Nigeria needs more Internet bandwidth, as do many African countries. It has had fiber optic undersea cables for more than two decades, as IEEE Spectrum reported in 2004: spectrum.ieee.org/surf-africa

The semiconductor industry is reaching into universities to speed up product cycles. In an industry that typically built new products on stable timetables, the astounding demand from AI is motivating a nimbler approach and building bridges from early-stage innovation to manufacturing-ready ideas.

As public pressure builds to do something about the harms of social media, regulators are scrambling to figure out what they can do. A former official at the UK's communications regulator has a thoughtful piece in Tech Policy Press this week on what's realistic and what's not.

250 years after 13 British colonies declared independence, Guru Madhavan analyzes how they actually engineered their breakaway and sustained it with investments in technology, a crucial alliance, and strategic trade.

I moved back to the U.S. recently after nearly two decades living in Spain and the U.K. The last few months have been an education in American attitudes towards technology, especially given the scale of this AI boom.

The EU is trying to figure out how much independence its tech supply chains need from the U.S. Earlier this month the European Commission proposed a couple of laws and some accompanying policies to promote more tech autonomy there.

Data centers are queuing up around the U.S. to access the electrical grid. Yet the costs of plugging them in often fall on existing grid users. Now the federal government wants grid operators to find a way to plug in data centers faster without driving up everyone's costs.

The business of music has changed a lot since the surge of digital formats, but one thing is constant: people will fight over royalties. Now that AI is in the mix, training on human music and generating new hybrid music, the industry has a whole new set of intellectual property problems to sort out.

Computers in space are nothing new, but data centers in space are rousing all kinds of debates. IEEE Spectrum's own Glenn Zorpette created a data page a while back asking, “How Stupid Would It Be to Put Data Centers in Space?” (spectrum.ieee.org/orbital-data...)

We are crowdsourcing the Panopticon. Facial recognition tools are changing the longer-term effects of recording police misconduct or other misbehavior in public.

There's a loud debate in the U.S. science world about research budget cuts, larger threatened cuts, slow-walking certain projects, legal fights, and more.

Anyone who's ever tried using a GPS in a dense city, a big building, or underground understands that we might need a more universal navigation technology. Hidonix Industries, AstraNav, and others told me all about their answers, which rely on the Earth's magnetic field instead of satellites.

South Africa is an AI consumer for now but Nathan-Ross Adams argues it should be an AI industry shaper, given its leverage in the form of mines and continent-leading market power.

Not long after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission effectively banned foreign-made network routers, it gave a pass to Netgear, as I wrote for @spectrum.ieee.org last month spectrum.ieee.org/chinese-robo...

Electric vehicles may seem to be going mainstream, but it's been a tougher haul to get them into the enormous cargo vehicle market. Benjamin Skuse tells @spectrum.ieee.org readers how a few European companies are approaching the problem. It will definitely require connected thinking.

The hunt for Red October and other submarines the world over may be getting easier. @wmdgirl.bsky.social had a feature on it for IEEE Spectrum a few years back spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-subm...

Taiwan is investing in offering an alternative drone supply chain for the United States and other countries. Its efforts are paying off, writes Yu-Tzu Chiu for @spectrum.ieee.org, as the country's exports boom and it learns from intensive clients, such as Ukraine: spectrum.ieee.org/taiwan-drone...

Are robotics engineers listening to the people who will actually use humanoid robots at home? The ISO's latest draft standards may neglect real-world user input on how messy domestic life and human behavior are. Here's my interview with Jae-Seong Lee for IEEE Spectrum readers:

AI chatbots aren't therapists, but since people insist on using them for that anyway, Stephen Cousins has this story for @spectrum.ieee.org on the sort of safeguards mental health experts think we need: spectrum.ieee.org/mental-healt...

America is wrestling with how much Chinese tech to allow into sensitive supply chains. Ground robots? Drones? Uncle Sam says no. What about their components? That's where things get tricky, I write in my latest story for @spectrum.ieee.org.

Engineering isn't science, but Guru Madhavan delved into their conjoined history, and tells @spectrum.ieee.org readers that Francis Bacon, who sketched out today's scientific method, put a premium on engineering as a way of knowing. Maybe we should, too:

I've declined facial recognition recently out of curiosity and because of what I learnt reporting a data column for @spectrum.ieee.org. In higher-stakes settings, we might all re-consider the right role for this tech. Here's the column: spectrum.ieee.org/facial-recog...

A Los Angeles jury just found Meta and Alphabet responsible for knowingly harming a young person with addictive social media design. Psychotherapist Daniel Katz writes for @spectrum.ieee.org about what future social media platforms can do to be healthier: spectrum.ieee.org/social-media...

Got your data on a U.S.-owned server? European countries worry about the geopolitical risks. Rahul Rao reports for @spectrum.ieee.org on the challenges European clouds face as they square off against Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. spectrum.ieee.org/europe-cloud...

Do inventive engineers need to be lone geniuses or orchestra conductors? Guru Madhavan reflects on Robert Goddard and what Madhavan calls "The Alpha Trap" in this piece for @spectrum.ieee.org: spectrum.ieee.org/robert-godda...

Anthropic and the US Dept. of War disagree on military AI policy. Should either of them really get to decide? @danielcastro.bsky.social writes that it's time elected reps weighed in, in this cross-post from @techpolicypress.bsky.social for @spectrum.ieee.org: spectrum.ieee.org/military-ai-...

Spain wants to ban social media for under-16s. You may be able to tell from my profile that I'm older, but how can online platforms make the same call without violating data protection laws? Waydell D. Carvalho has a guest post for @spectrum.ieee.org on the issue: spectrum.ieee.org/age-verifica...

Are China and the U.S. really in an AI race? Vanessa Bates Ramirez reports for @spectrum.ieee.org on the argument that the superpowers actually have different goals for artificial intelligence. Read on: spectrum.ieee.org/us-china-ai