Insights

Ruxandra Teslo proposes using data from failed biotech companies—such as regulatory filings, manufacturing details, and safety data—as a valuable resource to train AI systems for drug development. OpenAI’s nonprofit arm has launched Public Data for Health to fund this initiative, aiming to create high-quality scientific datasets. This approach seeks to provide AI models with the extensive biological and medical data needed to advance breakthroughs in disease treatment and improve the drug approval process.
AI models need more data about biology, and OpenAI is paying to create it
The human brain operates on about 20 watts, efficiently processing information through neurons and synapses that combine memory and computation. In contrast, traditional computers face inefficiencies due to separate memory and processing units, known as the Von Neumann bottleneck. Neuromorphic computing mimics the brain’s architecture by integrating memory and processing, using event-driven computation that activates only when needed, greatly reducing energy use. Applications include event cameras modeled on the retina for low-power, high-speed vision in autonomous vehicles and space. Neuromorphic chips enhance privacy by processing data locally, reduce reliance on cloud computing, and promise massive energy savings. While not replacing GPUs, neuromorphic hardware complements them, indicating a potential paradigm shift in computing efficiency and design.
Education, ICT
Your brain runs on 20 watts. Could brain-inspired computing do the same?
Generative AI is increasingly used by young people for emotional support, with some studies showing AI responses rated as more empathetic and comforting than human-written ones, especially due to their consistency and actionable suggestions. Experiments reveal that practical, manageable advice enhances comfort, regardless of source. However, people generally prefer human support due to relational factors, such as feeling personally understood and receiving ongoing care. While AI can offer helpful guidance, it lacks the relational depth and ongoing involvement of human support, highlighting the importance of combining AI’s strengths with human connection in emotional care.
AI can be more comforting than a person – our research shows why
Eighteen global consortia, including major battery cell manufacturers, collaborated to test the Global Battery Alliance's (GBA) Battery Passport, a certification scheme promoting sustainability across battery value chains amid geopolitical fragmentation. The trials showed that practical cooperation is possible when systems respect commercial privacy, regional regulations, and recognize diverse standards. Despite regulatory uncertainties, especially around carbon footprint reporting, companies improved data sharing and supply chain transparency. The Battery Passport framework facilitates interoperability and trust without imposing a single jurisdiction or platform, supporting credible, cross-border sustainability information essential for regulatory compliance and climate action.
Financial services, Health
What 18 first movers taught us about cooperation in a fragmented world
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is prioritizing a stronger security and economic partnership with the EU as part of a “middle powers” strategy, especially following the breakdown of trade talks with the US. Canada seeks the EU as a counterbalance to US economic dominance due to its smaller economy. Since 2025, Canada and the EU have deepened ties, including a Security and Defence Partnership and expanded defense procurement collaboration. Canada’s inclusion in various EU political and trade meetings underscores growing integration. Despite uneven political support, especially regarding US threats, deeper EU-Canada cooperation is planned in areas like critical materials, energy, Arctic security, AI, and defense. This enhanced partnership aims to resist US coercion collectively and strengthen the global rules-based order.
Africa
Canada’s Offer to Europe: More Than Just a Trading Partner
Europe invests heavily in science, technology, and infrastructure to understand, prevent, and combat wildfires. Key systems like Copernicus and the European Forest Fire Information System provide satellite data and fire risk information, complemented by weather forecasts and historical fire records. Despite abundant data, challenges arise from fragmented storage, varying data formats, access restrictions, and legal or security constraints. Integrating these datasets is critical for effective wildfire management. The FAIR principles—ensuring data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable—offer a framework to unify this data. Enhanced machine readability will enable AI tools to analyze diverse sources while respecting data governance, improving wildfire response capabilities across Europe.
Health
Unlocking Europe’s wildfire data
Artificial intelligence has surpassed human forecasters by winning the seasonal Metaculus Cup, a competition predicting various real-world events. AI entrants secured first, second, and fifth places, outperforming hundreds of human participants. These AI systems use large language models to analyze news and data quickly and broadly, allowing them to forecast accurately across diverse topics. Some AI-backed portfolios on prediction markets have achieved significant returns, with one developer turning $35 into $1.94 million in seven months. Unlike traditional forecasting, AI forecasters can also explicitly explain their reasoning, aiding decision-making.
Artificial intelligence now beats some of the best human forecasters
Technological advancements, especially AI, have transformed the global information ecosystem into a more digital, accessible, and fragmented environment. Since 2022, generative AI, notably large language models, has produced a significant portion of content, with around 50% of new articles and up to 74% of new webpages containing AI-generated material. This proliferation blurs distinctions between human- and machine-generated information, impacting business intelligence and data-driven decision-making.
ICT, Education
How AI-era disinformation targets both human and machine cognition
Digital tax administration reform in small tax administrations is an institutional transformation involving how taxpayers interact with the system and how tax officials operate. Key priorities include starting with a clear operating model to address specific problems through mapped processes; choosing a sustainable system that the administration can afford and support long-term; and maintaining strong government leadership to oversee reforms, retain control, and manage vendor relationships. Early market engagement and phased implementation focusing first on foundational functions improve outcomes. Effective data migration and governance, integration with digital public infrastructure, and dedicated technical assistance are essential to maintaining service quality and adapting to evolving needs.
ICT, Financial services, Health
Development Asia: Making Digital Tax Administration Reform Work: 5 Priorities for Small Administrations
Regional cooperation and integration (RCI) in Asia and the Pacific from 2006 to 2023 has been shown to promote job creation, especially through improved infrastructure connectivity. While its impact on income inequality is mixed, institutional cooperation within RCI frameworks helps reduce inequality across regions. These findings support policies that foster inclusive and effective regional collaboration to enhance employment opportunities and address disparities.
Africa, Latin America
Does Regional Cooperation and Integration Contribute to Inclusive Development? A Guide to Policymaking
Cloud infrastructure functions similarly to historic public networks like the U.S. Postal Service and telecommunications systems, involving physical facilities, standards, and policies to ensure broad access. The cloud stores, transmits, and authenticates data, creating user dependencies and risks of systemic outages. As with past critical communication networks, society begins to view such cloud services as public goods, expecting obligations from dominant providers. Major cloud platforms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google echo historical cycles of consolidation seen in telecom monopolies, prompting regulatory concerns. Security incidents, like the global Canvas software hack, highlight the complex interests and challenges in maintaining reliable, secure shared infrastructure.
ICT, Financial services, Health
How Public is the Public Cloud?
The widespread adoption of AI, exemplified by ChatGPT, has led to "agency decay," where individuals gradually lose their ability and willingness to think independently and critically. This process unfolds in four stages: experimenting, integrating, relying, and depending. Initially, AI aids productivity by assisting tasks like drafting and summarizing, with humans remaining in control. As AI embeds deeper into workflows, users increasingly treat it as a collaborator, often deferring judgment to AI outputs, sometimes blindly trusting its accuracy. This reliance risks eroding critical oversight, as seen in legal and customer service errors caused by unverified AI-generated information. Overreliance on AI shifts cognition from deliberate human thought to machine-driven responses, weakening human agency.
Education
Is Overreliance on AI Causing Agency Decay?
Andy Burnham aims to lead a "cost-of-living government" amid ongoing economic and geopolitical challenges that have reduced UK household incomes and increased inflation, especially in food and energy costs. Research from the Changing Realities project reveals that low-income families struggle daily to meet essential needs, with rising costs pushing many toward hardship. Families call for social security reforms, including ending delayed benefit payments and better support for children. The current Labour government's removal of the two-child benefit cap marks progress, potentially reducing child poverty for 450,000 children. Continued focus on listening to families’ lived experiences is vital for shaping effective policies against child poverty and cost-of-living pressures.
Andy Burnham wants to run a ‘cost of living government’ – here’s what he can learn from families living through the crisis
Tech leaders are calling for a slowdown in AI development due to its potential existential risks, including autonomous AI agents escaping containment and causing widespread harm. The competitive "race" dynamic, likened to the concept of Moloch, drives unchecked AI advancement as nations fear losing strategic advantage. Regulation within countries could involve controlled testing and external inspections, but this requires unprecedented transparency from AI developers. An effective solution demands international cooperation, yet reaching global agreements on AI control is highly challenging. Existing frameworks, like the UN's scientific panel, lack enforcement power, highlighting the difficulty in implementing robust global AI governance.
Tech leaders are calling for an ‘AI slowdown’ – but what would that mean in practice?
Britons and Danes take similar amounts of medications for managing chronic conditions like heart disease, with comparable rates of statin and polypharmacy use among the elderly. However, Britain dispenses significantly more prescription drugs overall, driven largely by higher use of medications for pain, anxiety, and mental distress, such as antidepressants and opioids. These drugs, linked to "diseases of despair," are prescribed disproportionately in the UK's most deprived communities, reflecting social and economic inequalities. Denmark has reduced antidepressant and opioid use, while Britain’s excess prescribing highlights societal failures in addressing underlying causes of pain and mental health issues.
The real reason Britons are more medicated than Danes
Ukraine's wartime experience highlights the critical importance of resilience in energy systems, emphasizing not only infrastructure robustness but also rapid recovery after attacks. The conflict has revealed risks of relying on large, centralized power assets and underscored the benefits of distributed energy sources like renewables, battery storage, and smart grids that offer flexibility and faster restoration. Ukraine's rapid deployment of energy projects demonstrates the value of minimizing construction and repair timelines amid security threats. The country's experience also illustrates the growing convergence of energy security and decarbonization, as low-carbon technologies enhance grid resilience by diversifying generation and enabling local self-consumption. This case urges global energy planning to prioritize resilience alongside the energy transition.
Financial services
What Ukraine’s energy system can teach the world about resilience
India’s health-tech market has ample talent, innovation, and capital, having raised nearly $10 billion over 1,160 funding rounds by 2025. Despite this, most health-tech innovations, especially AI-enabled diagnostic tools, fail to scale beyond pilot stages due to unclear regulatory environments, uncertain procurement processes, and difficulty in demonstrating commercial viability. The sector’s main challenge lies in bridging technical validation with market adoption, as product design often overlooks regulatory compliance and delivery costs. Without binding AI healthcare laws and clear governance, companies struggle to price liability and secure sustainable financing, resulting in stagnation despite growing investment and market potential.
ICT, Health
Why India’s health-tech market keeps failing to scale
Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) from the World Economic Forum anticipate steady or accelerated progress in sustainability over the next year, driven by stronger business cases and advancing, cost-effective technologies. Challenges include policy uncertainty, short-term pressures, and geopolitical volatility, causing uneven progress across sectors and regions. Sustainability is increasingly integrated into commercial, operational, and investment decisions, with AI enhancing execution but requiring resource trade-offs. Adaptation is emerging as key to resilience and capital allocation. The core challenge for CSOs is embedding sustainability in value-creating, resilient decisions amid shifting economic and geopolitical landscapes.
Chief Sustainability Officers' Outlook September 2026
Global security challenges from conflicts, technological advances, and geopolitical shifts demand new multistakeholder cooperation models. Public-private institutional partnerships are essential for maintaining global stability and reducing conflict escalation. Strategies include establishing foundational security cooperation, creating communication channels to formalize collaboration, and engaging in joint planning and standards development. These approaches enable both sectors to become dependable partners in securing global stability.
Health
The New Global Security Stakeholders: How Public-Private Cooperation Can Advance Security and Stability
Privacy-enhancing technologies protect personal data, digital identities, and communications, bolstering cybersecurity and public trust by enabling data sharing and analysis with limited exposure of sensitive information. However, these technologies can also be exploited to hide identities, secure criminal communications, and obstruct access to digital evidence, posing challenges for law enforcement. A Joint Research Centre and Europol study examines how Europe can balance improved digital security with fundamental rights, offering insights for policymakers, law enforcement, researchers, and investors on the evolving impact of these technologies on investigations.
Health, Education, ICT
How emerging privacy technologies could reshape law enforcement

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