Indonesia’s AI Rules Are Stuck on the President’s Desk
South-East Asia's largest economy has spent more than a year promising two presidential regulations on AI. What they contain, why they keep slipping, and the gaps critics say they leave open.
Archive
Pakistan Writes Rules for the Algorithmic State
Pakistan's draft National Data Governance Policy would give citizens a right to human review of automated decisions and force ministries to register high-risk AI. It arrives before the country has a data protection law.
Cape Town’s Data Centre Fight Puts a Price on AI’s Thirst
Housing activists have appealed Cape Town's approval of a 174MW Equinix data centre, arguing that planners waved it through without data on water, power or emissions. The case is becoming a test of how African cities govern AI infrastructure.
Turkey Governs AI by Circular, Not Statute
Turkey's new AI action plan sets out a presidential governance structure, hard targets and EU-style safeguards. The AI law that would give those safeguards legal force is still stuck in parliament.
ChatGPT Now Answers to Brussels Twice Over
In one week at the end of August, the Commission sent its first AI Act information requests to more than 30 AI firms and designated ChatGPT a very large search engine. Here is what each regime demands, and why it matters.
Mexico Wants One AI Law. Its States Got There First
Mexico's Congress is moving towards a general AI law, starting with a constitutional amendment to give itself the power to pass one. Several states have already legislated, and experts warn the country still lacks a national strategy.
Washington’s $1 AI Era Is Over. Now Agencies Get the Meter
The promotional deals that put ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini on millions of federal desks for a dollar are expiring or turning into pay-per-use contracts. Agencies must now budget for AI as a running cost.
India’s Sovereign AI Bet Meets the Price of Silicon
The IndiaAI Mission has bought its way to tens of thousands of subsidised GPUs and twenty home-grown models. Rising chip and memory prices now make utilisation, pricing and energy, not headline capacity, the numbers that matter.
Africa’s AI Rulebook Is Being Written on Three Floors at Once
The African Union is drafting a model AI law, regional blocs are writing strategies and national parliaments are racing ahead with bills. The binding constraint on all three is not ambition but the state's capacity to draft, verify and enforce.
Humain’s Pragmatic Turn: Chinese Weights, American Chips
Saudi Arabia's state AI champion has built its flagship Arabic model on Chinese open weights, run it on American hardware and gone looking for outside capital. Sovereign AI in the Gulf is becoming a hedging strategy, with new risks for partners.
Europe’s Gigafactory Bet Buys Capacity, Not Yet Sovereignty
Brussels has opened bidding for up to seven AI gigafactories worth more than €30bn. The hardware is the easy part; whether Europe gains real control depends on budgets, chips, power and who the public sector buys from.
Brazil’s Election Court Became Its AI Regulator. Now What?
With Brazil's AI bill stalled in the Chamber, the electoral court has written the country's most consequential AI rules. The first round showed how far court resolutions and platform injunctions can reach, and where they stop.