zhipu, ByteDance, Alibaba, Moonshot, and DeepSeek — released or announced major model upgrades simultaneously during Spring Festival,” Noble said.
Citing a RAND report published last month, he noted that “Chinese AI models now run at one-sixth to one-fourth the cost of comparable American systems. One-sixth the cost.”
By contrast, surveys of US corporate adopters suggest limited near-term productivity gains.
“The vast majority of US companies investing in AI report ‘no change’ in productivity, decision-making, or customer satisfaction,” Noble said. “America is burning cash. China is building products.”
Semiconductors form a parallel front. The so-called “Four Dragons” — Moore Threads, MetaX, Biren and Enflame — have either gone public or filed for IPOs in recent months. Huawei, he said, is doubling output of its Ascend chip to 600,000 units this year and has set out a three-year roadmap to overtake Nvidia. Bernstein estimates that Nvidia’s China market share could fall from 40% to 8% under current export restrictions, while Huawei’s could rise to 50%.
“They’re not competing with our tech stack. They’re REPLACING IT,” Noble said, pointing to Beijing’s mobilisation of $70bn in chip incentives and plans to require state telecoms groups to replace AMD and Intel products by 2027.
Energy policy underpins the strategy. China invested $1 trillion in clean energy in 2025 — four times its spending on fossil fuels — with the sector accounting for more than one-third of GDP growth, Noble said. The country now produces a terawatt of solar panel capacity annually, accounts for over 70% of global EV production and sells nearly half of its new cars as electric. “They can power their AI data centres with cheap renewable energy they built themselves,” he added.
Monetary signals reinforce the shift. China’s central bank has purchased gold for 15 consecutive months, with January reserves reaching $369.6bn, up $51bn in a single month.
“They’re not just accumulating gold. They’re building the infrastructure to challenge how global commodities get priced,” Noble said, noting the expansion of renminbi-priced contracts on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
The increase in gold reserves is running in parallel with an accelerating selloff of China’s treasury bill holdings. China’s holding of US treasuries has halved since its peak of $1.3 trillion in 2012 to around $600bn now. And the pace has accelerated since the US weaponised the dollar by barring Russia from using the greenback in the 2022 SWIFT sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine four years ago.
Trade flows have also been redirected as part of the remake of the global economy underway at the moment, driven by rising geopolitical global tensions. China’s total exports reached a record $3.77 trillion last year, producing a $1.19 trillion surplus, but within that the share of exports to the US fell 28.6%, shipments to Africa rose 27.5% and to ASEAN 8.2%. Goldman Sachs has raised its 2026 China growth forecast to 4.8%.
Add the components together — low-cost AI, a parallel chip ecosystem, $1tn a year in clean energy, sustained gold purchases and a trade surplus pivoted towards the Global South — and the trajectory is clear, Noble argued. “China is building the future. America is unfortunately just talking about it.”
Honor’s new ‘robot phone’ wants to be your best AI friend and dance with you
Honor unveils a phone with a robotic arm — and a humanoid robot to match at MWC 2026.
One of the most talked about and looked at new tech on show at the Mobile World Congress was Honor’s “Robot Phone,” a concept device that the company says turns your smartphone into an AI companion.
After showing the front and back of your hand, the gimbal system pulls out and cleverly unfolds. A pair of eyes then comes up on the phone screen, which will track your eyes to allow the gimbal to follow you around, which Honor calls “embodied AI”.
The AI can speak to you and answer your questions, such as does my outfit look good. To which it responds with text on the phone, telling you you look “stylish” and “professional”. While it will pick up on various aspects of your outfit, it will never tell you it looks bad, an Honor representative said.
As well as complementing you, the gimbal can track subjects in real time, follow users during video calls by adjusting its own angle, and even respond to music with movement.
“The robot phone is the first phone that can see, hear, and interact with the world physically because we have this robotic arm built in the phone, now you can use it as a true companion.” Thomas Bai, AI product expert at Honor told Euronews Next.
If you went hiking, for example, it could be your tour guide and travel companion, as it could tell you about the landscapes, “I think that's a real world magic,” he said.
As well as being your companion, it can also help content creators with filming and taking photos.
The device has a 200-megapixel camera, a three-axis gimbal stabilisation, an AI object-tracking mode, and a feature called AI SpinShot that enables smooth 90- and 180-degree rotational transitions for cinematic-style video, which could all be used one-handed.
But with any foldable device, durability is a key question. Bai said he is “confident” about how robust the phone is because the same materials used in the company’s foldable devices, steel and titanium alloy.
Another smartphone on display was Honor’s Magic V6, its latest flagship foldable and the first device of its kind powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. It is one of the slimmest foldables on the market at 8.75mm when closed, but with a massive 6,660mAh battery.
The robot phone is a concept which aims to be released in the market later this year. The price has not yet been revealed.
But Honor did not just preview its smartphones. One of its biggest announcements was its entry into the humanoid robot market.
The company said the robot was not an industrial tool but a consumer-grade device.
“There are many things we imagine that a robot can do. First of all, it can be your companion,” Bai said.
“It can talk to you, and it can help you to do tasks. For example, like some house cleaning things, maybe help you wash dishes, something like that. We hope it could happen in the future.”
Honor said its robots will target three scenarios: retail assistance, workplace inspections, and personal companionship.
The company said its deep base of user data and experience from smartphones gives it an edge over traditional robotics firms in building machines that can recognise individuals and adapt to their needs from the very first interaction.
Honor's MWC 2026 announcements show how the Chinese company is actively repositioning itself from smartphone manufacturer to broad AI hardware platform.
“The humanoid robot is part of our Alpha plan. Yes, we transformed from a smartphone company into an AI ecosystem device company,” Bai said
“That's a new category of our products and we're very excited to bring it to our customers.”
Is China training an army of robots? Nope, it’s an AI-generated video
Some media users have been sharing videos that they claim are proof that China has started training humanoid robot soldiers. It turns out, however, that these videos were – surprise surprise – created by AI.
Have Chinese dancing robots been turned into killing machines? People were amazed when Chinese television broadcast Lunar New Year celebrations featuring a dance routine carried out by a bunch of G1 humanoid robots, the flagship humanoid robots created by Chinese robotics firm Unitree Robotics. However, two videos that have been circulating on social media since February 19 show a much less peaceful use for G1 robots. The videos show the robots taking part in what appears to be military training, armed with assault rifles. It turns out, however, that these videos are fake.
Robots at a shooting range where magazines appear out of thin air
The first video, which garnered more than 1.9 million views on X (check it out here and here), was said to show "Terminator" robots (as a social media user dubbed them) carrying out military manoeuvres at a shooting range. The video shows G1 robots – easy to identify because of the neon blue on their face – carrying out an operation using assault rifles.
This video of robots carrying out military exercises at a shooting range, which was posted online on February 19, 2026, was actually generated by artificial intelligence. Source: X
However, as Tal Hagin, a researcher who studies disinformation, points out, there are a number of anomalies in this video that show it was generated by artificial intelligence.
Eleven seconds in, you can see that the ejection port cover on the robot’s assault rifle remains closed even when the weapon is being fired. This cover, which protects the ejector from humidity and dust, must open when bullets are being fired so that cartridge cases can be ejected. In the video, the cover remains closed or blinks but doesn’t eject any cartridge cases.
An obstacle course… where the obstacles appear by magic
Another robot soldier video, which garnered more than a million views on X, is perhaps even more spectacular. It shows G1 robots participating in a training obstacle course. This video seems particularly realistic and doesn’t have any of the visual anomalies that often pop up in AI-generated videos, like objects or body parts appearing deformed or distorted.
This video of a robot going through training exercises, which was posted on February 19, 2026, was created by AI. Source: X.
However, this video, too, was generated by AI. To detect the anomalies, you need to compare each scene in the video with the one before it. Around 32 seconds in, for example, a robot dog leaps over a wooden panel in front of a pile of sandbags. However, this panel wasn’t anywhere to be seen at 30 seconds, which is a wider lens view of the same pile of sandbags. The AI magicked this object into being.
Videos from an account belonging to a creator of AI-generated images
Where are these videos from? It’s possible to find their creator by looking at the watermark on the training videos. They were made by a user who goes by "oukanghong" on the Chinese online video site Bilibili (here and here). Oukanghong user seems to specialise in creating AI-generated videos of robots.
The video of the robots making their way through an obstacle course has a note on it indicating that the video was made using artificial intelligence.
Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei says the San Francisco-based startup's AI assistant Claude will be tackling French, Italian, German, Spanish and other languages in Europe. - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Kimberly White Alex PIGMAN
In an unprecedented dispute between the US government and a private business, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared AI company Anthropic a supply chain risk — a measure usually reserved for companies from adversary nations, like China’s Huawei.
The Pentagon is furious that Anthropic is insisting on certain conditions for the use of its technology — no mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems — even as the military has been using the company’s models for classified operations for more than two years.
Some believe the decision could destroy one of America’s most high-profile companies in a unilateral act of corporate destruction.
– Will Anthropic survive this? –
The battle is bigger than the actual financial contract, which amounted to $200 million.
The existential threat is the supply chain designation, which means any company that works with the US military would have to prove it has no dealings with Anthropic.
Dean Ball, who helped craft the Trump administration’s own AI policy, called the decision “corporate murder,” warning that the message sent to every investor in America was unambiguous: do business on our terms, or we will end your business.
Anthropic has vowed to challenge the supply chain risk designation in court, calling it a “dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.”
Legal experts say the company has strong grounds, but the court process could take months or longer — a serious vulnerability for a company that had hoped to go public this year and, given the fragile economics of the AI industry, must maintain investor confidence to survive.
Still, “Anthropic will suffer a setback when it loses the government as a client, but it will survive and continue to grow,” Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan, told AFP.
The company for now “has one of the best products,” he said.
– Is this a win for OpenAI? –
Just hours after the US government banned Anthropic, rival OpenAI announced it had reached a deal for the Pentagon to use its AI models in classified systems.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the agreement contains the same two limitations Anthropic had been insisting on.
But OpenAI appeared to enshrine these differently: while Anthropic tried to have the limits spelled out explicitly in the contract, OpenAI agreed that the Pentagon could use its technology for “any lawful purpose” — a formulation Anthropic had refused.
OpenAI also says its technology will be cloud-only, preventing models from being embedded directly into weapons hardware, and that an engineer will be deployed to oversee classified use.
Anthropic said it would challenge Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth’s classification of the company as a supply chain risk – Copyright AFP Giuseppe CACACE
Critics are calling on OpenAI employees to quit or put pressure on their leadership to support its archrival Anthropic.
“OpenAI caved and framed it as not caving, and screwed Anthropic while framing it as helping them,” said Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s former head of policy research, on X.
– Silicon Valley’s reaction –
The Trump administration’s assault on Anthropic sent shockwaves across Silicon Valley, hardening political battle lines that have now divided the tech world.
Anthropic’s most prominent antagonist is venture capitalist David Sacks, the White House’s chief AI policymaker, who has long argued that the company’s safety-first approach will slow innovation and cede ground to China.
He is closely aligned with Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s de facto chief technology officer and a veteran of Uber during its most aggressive phase, when the company was known for its scorched-earth approach to entering new markets.
Coming out in support of Anthropic, hundreds of engineers at Google, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI signed petitions and open letters urging their leaders to refuse Pentagon demands for unrestricted AI use.
At the executive level the picture was more divided. No major tech company has publicly defended Anthropic, though several executives at competing firms, speaking anonymously in the media, expressed concern that the ban sets a dangerous precedent.
Elon Musk, by contrast, posted that “Anthropic hates Western Civilization,” aligning publicly with the administration.
Friday, February 27, 2026
Germany's Chancellor Merz kicks off China visit with landmark Airbus deal German Chancellor Friedrich Merz began his pivotal visit to China by announcing a significant Airbus order from Beijing, which is poised to purchase up to 120 aircraft, including A320neo and A350 models.
Issued on: 26/02/2026 - RFI
Friedrich Merz speaks ahead of his departure for China, in Brandenburg, Germany, 24 February. AP - Michael Kappeler
The deal, if signed, will be worth billions of euros and was announced alongside Chinese Premier Li Qiang. It would also bolster Airbus production in Hamburg and Toulouse, potentially securing thousands of European jobs.
“We have just received news that the Chinese leadership will order a larger number of additional aircraft from Airbus,” Merz stated, highlighting Germany’s drive to strengthen economic links amid global trade strains.
The two-day trip – Merz’s first to China as chancellor – aims to mend Berlin-Beijing relations strained by tariffs, technology curbs and the war in Ukraine.
Accompanied by CEOs from Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Siemens, Merz seeks fairer market access and supply chain resilience. Meetings with Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping covered electric vehicles, rare earths and green energy, with Germany pushing joint projects while urging reciprocity.
Differing styles
Merz’s pragmatic, export-driven approach contrasts with French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent China visits. Macron’s 2023 Beijing trip, alongside EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, blended deal-making with criticism of China's neutrality over Ukraine and trade distortions.
His 2025 solo visit secured Airbus orders, but advanced little on EU-wide de-risking. France prioritises “strategic autonomy” for its nuclear and luxury sectors, often pursuing national gains over collective EU leverage – a point of friction with Berlin.
Germany, reliant on China for 10 percent of its exports, bets on transactional engagement to foster World Trade Organization compliance and openness.
While France opts for high-profile diplomacy that can fragment unity, both strive to revive ties hampered by bans on Huawei products, Xinjiang sanctions and EV probes, but Germany’s methodical style may deliver more durable results.
Protests outside the German embassy decried Uyghur issues, while Greens at home questioned Merz’s priorities. A joint statement committed to “resilient supply chains".
(with newswires)
Friday, February 20, 2026
Canadians kind of hate America now. Our new poll shows just how much.
Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Anna Wiederkehr Thu, February 19, 2026 POLITICO
OTTAWA — It's the world's most awkward breakup.
More than a year after U.S. President Donald Trump casually joked about absorbing Canada and repeatedly threatened debilitating tariffs on its goods, many Canadians are convinced their former pals to the south have lost the plot.
New results from The POLITICO Poll suggest a lasting chill has settled over the world's former bosom buddies. Americans are rosy as ever about their northern neighbors, but Canadians don't share the love.
Their message to America: It's not us, it's you.
Canadians don't see Trump's America as merely an annoyance, the survey found. They consider the superpower next door the world's greatest threat to peacetime.
The POLITICO Poll — in partnership with U.K. polling firm Public First — finds Canadians increasingly view the United States as a source of global volatility instead of as a stabilizing ally.
In survey question after survey question, Canadians say the U.S. no longer reflects their values, is more likely to provoke conflict than to prevent it and, as a result, is pushing Canada to consider closer ties with other global powers — including overtures to China that would have seemed unthinkable only a couple of years ago.
Here's the Canada-U.S. schism explained in five charts.
The POLITICO Poll with Public First(Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rose to power on a pledge to defend Canada from Trump. When the realities of a prolonged trade war set in, he promised to reduce Canada's reliance on its nearest neighbor.
Roughly three-quarters of Canadian exports find their way to U.S. customers. Carney has traveled the world in search of new partnerships with the European Union, China and Qatar. A new defense industrial strategy sets targets aimed at building up domestic production and buying overseas kit for the military only when necessary.
Carney put a finer point on his worldview with a headline-making rallying cry in Davos: In a world of great-power rivalry and fewer rules, middle powers need to band together. The POLITICO Poll shows Carney's approach is popular at home.
Canadians were the most likely — among respondents in Canada, Germany, France and the U.K. — to say the U.S. is not a reliable ally (58 percent).
A slight 42 percent plurality of respondents from Canada go even further, saying the U.S. is no longer an ally of Canada. Only about one in three Canadians, 37 percent, said “The US is still an ally of Canada.”
Other results that reveal the extent of Canada's mistrust:
57 percent of Canadians in the poll said the U.S. cannot be depended on in a crisis.
67 percent say the U.S. "challenges" — as opposed to supports — its allies around the world.
69 percent agree the U.S. tends to create problems for other countries rather than solve them.
POLITICO Poll with Public First(Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO) Europeans see the greatest threat to world peace in their own backyard.
Slight majorities in the three European countries in the poll chose Russia, which upended the global order nearly four years ago with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as the largest threat: Germany (56 percent), France (55 percent) and the UK (53 percent).
Canadians are likewise worried about what's next door.
Almost half of Canadians point a finger at the U.S. — a 19-point lead over Russia, which took the next largest share (29 percent). A large plurality of Canadians (43 percent) see the U.S. as "mostly a threat" to global stability. Another 34 percent say Americans are "sometimes a force for stability, sometimes a threat."
Conservative voters agree that the U.S. is the top threat to peace — but only 35 percent of them. Another 30 percent picked Russia, followed by 22 percent who said China.
POLITICO Poll with Public First(Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO)
More than two out of three Canadians believe Trump is actively seeking conflict with other countries.
Liberal voters who powered Carney's stunning victory last year — a rare fourth-consecutive win for the party — overwhelmingly see things that way. Progressive New Democrats are even likelier than the centrist governing party to hold that view.
But even Conservative voters, who broadly support close and enduring ties with Americans, have mixed feelings. A 57 percent majority say the U.S. president is looking around the world for a fight.
And that foreign intervention worries them, too: 47 percent of Canadians say U.S. involvement overseas makes the world less safe.
The POLITICO Poll with Public First(Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO)
In the middle of the Covid pandemic, Canadians viewed Beijing with deep suspicion.
Chinese authorities had for more years imprisoned two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, on espionage charges.
Ottawa and Western allies widely viewed the so-called Two Michaels' prolonged detention as retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou as part of an extradition request from Washington.
The U.S. president’s torching of the relationship with Canada has flipped public opinion.
Forced to pick, a majority of Canadians (57 percent) now say they'd rather depend on China than Trump’s America.
Asked whether Canada should deliberately move closer to China, 39 percent agreed — with a majority of those respondents (60 percent) directly naming Trump as the reason to build bridges across the Pacific.
The POLITICO Poll with Public First(Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO)
Any prolonged Canada-U.S. tension feels deeply personal to many border-town residents. The rivers and lakes and straight-line boundaries that divide the two countries were for decades just technicalities.
Ask a Canadian who grew up on the Ontario side of Niagara Falls, and they'll talk about going "over the river" — not across a border — to visit friends and family, go to work or have a night out.
But Canadian visits to the U.S. have dropped significantly since Trump's inauguration. Tourists are taking their money elsewhere. Snowbirds who flock annually to Florida and Arizona have found other sunny options.
A declining state of affairs has frayed countless deeply woven ties.
Still, respondents expressed some optimism about the future.
Forty-one percent of Canadians say Trump represents a lasting change. But nearly half (49 percent) said the relationship between the United States and Canada will recover in a post-Trump era.
A similar proportion of Canadians share that optimism across party lines: Liberal (51 percent), Conservative (50) and NDP (46).
But then there's the solid core of skeptics — 29 percent of the country is convinced there is no going back.
Carney won on an "elbows up" rallying cry that urged Canadians to stand up for themselves. Now they're reckoning with the everyday impact of a lasting cross-border rupture.
The country seems to have settled on a new maxim for now: America if necessary, but not necessarily America.
Take off, EH: This poll reveals just how badly the U.S. has damaged its relationship with Canada
John L. Micek Thu, February 19, 2026 MASS. LIVE
Looks like all those “51st state” jokes and tariff threats have taken a toll as the U.S. and Canada have gone through the most awkward break-up in recent geopolitical memory.
Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) of Canadians say they no longer see the United States as a reliable ally after two centuries of cross-border partnership. And a plurality (48%) say we’re a bigger threat to peace than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, according to a new Politico poll published Thursday.
The poll, conducted with London-based Public First, tested the opinions of America’s closest allies. And after more than a year of bellicose rhetoric from Republican President Donald Trump’s White House, the relationship with the nation’s nearest northern neighbor is on shaky ground.
Indeed, 42% of respondents believe the United States is no longer an ally. Barely 1 in 3 (37%) said they consider the U.S. an ally of Canada.
More findings:
A clear majority of Canadians (57%) believe the country can no longer be depended on in a crisis.
More than two-thirds (67%) said the U.S. “challenges” rather than supports its allies around the world, according to the poll.
And nearly 7 in 10 (69%) agreed that the U.S. tended to create problems for other countries rather than solve them.
European respondents to the poll saw Russia as the bigger threat to their security: Germany (56%), France (55%) and the United Kingdom (53%).
The poll of 2,000 Canadians, conducted from Feb. 6 to Feb. 9, comes as officials in Massachusetts have sought to shore up relations with Canadian provincial leaders and to strengthen trade and economic partnerships.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, for instance, traveled to Nova Scotia, at a cost of $13,365 to city taxpayers, as she visited with leaders and to procure Boston’s annual Christmas tree.
Last summer, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey hosted a roundtable with Canadian provincial leaders and northeastern governors at the State House in Boston to talk trade, tariffs and Trump.
Canadians Trash Trump’s America as a Bigger Threat Than Russia
Martha McHardy Thu, February 19, 2026
The Daily Beast
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI)
Donald Trump is now seen as a bigger threat to global peace than even Russia by some of America’s former allies.
A POLITICO Poll conducted Feb. 6–9 with over 2,000 respondents each from Canada, the U.K., France, and Germany, found Canadians are far more likely than Europeans to view the U.S. as a greater threat to global peace than Russia.
Nearly half of Canadians, 48 percent, ranked the United States as the biggest threat to world peace, compared with just 29 percent naming Russia. Sixty-nine percent of Canadian respondents said Trump is actively seeking conflict with other countries with no provocation.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
The survey results come as relations between the U.S. and Canada, historically close allies, have broken down since Trump began his second term.
Trump has floated the idea of annexing the country and making it the 51st U.S. state, and slapped tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and automobiles.
The move sparked trade tensions, which Canada met with its own retaliation. Trump has most recently threatened to block the opening of a $4.6 billion bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan, with Windsor, Ontario, demanding the U.S. be given 50 percent ownership.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the poll shows a sharp decline in trust toward Washington, with 58 percent of Canadians saying the U.S. is not a reliable ally—the highest share among respondents in Canada, Germany, France, and the U.K.
Even more striking, 42 percent of Canadians said the U.S. is no longer an ally at all, while only 37 percent insisted the partnership remains intact.
The survey also highlights broader concerns about U.S. actions overseas following Trump’s operation in Venezuela and push to seize Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally: 43 percent of Canadians see the U.S. as “mostly a threat” to global stability, while another 34 percent say America is “sometimes a force for stability, sometimes a threat.”
President Donald Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 7, 2025, in Washington. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im
Almost half, 47 percent, said U.S. involvement abroad actually makes the world less safe.
In response to the poll, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “The ultimate poll was November 5, 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.
“The President has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world. It is not surprising that President Trump remains the most dominant figure in American politics.”
Other surveys confirm that the U.S. is increasingly seen as a threat in Canada and beyond.
A Kekst CNC poll conducted earlier this month of 11,099 people across G7 nations found Canadians are now nearly as likely as Chinese respondents to view the U.S. as a danger to their country’s security.
Among all countries surveyed, Canadians showed the largest jump in perceived threat from Washington, from 29 percent in November, to 44 percent this month.
Meanwhile, YouGov European tracker data monitoring attitudes in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain from Jan. 9 to 27, showed that perceptions of the U.S. are the worst they have been since YouGov started tracking in 2016.
Despite these deep doubts, the POLITICO poll showed that Canadians remain cautiously optimistic about the post-Trump future.
About 49 percent said they expect U.S.-Canada relations to recover once a new administration takes office, though 29 percent remain convinced the damage is irreversible.
.jpg)
