Ex-Google CEO Says Ukraine Proves Value Of IT In War

Ukraine has been a very effective proving ground for the use of contemporary information technology in war, from satellite dishes to smartphone apps, Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive, said Monday. Schmidt, now a US government consultant on artificial intelligence, told reporters after a 36-hour visit to the country that the civilian tech sector has been crucial to Kyiv's defense. The proof came the day after Russian troops invaded on February 24. After a long stall, Ukraine's legislature came together to agree on a crucial step to protect all the government's data from Russian hackers and strikes. "In one day, they had a meeting of the parliament and changed that law... they moved all their data from government servers in Kyiv to the cloud," Schmidt said.