The Democratic Republic of the Congo has filed criminal charges against Apple for using conflict minerals.

Ukraine has millions of hours of drone footage that can be utilised to train AI models.

But first, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall reflected on the state of autonomous jets after flying in an AI-controlled fighter jet.

MIT Technology Review has visited Anduril’s weapons test site to observe how its system can destroy incoming drones.

Chinese manufacturers have started to limit sales of key components used to build unmanned aerial vehicles in the US and Europe. This is expected to impact Ukraine, which is largely dependent on cheap Chinese commercial drone parts.

At the inaugural DefenseTech Summit in Tel Aviv, Dr Avital Schrift, VP of Core Technologies at IAI, spoke on how it is no longer possible to separate technology into non-dual use.

China is responding to the tech war by banning exports of critical minerals and opening an antitrust investigation against Nvidia.

OpenAI’s technology will be deployed on the battlefield. The first stop is a partnership with Anduril.

But first, the war in Ukraine is reshaping the tech sector in Eastern Europe. Startups in nearby countries have pivoted from consumer products to tech for the battlefield. The products are tested directly on the battlefield, free from the laws and regulations of the EU. Kaspar Pollaks from LMT Defence visits Ukraine offen:

Defence startups are racing to solve the problem of spoofing and jamming. And it looks like the answer is quantum tech.

The global arms sales increased by 4% in 2023. Russia, South Korea, and Japan led the board with 40%, 39%, and 35% increase respectively.

But first, loose talks of using nuclear weapons signal normalisation of their use.

Raspberry Pi computers have been discovered inside Russian drones shot down on the front line. A BBC investigation shows the trade route through Kyrgyzstan.

Palantir has added more than $23 billion to its market capitalisation, reaching $61 per share and giving the company a nearly $140 billion valuation.

But first, Ukraine’s formal military chief raises the risk of a standstill in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war due to the introduction of robots.

North Korea is developing its drone programs. This week, North Korean state media published images of a drone test. After the test, Kim Jong Un ordered mass-production of self-detonating explosive drones.

Anthropic is testing if their AI models would give away sensitive information on how to make a nuclear bomb.

But first, at the G-20 Summit in Brazil, China’s President Xi Jinping urged the world to make sure AI is safe for all countries.

Donald Trump was elected last week, and defence tech startups in Silicon Valley are excited. Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey supported Trump’s campaign and as many in Silicon Valley, they believe that Trump will shift the focus to software-driven weapons.

The US Defence Department has authorized the Office of Strategic Capital to issue loans for critical technologies.

But first, William D. Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, thinks that the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are unrealistic.

Meta is opening up Llama to the US military after discovering that Chinese researchers have used an old Llama model to create military tools.

Ukraine uses dozens of domestically made AI-augmented systems for its drones to reach targets on the battlefield without being piloted.

But first, at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia, Eric Schmidt, Ex-Google CEO, pointed out that the US should replace tanks with drones,

The Pentagon and the intelligence agencies should harness AI technologies without letting AI decide when a nuclear bomb should be dropped.

NewSpace missile development is increasing, especially in regions without international agreements.

But first, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Anduril, is busy with a new headset project for the US Department of Defence. He believes that the use-case for defence has entirely different trade-offs than in consumer technology, where headsets are competing with the ease of the smartphone.

The US Defense Department wants to offer Silicon Valley tech executives positions as part-time military officers.

OpenAI is pivoting towards defence contracts: they hired Dan Stuckey from Palantir this week.

But first, Bill Gates recognises the benefits of AI, but is wary of its dangers and groups AI with bioterrorism and nuclear weapons.

This week, Wired featured Jake Sullivan, the White House National Security Advisor who is responsible for overseeing emerging tech policies towards China.

Silicon Valley is debating whether autonomous weapons should be lethal or not.

But first, in an interview with TechCrunch, ShieldAI’s founder who is a former Navy SEAL, spoke about drones and AI in Ukraine.

This week, the Wall Street Journal published an in-depth story on the militia-controlled mines in Congo. The minerals from the mines increasingly flow into global supply chains for smartphones and computers. I have previously covered complex stories and tragedies related to conflict minerals here and here.

The Pentagon has started using video-game-style controllers familiar to anyone who grew up with an Xbox or PlayStation for a range of military systems.

But first, in an opinion piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Paul Lushenko and Keith Carter questions the tech bros’s influence on the current debate on military AI:

US defence startups developing weapons to counter China have a major contradiction built into their supply chain: They depend on China for parts of their technology.

This year, European defence technology will see a fivefold increase in VC investment since 2018, outpacing any other investment across NATO states.

But first, at the Berlin VC Project A’s PakCon defence event last week, investors and founders discussed concerns about defence tech. Some investors worried about exit opportunities, while other speakers focused on the government being a barrier to entry:

Last week, pagers and walkie-talkies were turned into weapons in Lebanon and Syria, leaving at least a dozen dead and more than 2,700 injured.

Marietje Schaake released the book "The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley" and discussed how tech companies own the battlefields in today’s wars in an essay in Fast Company.

But first, with the UN adopting the Global Digital Impact at the Future Summit this week, AI regulation and automation bias is again the big topic:

This week, Intel announced that it will receive a $3 billion grant from the US government to produce semiconductors for military and intelligence purposes. The grant is a part of the new Secure Enclave program, designed to ensure the US has reliable domestic sources of advanced semiconductors.

The US and others are concerned that China would actively support Russia with technology for military purposes.

But first, in a guest essay in The New York Times, Raj M. Shah, managing partner of Shield Capital, and Christoffer M. Kirchhoff, who helped to build the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, compare the current change in character of war to the moment when the British South Africa Company used five Maxim guns, the world’s first fully automatic weapon to, as they write “help repel over 5,000 Ndebele warriors, some 1,500 who were killed at the cost of only a handful British soldiers.” They conclude that the US military is not ready for this Maxim gun moment that they say has already arrived:

This week, I participated in the REAIM Summit in Seoul. For two days, political and military leaders, diplomats, tech companies, lawyers, and other stakeholders discussed how to take action towards ensuring the responsible use of AI in the military domain.

In this newsletter, I am covering the overview of the summit. A more detailed review will follow separately.

Palantir is joining the S&P 500. Upon the announcement, the stocks jumped by 7%.

But first, AI is often being compared with nuclear weapons, but regulating AI is very different. While the atomic bomb is a weapon in itself, AI is an enabling technology, with large dual use, and mainly developed by private companies:

Last week, I wrote about North Korea’s suicide drone program. This week, we are looking at Iran’s Shahed bombs, designed for one-time use.

We then continue with Russia’s new fibre-optic drones that are resistant to signal jamming and electronic warfare.

But first, regulations are being put in place to ensure that there is always a human operator for autonomous weapons, securing meaningful human control. However, studies have shown that humans’ sense of moral agency can be diminished when working with computer systems, to the extent that they consider themselves unaccountable for consequences that arise. People even start to attribute a sense of agency to the computer systems themselves. Mark Tsagas comments:

In an essay in Foreign Affairs, Mark Milley and Eric Schmidt write that America is not ready for the future of wars.

North Korea has revealed suicide drones and is increasing its focus on using technology and artificial intelligence to carry out strikes.

But first, Telegram founder Pavel Duro was arrested in France after investigations into criminal activity on the app. Telegram has become a tool for frontline soldiers, independent journalists, and the Ukrainian government since the start of the war. France 24 spoke to Dr Melanie Garson on Telegram’s role in communication in conflict zones, who commented:

In a rare in-depth interview with The New York Times, Alex Karp discusses how Palantir started and how the company is finding hidden things to protect the West.

Japan and the US are starting to collaborate on several military technologies, such as high-energy microwaves.

But first, Eric Schmidt gave a lecture at Stanford University in April that was posted on YouTube last week, quickly went viral, and then was taken down. In the lecture, Schmidt talks about his startup, White Stork, and its goals: building complicated AI robots and lowering costs, eliminating the need for ground battles. And then he gives some advice:

Anduril Industries closed its series F round at $1.5 billion, valuing the company at $14 billion. Anduril is part of one of the largest changes in the defence sector since World War II: the flow of venture capital funding into defence tech start-ups.

SpaceX successfully launched two satellites for Space Norway that included two US military payloads that will enable connectivity in the Arctic region.

But first, on the night of August 8th, Ukraine launched a drone attack on an airbase in the Lipetsk region simultaneously with a ground invasion, the first major one on Russian territory. Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation, who piloted the “Army of Drones” and encouraged Ukrainians to make drones at home said in an interview with Le Monde that: