A black box with pathogens that could start a pandemic showed the White House how scientific and technological advancements have created easily accessible recipes and guidelines for creating bioweapons.

Statista has summarised Big Tech’s possible sourcing of conflict minerals.

But first, at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on Tuesday, Japan’s Prime Minister, KISHIDA Fumio, said that the “trend towards fewer nuclear weapons could undergo a reversal for the first time since the height of the Cold War.” The Mayor, MATSUI Kazumi, pointed out the same danger:

The European Commission is rapidly accelerating its investment in weapons and defence technologies. €7.3 billion has been allocated for defence research over the next seven years.

Kenya’s researchers suggest that AI could increase the capacity of an Early Warning and Response System, helping to predict and prevent another recurring conflict from erupting in the country.

But first, Justice Malala warns that the armed clashes between the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and others could see a repeat of the world’s deadliest conflict since WWII — a conflict closely connected to consumer technology and the green transition:

This week, the Pentagon released a new strategy for the Arctic - a region that due to climate change is becoming increasingly accessible and is a venue for strategic competition.

Starlink is now available in a hospital in Gaza and is looking for a distributor in Sudan.

But first, the Microsoft outage exposed vulnerabilities to global tech. While the crisis was unfolding the cyber security expert Professor Richard Buckland named it as an example of what could be waiting for us in the future:

In the past few months, we have seen plenty of examples of state-sponsored cyber-terrorism. This week, we have a look at North Korea’s digital warfare.

A new report shows that the US’s top national security startups receive awards from government contracts equaling less than half of what VCs have invested.

But first, with the green transition the world is rushing to switch to EVs and solar panels, without thinking enough about how this affects the oil and metal-producing countries.

The book “Unit X - How Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War” was published this week. In the book, the authors Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff share their story of running the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental that was created to disrupt and transform the slow Pentagon procurement system.

The US is developing a tactical AI assistant that is supposed to give soldiers a “cognitive overmatch,” or an ability to dominate the situation by making informed decisions faster than the opponent.

But first, in an opinion piece in Bloomberg Andreas Kluth discusses Pentagon’s ambitious drone project called Replicator. The idea is that any Chinese invasion force should be met with overwhelming swarms of drones - uncrewed vehicles under and on the water and in the air:

Digital technologies are changing how we participate in warfare, both by foreign volunteers travelling to participate in the battle, and how civilians are a part of the warfare. DIIS released a brief on how this is playing out in Ukraine.

Since the start of the war, Russia’s drone production has been slow due to central control and monopolies, but it might be catching up.

But first, Stuart Russell who released the online film Slaughterbots in 2017 together with the Future of Life Institute, comments on the current developments of low-cost armed AI drones in an interview with the New York Times:

Many believe mil-tech is the Ukraine’s future. The country is now home to over 200 mil-tech companies, supported by the government and international VC funds like Eric Schmidt’s D3.

In Rwanda, drones save lives by delivering blood and medical supplies to refugee camps.

But first, Palantir’s CEO Alexander C. Karp, and Nicholas W. Zaminska, Head of Corporate Affairs are working on a book titled “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West.” The book will be published in February 2025.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, they discuss thin and shallow patriotism, who build the weapons of the future, and for what purpose:

This week, Wired called the last weeks of weaponised robot dogs reveals from China and the US a “race to weaponise four-legged robots for military applications.”

The ICC has started to investigate if Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine could be classified as war crimes.

But first, General Mark A. Milley discussed the drivers of change in warfare at the Futurist Summit in a conversation with the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius:

The US and European armies thought that old types of warfare were becoming obsolete in the age of drones. But the trench warefare in Ukraine has made the underproduction of basic supplies like gunpowder visible.

The US Army has taken possession of new high-powered microwave weapons that will be able to use electromagnetic interference to disable the electronics of drones and missiles.

But first, Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands discusses if AI will revolutionise warfare or if we are overestimating its possible effects:

Defence tech ETFs are on the rise following increasing global instability, the switch of government spending from economic growth to national security, and the focus on emerging technologies in defence and warfare.

One of the technologies that are on the rise is hypersonic missile technology, with for example, Lockheed Martin recently securing a $756 million contract from the US Army.

These are all effects of the end of an era called the Peace Dividend. This era lasted from the end of the Cold War until Russia invaded Ukraine with spending focused on economic growth instead of national security.

This week, The New York Times published pictures of the belongings of Sgt. Kennedy Sanders who was killed in a drone attack in Yemen in January on its front cover, followed by a story of her parents facing the remains of their daughter.

Counterspace capabilities are increasingly in focus for the US as well as Russia and China. Robotic arms installed on satellites could now capture other crafts or knock them from stable orbits.

But first, a comment on war itself. In the opening scene of the movie Land of Bad, where a special forces unit is about to be airdropped into a mission supported by drones, a soldier says:

In this week’s big story, Anduril’s founder Palmer Luckey speaks with Bloomberg on autonomous weapons and war - and on how it is unavoidable that AI will make deadly mistakes.

Contrasting AI, Morse code, a century-old technology, is used by Russia alongside drones and hypersonic weapons. Why?

But first, at the AI Expo for Competitiveness, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen spoke on technology, the battlefield, and the protection of humans, warning that no amount of technology can fully protect humans.

This week's big story is on the political side of war - especially preventing a war caused by AI. On Tuesday, Chinese and US officials met in Geneva to discuss how.

The second story covers warnings over that the US Army might be behind the Russian Army in electronic warfare techniques.

But first, what has changed since the Cold War regarding warfare in space is that blue dot on the map on your phone. Over decades, the US Air Force developed and launched satellites that were freed up for civilian use in the 1990s, enabling a huge part of what we think of as the gig economy, including Uber and Lyft. Space-enabled technology is now accessible to countries that do not have large-scale military satellite programs of their own.

This week's big story covers an AI-powered fighter jet outperforming a human pilot in a dogfight in front of cameras.

The second story explores how drones have changed the war in Myanmar, but also how technology links rebels across the world together.

But first, the retired General Mark Milley and Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp discussed what technology can do for civilian casualties in conflicts at the second annual Ash Carter Exchange. Karp was sure that tech can reduce “civilian deaths to the smallest amount humanly possible.” Milley took a different stance, focusing on that wars are increasingly dense and urban, and even if AI-powered technologies work well in Ukraine, they won’t work in urban environments:

This week's big story covers the Democratic Republic of Congo’s suspicion that Apple has conflict minerals in their supply chain.

The second story is from conference “Humanity at Crossroads” in Vienna, where world leaders gathered to consider rules needed to protect humanity from what is said to be this generation’s Oppenheimer Moment.

But first, the reason why seven employees of World Central Kitchen in Gaza were killed on April 1st was the failure of the drone to recognize the signs that marked the convoy according to the 1949 Geneva Convention:

This week's big story covers how US startups thought they would get the battle testing needed in Ukraine to be able to win big military contracts, only to be replaced by Chinese made drones.

Following a century long obsession with Jet Packs, DARPA is now close to an electronic flight option carrying a single person in and out of complex environments.

But first, Roberto J. González’s comments on the contemporary bomber-missile-gap.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.