Ties between the US tech giant Palantir and the United Kingdom government are coming under increased scrutiny following the arrest of former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson over his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Despite its public criticism of both Palantir and Mandelson, the UK government has entered into extensive contracts with the US tech giant, signing a defence contract worth 240 million pounds ($323m) in January. The contract was awarded to Palantir directly, while another, worth 330 million pounds ($444m) and involving the UK's Ministry of Health, was awarded in November 2023 following a bidding process. The latter contract's contents, campaigners say, remain heavily redacted . In addition to its role supporting US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which has resulted in killings and unlawful deportations, Palantir has partnered extensively with the Israeli military and its operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In quantum computers, the information is contained in qubits that can work through vast numbers of different outcomes, which is not possible with classical computers. In quantum computers, the information is contained in qubits that can work through vast numbers of different outcomes, which is not possible with classical computers. The UK will not let quantum computing talent slip through its fingers and must learn lessons from US dominance of the AI race, the technology secretary has said, as the government announced a £1bn quantum funding pledge. Liz Kendall said the government hoped to retain homegrown quantum startups, engineers and researchers rather than lose them to competing countries, with the US stealing a march on its western rivals in AI. "I do look at what's happened on AI," said Kendall. "I do think we need to learn the lessons and make sure we give our brilliant scientists, spinouts and startups the ability to stay here and make it happen. And that requires a government that is bold and ambitious and confident in these technologies of the future."

In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the "department of government efficiency", he declared that governments were poorly configured "big dumb machines". To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that "the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers". Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need "God mode", an overview of the whole. If the mandate of Doge was to "[modernise] federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity", in the words of the executive order that launched the initiative on 20 January 2025, the reality was a strengthening of the state's surveillance capacities. Over time, Musk had become convinced that the real bugs in the code were people, especially the non-white illegal immigrants whom he saw as pawns in a liberal scheme to corrupt democracy and beneficiaries of what he called "suicidal empathy". He understood empathy itself in coding terms.

Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani faces pressure to act against Iran-backed terrorist groups following increased attacks on U.S., European, and Kurdish assets in the country.

Subhalata Pradhan, a Gram Vikas fieldworker, talks to Raja Pradhan about the chatbot and addresses concerns over sharing his details. Subhalata Pradhan, a Gram Vikas fieldworker, talks to Raja Pradhan about the chatbot and addresses concerns over sharing his details. India's scattered workforce: the chatbot keeping families in touch during emergencies Covid exposed the lack of data on the country's 140 million mobile migrant workers, but a new project in Odisha is helping to fill in the gaps Mon 16 Mar 2026 02.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 16 Mar 2026 02.03 EDT Raja Pradhan is sitting cross-legged, scrolling on his phone in his village in eastern India when a green WhatsApp chat bubble pops up on the screen. Are you going outside for work? He reads the message twice, unsure whether to respond.

We can't let them hide behind their models From Gaza to Iran, the pattern is the same: precision weapons, chosen blindness, and dead children. There is an Israeli military strategy called the "fog procedure". First used during the second intifada, it's an unofficial rule that requires soldiers guarding military posts in conditions of low visibility to shoot bursts of gunfire into the darkness, on the theory that an invisible threat might be lurking. It's violence licensed by blindness. Shoot into the darkness and call it deterrence. With the dawn of AI warfare, that same logic of chosen blindness has been refined, systematized, and handed off to a machine.

Plus: A porn-quitting app exposed the masturbation habits of hundreds of thousands of users, Russian hackers are trying to take over people's Signal accounts, and more. The United States and Israel's war with Iran has now been ongoing for two weeks, and the bombs continue to fall. But many of Iran's missiles are failing to hit their targets. WIRED's team in the Middle East detailed how countries in the Gulf region are intercepting these weapons . Of course, the international conflict is not just happening in the physical realm.

Trump says Putin may be helping Iran'a bit' US President Donald Trump has said he believes that Vladimir Putin and Russia are helping Iran a bit amid the conflict with the US and Israel. In an interview with Fox News, Trump acknowledged that the US also helps Ukrainian forces as they battle with Russian forces. According to some US media reports, Russia has been sharing the location of US military forces with Iran that could help guide missile and drone attacks across the Middle East. On Thursday, US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff said that Russia's government had assured the Trump administration that it was not providing intelligence to the Iranian government in Tehran. Asked by Fox about the potential of Russian intelligence being shared with Iran, Trump said that I think he [Putin] may be helping them a bit, yeah.

Less than a decade ago, Google employees scuttled any military use of its AI. The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon has forced the tech industry to once again grapple with the question of how its products are used for war - and what lines it will not cross. Amid Silicon Valley's rightward shift under Donald Trump and the signing of lucrative defense contracts, big tech's answer is looking very different than it did even less than a decade ago. Anthropic's feud with the Trump administration escalated three days ago as the AI firm sued the Department of Defense, claiming that the government's decision to blacklist it from government work violated its first amendment rights. The company and the Pentagon have been locked in a months-long standoff, with Anthropic attempting to prohibit its AI model from being used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

We don't know if AI-powered toys are safe, but they're here anyway Toys powered by AI show a worrying lack of emotional understanding. Mya, aged 3, and her mother Vicky playing with an AI toy called Gabbo during an observation at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Education Even the most cutting-edge AI models are prone to presenting fabrication as fact, dispensing dangerous information and failing to grasp social cues. Despite this, toys equipped with AI that can chat with children are a burgeoning industry. Some scientists are warning that the devices could be risky and require strict regulation. In the latest study, researchers even observed a 5-year-old telling such a toy "I love you", to which it replied: "As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed."