Copyright TechTarget - All rights reserved ComputerWeekly’s best articles of the day https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Techtarget Feed Generator en Mon, 08 Jun 2026 23:02:53 GMT https://www.computerweekly.com editor@computerweekly.com <p>South Oxfordshire Council and Vale of White Horse District Council have completed a wholesale migration of digital infrastructure from a decade-long Capita contract to an <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Cloud-computing-services">in-house cloud-native</a> model hosted on Microsoft Azure.</p> <p>The two councils brought their 10-year outsourcing agreement with Capita to an end and brought IT back in-house in 2025. The transition, carried out with the help of Microsoft partner <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642876/Node4-AI-and-agentic-the-future-but-culture-the-key-to-unlock-it">Node4</a>, saw the neighbouring authorities in the south of England decouple from a multi-council shared environment to build a bespoke, cloud-first infrastructure.</p> <p>The relationship with Capita – established in 2015 and live by mid-2016 – originally covered five local authorities, including Hart, Mendip and Havant. While the model was initially promoted for its economies of scale, the authorities found the shared-tenant architecture could stifle innovation and slow down projects. Under the arrangement with Capita, any technical change required a “negotiation” phase and consensus across all participating councils, as updates were rolled out universally.</p> <p>UK councils are increasingly migrating away from single managed service providers or large shared IT infrastructures to avoid supplier lock-in, reduce costs and modernise digital services. This transition usually involves bringing IT management in-house or shifting to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643799/Data-dive-Mapping-the-UK-public-sectors-hyperscale-dependence">cloud-first hosting</a>.&nbsp;</p> <p>Recent shifts and transformations by UK local authorities include:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Derbyshire County Council migrating hundreds of applications from an ageing local datacentre to Microsoft Azure.&nbsp;</li> <li>Vale of Glamorgan Council initiating a transition to a hybrid cloud environment to improve agility and reduce ongoing reliance on external service providers.&nbsp;</li> <li>London Borough of Havering and the London Borough of Newham decoupling from a shared IT managed service to tailor systems to their own priorities.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>Simon Turner, IT and digital services manager at South Oxfordshire Council and Vale of White Horse District Council, said the contract was no longer flexible enough to meet the councils’ requirements.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Our IT needs at the start of the contract were very different to what we need today,” said Turner. “A single supplier providing IT services to five or more authorities has to have a minimum bench line. And of course, changes made within that environment would have to be agreed by the five councils to go forward.</p> <p>“Everyone has their own version of what IT might be, and different councils have different priorities about what they need to achieve. So, different councils wanted to achieve different things.”</p> <p>The councils used the two years before contract expiry in September 2025 to plan a rebuild of their digital ecosystem. Procurement was handled through the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634470/CCS-under-fire-over-anti-SME-supplier-requirements-for-G-Cloud-15">Crown Commercial Service</a> RM6100 Technology Services 3 Lot 2 framework, which allowed the authorities to bypass traditional open tenders and select Node4 based on its Microsoft specialisms. These centred on moving applications and data from virtual machines in Capita’s datacentres to Microsoft Azure.</p> <p>Another core pillar of the project was a hardware refresh that saw nearly 800 laptops upgraded to Windows 11 and connected to the new network. These devices had to be entirely stripped of existing intellectual property, wiped and reimaged to join a new internal network.</p> <p>By deploying Microsoft Intune and Autopilot, the team established a “laptop factory” and rolled out 200 refreshed devices per week. This standardised approach limited individual user downtime to approximately two hours per person over the four-week deployment window.</p> <p>The migration also involved a complex shift of identity management and server infrastructure. The councils moved away from a legacy hybrid Active Directory and System Center Configuration Manager environment to a cloud identity model using Microsoft Entra ID. This shift was accompanied by a wholesale migration of 790 users from a deskbound legacy telephony platform to a cloud-native Microsoft Teams Calling system.</p> <p>While many of the councils’ core applications were already software-as-a-service-based, 14 legacy servers remained in the provider’s datacentres. These were successfully replicated and migrated into Microsoft Azure during what was described as the most critical part of the exit strategy, as it involved mission-critical data for planning and building control services.</p> <p>One planning application, which was 30 years old and highly embedded across both authorities, required an offline period of four weeks for rigorous stress-testing and database administration (DBA) work on legacy Oracle data. Node4’s specialist data services team provided skills to ensure the application could function in a modern cloud environment.</p> <p>The project was completed ahead of the early July target, with all users migrated and the old environment switched off by the end of June. Turner said the transition was seamless, with no missing calls during the telephony cutover – an outcome he described as “quite unusual” for a migration of this scale.</p> <p>Regaining control of the IT environment has also allowed the councils to build a new internal service culture. When the service was first outsourced in 2015, the entire IT team was transferred out of the councils’ control. Bringing the service back in-house required standing up a new service desk team using the Halo platform and expanding internal cyber security resources.</p> <p>Several staff members who had worked on the Capita contract were transferred back to the councils under TUPE arrangements. Turner explains that these colleagues are now “putting their feet under the same desk” but working within a service-led model rather than a contract-led environment. This allows the IT department to reflect the specific priorities of the council rather than deliver a service dictated by a third-party agreement.</p> <p>The councils are now finalising a 30-page ethical artificial intelligence (AI) strategy to govern the future use of Microsoft Copilot and Power BI. This roadmap includes a trial of agentic AI tools within the service desk to drive further efficiencies. Turner notes that while an in-house model may not be cheaper than the previous provider’s economies of scale, the ability to not trail the market justifies the investment.</p> <p>The move also positions the councils for potential local government reorganisation in Oxfordshire. Having an in-house team and a cloud-native stack allows the authorities to adapt to structural changes without the “slowest member of the pack” limitations inherent in multi-party outsourcing contracts.</p> <p>The partnership with Node4 has been extended to include managed DBA services, providing the councils with specialist database depth that would be unaffordable as a full-time internal resource. Turner concludes that the ability to deploy technology at pace to meet business needs as they arise is now the councils’ primary strategic advantage.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about digital transformation in local government</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638454/Birmingham-Oracle-project-Data-cleansing-and-resourcing-issues">Birmingham Oracle project – data cleansing and resourcing issues</a>: Councillors at audit committee urged to ensure strong project governance, adequate tech staffing levels and change management procedures.&nbsp;</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366546574/Wirral-Council-set-to-deploy-Microsoft-Fabric-data-platform">Wirral Council set to deploy Microsoft Fabric data platform</a>: The platform, which is being developed in collaboration with Simpson Associates, will be used to aid decision-making and improve operations.&nbsp;</li> </ul> </div> </div> Two councils that were once part of a five-council group outsourced to Capita take back control of their IT to allow for decision-making and IT projects that aren’t bound by the slowest member https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/searchCompliance/regulatory_needs/compliance_article_005.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643926/Councils-exit-10-year-Capita-deal-to-boost-decision-and-project-velocity Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:57:00 GMT <p><a href="https://www.mse.nhs.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust</a> (MSE), which is responsible for sites in Chelmsford, Basildon and Southend, is to contact an unspecified number of its patients whose personal data was stolen in <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366587519/NHS-services-at-major-London-hospitals-disrupted-by-cyber-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the 2024 Qilin ransomware attack</a> on NHS lab services partner Synnovis.</p> <p>The incident caused chaos across parts of the NHS, with hospitals in South London particularly badly affected, and led to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366593892/NHS-Trusts-cancelled-over-6000-appointments-after-Qilin-cyber-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thousands of cancelled outpatient appointments and elective procedures</a>. The Qilin gang later published <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366589583/Qilin-ransomware-gang-publishes-stolen-NHS-data-online" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over 400GB of sensitive data</a> taken from the various NHS bodies to which Synnovis provides testing services.</p> <p>However, while the basic facts of the incident were quickly established, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634454/Synnovis-to-notify-NHS-of-data-breach-after-nearly-18-months" target="_blank" rel="noopener">it took nearly 18 months</a> for Synnovis to complete its full forensic investigation and to begin to inform downstream NHS organisations that their patients’ data were compromised. MSE was among those bodies informed towards the end of 2025, and it has since conducted its own investigation into the breach.</p> <p>MSE deputy chief executive Dawn Scawfield said: “Records relating to patients who had a mixture of specialist diagnostic tests were affected. Some data is not directly linked to patients, so we are still waiting for confirmation on exact numbers. Once we have established who those patients are, we will be in contact with any who have been affected.”</p> <p>At the time of writing, Computer Weekly understands that approximately 2,380 records are involved, and that while the exact time period during which the affected tests were conducted is yet to be determined, all of the exposed data relate to tests taken before 3 June 2024, the approximate date of the Synnovis attack.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Number of breaches may widen"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Number of breaches may widen</h2> <p>At this point in time, it is not publicly known how many other NHS Trusts are impacted, although it is thought likely that others will come forward.</p> <p>Last week <a href="https://www.bedfordshirehospitals.nhs.uk/news/notification-synnovis-cyber-incident/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust revealed</a> that data on just under 30,000 patients, including names, birthdates, patient and NHS numbers, postcodes and test results was stolen.</p> <p>In this instance, the data appear to be from historic testing done prior to November 2020 – however, the Trust said, the records themselves are fragmented, incomplete, and dispersed throughout multiple files, so it is hard to interpret it accurately.</p> <p>Lee Sult, chief investigator at <a href="https://www.binalyze.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Binalyze</a>, a threat intelligence platform, said the most worrying aspect of the Synnovis incident was the length time that it has taken to establish the true nature and extent of the stolen data.</p> <p>“If we’re still trying to determine the true scale two years later, it’s less an investigation than a slow-burn crisis. Every month that passes is time NHS numbers, names, dates of birth and test results sit in criminal hands – and nobody knows what’s being done with them,” he said.</p> <p>“Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of these timelines is the signal they send. Slow detection, fragmented investigations and delayed disclosures advertise weakness. State-backed threat actors and organised cyber criminal groups act based on opportunity. Slow response in a data-rich industry is a clear signal that attacks can be carried out without consequence for years.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about the Synnovis incident</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Synnovis, the pathology lab services provider hit by a Qilin ransomware attack in 2024, is notifying its NHS partners that their patient data was compromised, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634454/Synnovis-to-notify-NHS-of-data-breach-after-nearly-18-months" target="_blank" rel="noopener">following a lengthy investigation</a>.</li> <li>More cyber attacks against the health service are likely, and will succeed if something isn’t done to address the increasingly elderly NHS IT estate, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366592754/Synnovis-attack-highlights-degraded-outdated-state-of-NHS-IT" target="_blank" rel="noopener">experts are warning</a>.</li> <li>The two NHS Trusts most heavily impacted by the Qilin ransomware attack on pathology services provider Synnovis have cancelled over 6,000 appointments and procedures <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366593892/NHS-Trusts-cancelled-over-6000-appointments-after-Qilin-cyber-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the past five weeks</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust has become the latest NHS body to confirm data on its patients were stolen in a 2024 ransomware attack on lab services partner Synnovis. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/healthcare-doctor-clipboard-adobe.jpeg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644037/Scale-of-Synnovis-breach-widens-as-Essex-NHS-Trust-comes-forward Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:15:00 GMT <p>While we’ve seen a lot of hype about AI in cyber security, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641789/A-tsunami-of-flaws-When-frontier-AI-and-Patch-Tuesday-collide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anthropic’s Claude Mythos</a> has suddenly and significantly changed the rules of offensive security.<i> </i>The arrival of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos on 7 April 2026 created a paradigm shift in the economics of a cyber attack. AI has rapidly changed the cyber security landscape – and faster than most risk models assume. The window between discovery and weaponisation has collapsed, with time to exploitation dropping from 2.3 years in 2018 to 20 hours today.</p> <p>AI is making vulnerability discovery, exploit generation, and attack orchestration faster and cheaper. Tools like Mythos show that AI can identify <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/zero-day-vulnerability" target="_blank" rel="noopener">critical zero-days</a>, generate working exploits, and orchestrate attacks at a speed and scale that traditional security processes were never designed and built to cope with.</p> <p>However, some things have been exaggerated and not everything has changed overnight. The fundamentals remain essential. Mythos is a structural acceleration, not a magic new category of risk. The basics such as identity, segmentation, MFA, patch discipline, zero-trust, secrets rotation, and egress filtering have become even more important, not less.</p> <p>AI has lowered the cost and skill barrier for finding and exploiting vulnerabilities faster than organisations can patch them. While defenders must manage every exposure across code, infrastructure, identity, suppliers, and agents around the clock, the attacker only needs to find one route into the organisation. So, today at least, attackers have the advantage. It’s now time for defenders to turn the same tools inward to find and fortify any weaknesses first.</p> <p>So, how can CISOs adapt quickly enough?</p> <p>The first point of call is <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643082/Software-developers-shift-to-AI-code-reviewers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">code review and vulnerability discovery</a>. Organisations should immediately point AI agents at their most critical codebases, then move toward large language model (LLM)-driven review inside continuous integration and development (CI/CD) pipelines. Every piece of code, whether written by humans or generated by AI should go through automated security review before it is merged.</p> <p>Many organisations still treat AI as a productivity tool rather than a change in the threat model. The mistake that many are making is assuming old patch windows, old incident timelines, and old risk assumptions still hold. Organisations are also underestimating AI agents as a new attack surface. Prompts, tools, retrieval pipelines, escalation logic, and agent permissions all need controls before agents should be permitted to enter production.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about Claude Mythos</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Anthropic's Claude Mythos has generated buzz and alarm among CIOs and CISOs, who fear the model could expose vulnerabilities and drive <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Take-a-breath-A-CISOs-Claude-Mythos-advice-for-CIOs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unprecedented levels of hacking</a>.</li> <li>As AI tools such as Claude Mythos Preview can speed vulnerability discovery for attackers, CIOs are <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/ais-cybersecurity-paradox-how-CIOs-can-keep-up-with-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener">automating detection and response to keep pace</a>.</li> <li>Claude Mythos has the potential to enhance global cyber security or undermine it by becoming a weapon <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/healthtechsecurity/news/366643379/Health-ISAC-How-Claude-Mythos-could-impact-healthcare-cybersecurity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the hands of threat actors</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p>The biggest change CIOs and CISOs need to make in how they approach cyber security is to update their operating model from <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643833/AI-agents-help-Cato-slash-time-to-protect-from-new-CVEs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">human-speed security to AI-speed resilience</a>. This will involve mandating responsible AI adoption across security functions, embedding AI review into software delivery, defending agents as first-class assets, rehearsing simultaneous high-severity incidents, updating board reporting and risk models, and hardening the fundamentals without delay.</p> <p>AI is increasing the speed and volume of software development, so security must move earlier and faster. Security review can no longer be a manual gate at the end of development. It needs to be embedded into the pipeline, with AI agents reviewing code continuously and all code – whether human- or AI-generated – assessed before merge.</p> <p>At the present time, AI is making it both easier and more difficult to find and fix vulnerabilities. But the fact is that the risk is growing faster than most organisations’ ability to respond. AI makes it easier for defenders to discover their own weaknesses, but it also makes it easier for adversaries to find and weaponise them. AI must be used defensively now, preparing for a flood of patches, and building response capabilities that can operate at scale.</p> <p>Being Mythos-ready means limiting blast radius, discovering vulnerabilities before adversaries do, building scalable responses, and empowering teams with AI agents now.</p> <p><em>John Bruce is CISO at <a href="https://www.quorumcyber.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quorum Cyber</a>, an Edinburgh-based managed security services provider (MSSP).</em></p> The Computer Weekly Security Think Tank considers if Anthropic’s Claude Mythos frontier AI model is a benefit or barrier to achieving resilient enterprise IT security, and how security leaders need to adapt. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Security-Think-Tank-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Claude-Mythos-forces-the-conversation-on-defensive-AI Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:45:00 GMT <p>The UK government has announced an Early Careers Jobs Alliance aimed at helping young people to have access to technology education to give them the skills needed for modern and future roles.</p> <p>The partnership between government, the tech sector and trade unions will assess what businesses and students will need for entry-level roles in an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven future, providing businesses with best practice for offering entry roles and giving students training to ensure they can take their first step onto the career ladder.</p> <p>The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Liz Kendall, said: “My priority is building an AI future that is pro-business and pro-worker, where AI enhances work and people are supported through the jobs transition – not left to cope on their own.</p> <p>“It’s clear the world of work is changing rapidly with the adoption of new technologies, and young people want a future where they can get on, get skilled and get good jobs. I’m determined to give young people the jobs and skills they need to thrive in an era of technological change, and am taking action now to create a future that truly works for all.”</p> <p>There have been concerns that increased adoption of AI has the potential to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Will-AI-wipe-out-entry-level-jobs">reduce entry-level roles</a> as certain tasks are automated. The Early Careers Jobs Alliance will use £20m in funding to consider how AI is affecting entry-level roles and will develop help and best practice for businesses to ensure these roles are still available in an AI-driven future. Once guidance has been developed for the digital and technology sectors, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641901/AI-adoption-is-rapid-but-many-stuck-at-basic-levels-says-AWS">where AI uptake is likely to be more rapid</a>, this initiative will be extended to cover all of the industries in the UK’s eight <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-strategy/industrial-strategy-sector-definitions-list">Industrial Strategy Sectors</a>.</p> <p>The Early Careers Jobs Alliance will also help young people to develop the skills they need for the future of work. Part of the initiative includes free AI bootcamps to provide young people who may otherwise become NEETs (not in education, employment or training) after their GCSEs with a clear career path – these bootcamps will begin in pilot form in Lancashire and Greater Manchester in summer 2026, with the goal of rolling out across England in the 2027/28 academic year. Those who complete these AI bootcamps will be guaranteed a paid AI apprenticeship with JD Sports, BAE Systems, PA Consulting, Agilisys or local councils.</p> <p>As it stands, AI skills are not even widespread among tech workers, and access to AI and the ability to use it depends on many factors including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366627982/AIs-uneven-distribution-widening-diversity-divide">gender and socioeconomic background</a>. In addition, the AI divide is not the only barrier many children face when it comes to effectively accessing education, with many children&nbsp;<a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Overcoming-tech-career-barriers-faced-by-underrepresented-groups">not having access to technology at home</a>&nbsp;and families being unable to afford private tutoring.</p> <p>The Early Careers Jobs Alliance will also work in tandem <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366636142/UK-government-funds-80-digital-skills-schemes">with the government’s TechFirst</a> tech skills programme to ensure 400,000 students from disadvantaged backgrounds have the skills they need for an AI-powered future workplace. TechFirst will include tech skills sessions, competitions, after school activities and events in partnership with industry to give young people the skills they need for roles in tech and AI.</p> <p>Pat McFadden, secretary of state for work and pensions, said: “Young people deserve every opportunity to build a meaningful career, and that means making sure no one is left behind as our economy changes and technology advances.</p> <p>“For too long, too many young people have faced a future with too few opportunities, which is why through our Youth Guarantee we are ensuring every young person has the chance to earn or learn. By equipping these young people with tech and AI skills, we are making sure that the opportunities created by this technological revolution are open to everyone.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about AI and education</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>To build on plans to introduce <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641842/UK-government-seeks-collaborators-for-AI-tutoring-tools-for-schools">AI tutoring tools in schools</a>, the UK government is searching for companies to develop educational resources.</li> <li>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639693/MPs-launch-inquiry-into-use-of-tech-in-education">use of tech and artificial intelligence</a> has the potential to help delivery of education in the UK, so a committee of MPs has launched an inquiry into its opportunities and challenges.</li> </ul> </div> </div> Early Careers Jobs Alliance between the government and industry will provide skills and guidance to ensure young people can begin careers in an AI-focused world https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/recruitment-HR-jobs-interview-resume-CV-sitthiphong-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643999/Partnership-to-ensure-entry-level-jobs-for-young-people Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:12:00 GMT <p>The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) is proposing to reduce the scope of software provided through the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA), stating that advances in technology have led to features provided by assistive software now being available for free “as standard” in modern operating systems.</p> <p>Students will still be able to ask for funding for <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/How-AI-is-advancing-assistive-technology">assistive technology</a> if there is an “additional disability-related need for it that cannot be met by any other software available to the student”, but will otherwise be encouraged to use free-to-access services.</p> <p>A Department for Education spokesperson said: “As technology has moved on, much of the functionality in the tools DSA currently funds is now freely available and already widely used by university students. We want to modernise the system to reflect this, while ensuring that all students continue to receive further specialist help if they need it.”</p> <p>But there are concerns that this will leave some students without support. More than 88,000 university-level students currently use DSA to access equipment, software and other non-medical help to support them in their studies.</p> <p>Vice-chair of the British Assistive Technology Association (BATA), Nicole Michael, said: “These proposals, if implemented, would be catastrophic for disabled students in higher education. We are not talking about a software preference. We are talking about the tools that enable students with dyslexia, ADHD, autism and mental health conditions to read, write, research and participate in their degrees on equal terms with their peers.”</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Replacing individually assessed, clinically recommended specialist software with free generic tools is not a modernisation of the DSA system. It is the dismantling of it </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Nicole Michael, British Assistive Technology Association</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling people to be <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366637833/UK-government-to-develop-AI-tutoring-tools">more productive in work and education</a>, in many cases providing access to information and strategies they couldn’t use before, but there is <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366627982/AIs-uneven-distribution-widening-diversity-divide">already a gap when it comes to who can readily access</a> and effectively use these services.</p> <p>Assistive technologies offered to students with disabilities through DSA can range from speech-to-text and mind mapping software&nbsp;to research and task management services.</p> <p>The DfE stated in its proposal that higher education providers are increasingly providing students with technology to support their learning, and future policy for issuing DSA will assume students already have access to assistive technologies, apart from in specific circumstances where a student’s disability requires additional software that cannot be found for free.</p> <p>But a Freedom of Information request by Whitehouse Communications asking for documents relating to comparisons between free and paid assistive software and cost-benefit analysis revealed the DfE has not tested whether or not freely available software is comparable with software currently offered through the DSA.</p> <p>The BATA opposed the DfE’s proposals on this basis, stating in a review of the cuts that they are “presented as an efficiency measure” but are in fact a “withdrawal of statutory disability adjustments”.</p> <p>The not-for-profit’s report stated: “Productivity tools enhance the output of general users; specialist assistive technology functionally replaces or scaffolds capacities that a student’s disability impairs. The two are different categories of product addressing different populations, and they cannot be substituted for one another.”</p> <p>BATA’s Michael explained: “Replacing individually assessed, clinically recommended specialist software with free generic tools is not a modernisation of the DSA system. It is the dismantling of it.</p> <p>“The research evidence is overwhelming and consistent: specialist assistive technology improves outcomes, builds independence and supports disabled students into employment. These proposals move in the opposite direction.”</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Where a student requires support that can’t be met through widely available free tools, they will continue to receive funded software through DSA – no one will be left without the support they need to study with confidence </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Department for Education spokesperson</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>But a Department for Education spokesperson emphasised that those who cannot use freely available technology will still be given access to paid-for software if necessary for their learning.</p> <p>“Opportunity should be open to every young person in our country, especially disabled students, and the right support must be there to help them reach their potential,” the spokesperson said.</p> <p>“Where a student requires support that can’t be met through widely available free tools, they will continue to receive funded software through DSA – no one will be left without the support they need to study with confidence,” they added.</p> <p>The DfE’s own research found that almost 60% of students who receive DSA said they would not pass without it. Students who have used DSA in the past credit their success at university to the funding, stating that without it, they would either have not been able to fully engage with learning or would have left university altogether.</p> <p>Holly Winter, a DSA recipient, said: “I am not joking when I say that without the resources of the Disabled Students’ Allowance, I would have dropped out of university.”</p> <p>Another DSA recipient, Toby Ferguson, who achieved a degree in interior design, explained: “Through the mentoring support and specialist equipment I received, I was able to achieve a First Class Honours degree. Without this support, my academic performance, well-being and ability to fully engage with university life would have been significantly impacted.”</p> <p>The DfE is seeking consultation on its proposal, and those with concerns and comments have <a href="https://www.bataonline.org/dsa-consultation-bata-resources">until 18 June 2026 to share them</a>.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about tech in education</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Artificial intelligence is increasingly changing the workplace, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634993/AI-leads-parents-to-change-their-careers-advice-to-children">leaving children and their parents concerned</a> about the potential future of work.</li> <li>The use of tech and artificial intelligence has the potential to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639693/MPs-launch-inquiry-into-use-of-tech-in-education">help delivery of education in the UK</a>, so a committee of MPs has launched an inquiry into its opportunities and challenges.</li> </ul> </div> </div> The UK Department for Education is proposing to reduce access to paid-for assistive technology in favour of free-to-access services https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/online-learning-training-school-1-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643997/DfE-proposes-changes-to-student-funding-for-assistive-technology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:59:00 GMT <p>When ransomware hits a Gulf enterprise, the first question from leadership is usually the same: Are our backups intact? For a growing number of organisations across the region, the answer is yes – but it is not enough.</p> <p>Research by DataNumen found that 69% of ransomware victims believed they were adequately prepared before an attack. After the incident, however, that confidence dropped by more than 20 percentage points. The gap is not a technology failure; it is a planning failure – and one that Gulf enterprises are increasingly confronting.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366635520/Black-Hat-MEA-Saudi-Vision-2030-fuels-surge-in-cyber-security-innovation">regional exposure</a> makes the stakes concrete. According to Microsoft’s <em>Digital defence report</em>, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked ninth globally and second in the Middle East and Africa in terms of the frequency with which customers were affected by cyber activity in the first half of 2025. Saudi Arabia ranked fifth in the region.&nbsp;</p> <p>Cyber security firm Cyble recorded more than 90 unique entries on dark web data leak sites linked to Gulf-based organisations in the same period, spanning oil and gas, aviation and healthcare. Sophos data shows that UAE organisations pay 92% of ransom demands – above the global average of 85%.</p> <p>That payment rate points to a deeper problem. Eliad Kimhy, senior security researcher at Acronis, says enterprises often invest seriously in backup infrastructure without ever testing a full recovery under realistic conditions.</p> <p>“What they haven’t done is simulate the actual recovery scenario, restoring production systems from backup while the environment is partially compromised, under time pressure,” he said.</p> <p>Backup jobs that reported success turn out to have excluded critical system states. Recovery procedures that looked straightforward on paper turn out to require dependencies nobody documented.</p> <p>The architecture problem runs deeper than testing discipline. Modern ransomware operators target backup repositories directly. Organisations that have not isolated their backups, verified restoration integrity and confirmed that backup systems sit outside the blast radius of a compromised domain discover this at the worst moment.</p> <p>Only 10% of ransomware victims recovered more than 90% of their data, according to Veeam’s <em>Ransomware trends report</em>, a figure that holds even among organisations with formal backup programmes.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> The biggest misconception is that many organisations still believe that having backups automatically means they are recoverable within an acceptable timeframe </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Fred Lherault, Everpure</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Fred Lherault, field chief technology officer for EMEA and emerging markets at Everpure, believes the core assumption needs to be revisited. “The biggest misconception is that many organisations still believe that having backups automatically means they are recoverable within an acceptable timeframe,” he said.</p> <p>The shift Lherault describes is architectural: traditional backup infrastructure was built for isolated outages and operational errors, not enterprise-wide cyber disruption. More resilient environments are moving towards immutable snapshots on primary storage and isolated recovery environments where clean data can be validated independently from a compromised network.</p> <p>Regulatory direction in the region is reinforcing that shift. Saudi Arabia’s Essential Cybersecurity Controls explicitly require organisations to demonstrate the ability to rapidly recover data and systems following a cyber incident and mandate periodic testing of backup recovery effectiveness, thereby moving recoverability from an internal IT assumption to a documented compliance obligation.</p> <p>The UAE Cabinet’s approval of a National Cybersecurity Strategy in February 2025 placed further emphasis on <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640834/UAE-positions-cyber-security-as-pillar-of-national-resilience-and-digital-growth">resilience as a national priority</a>, signalling that recovery capability will face increasing scrutiny at both the enterprise and government levels.</p> <p>The question Gulf IT leaders need to answer is no longer whether their data is backed up. It is how long it takes to restore a critical system under real conditions, and whether anyone has tested that assumption before an incident forces the answer.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about cyber security in the UAE</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643123/How-geopolitical-instability-could-reshape-Gulf-datacentre-investments-and-sovereign-AI-strategies">How geopolitical instability could reshape Gulf datacentre investments and sovereign AI strategies</a>: Rising tensions are forcing hyperscalers, governments and investors to reassess risk, resilience and infrastructure strategies as the Gulf positions itself as a global AI powerhouse.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642990/UAE-Cyber-Security-Council-and-Dell-launch-cyber-security-centre-to-strengthen-digital-resilience">UAE Cyber Security Council and Dell launch cyber security centre to strengthen digital resilience</a>: Abu Dhabi initiative supports the UAE’s sovereign cyber strategy with AI-driven security, advanced skills development and accelerated local innovation.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640834/UAE-positions-cyber-security-as-pillar-of-national-resilience-and-digital-growth">UAE positions cyber security as pillar of national resilience and digital growth</a>: Strategic investment and coordination reinforce the country’s ability to withstand complex cyber threats.</li> </ul> </div> </div> Ransomware pressure and stricter resilience expectations are exposing a gap that Gulf enterprises have not fully confronted https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/LeMagIT/hero_article/Ransomware_hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644014/Gulf-enterprises-face-the-resilience-gap-ransomware-is-exposing Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:42:00 GMT <p>The big theme of the keynote programme at this year’s Infosecurity Europe focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) is turbo-charging the activities of cyber attackers, whether criminals or states hostile to the West.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366632649/China-responsible-for-rising-cyber-attacks-says-NCSC">Paul Chichester</a>, director of operations at the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642625/UKs-NCSC-warns-of-wave-of-patches">National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)</a>, told attendees that he had moved from a more to a less sceptical position on the salience of artificial intelligence for cyber security over the past year.</p> <p>We are now at a point of “maximum uncertainty” that might also be the calm before a coming cyber storm, he said, in part because of the sheer “number of variables” now at play. He agreed with the description of the present made by Blaise Metreweli, the head of MI6, that the UK is currently positioned “between peace and war”.</p> <p>“The combined uncertainty in so many parts of our lives – personal, work, the environment – is something different,” said Chichester. “The world is more dangerous and contested now than in decades, and te greater acceleration of connectedness is increasing. So, when you try to think about what’s next and predict where things are going, it’s hard.”</p> <p>The rapidity of technology evolution is novel, he said, adding that while his tendency is to be sceptical, “it feels that the technological rate of change…is going to [mean] societal and civilisational change. A lot of what we’re trying to understand is far beyond our adversaries stealing our secrets. States have integrated cyber operations into everything they do.</p> <p>“We see that integration in the military domain, playing out in Ukraine, Syria, the Middle East. The way that we now see our adversaries integrating to support military outcomes is changing at a vast pace. And we’ve seen Russia, particularly, learning a huge amount.”</p> <p>Nevertheless, he declared himself “a massive optimist about a lot of the challenges that we face…there are a lot of opportunities”.</p> <p>In terms of responding to cyber threats, Chichester drew attention to “more aggressive countering” by the state, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641790/UK-to-build-national-cyber-shield-to-protect-against-AI-cyber-threats">advocated by security minister Dan Jarvis</a>, as well as building in more resilience, as exemplified by the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/UKs-Cyber-Bill-should-be-just-one-part-of-a-wider-effort">Cyber Security Resilience Bill</a>.</p> <p>“The government absolutely recognises that it needs to do more in that space [working with regulators],” said Chichester.</p> <p>But it is a “collective endeavour”, he added. “I know you’ve heard the NCSC talk before about partnership, and ‘now is the time to act, you must act’. I mean it this time. Now, more than ever, is the time to act. We must work together to get ahead of threats that we face and vulnerabilities that we talk about. Even if the things you ultimately do aren’t 100%, you’re getting match fit. Don’t wait for certainty, because it’s never coming.”</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Adversaries accelerating"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Adversaries accelerating</h2> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623776/UK-government-websites-to-replace-passwords-with-secure-passkeys">Stuart McKenzie</a>, managing director of Mandiant Consulting EMEA, part of Google Cloud, gave attendees his “big, fat security update of the year”, which echoed Chichester’s presentation in terms of its stress on the increased speed scale of the adversarial activities with which network defenders are confronted. His session covered lessons learned from Mandiant’s work on the front lines of incident response.</p> <p>Attackers have gotten faster and become more persistent over the past year, said McKenzie. Cyber criminals are also working more in unison and are merely 18 months behind nation-state actors in capability, whereas previously they were more like years behind. “We see attackers now handing off attacks to other groups, actively collaborating,” he added.</p> <p>While some actors are incredibly quick, there were others who preferred to maintain a very long dwell time in their target networks. “Attackers are increasingly trying to get in and deny you access to your recovery environment,” said McKenzie. “They’re actively taking down your ability to recover, which makes it difficult to get your organisation back up. We need to think about how to move from the reactive state that we’re in today, where we’re responding to every incident, to a much more proactive state.”</p> <p>AI is making a big difference, he said, both in his talk and in an interview with Computer Weekly afterwards; “Attackers are very much like us. They use AI in the same way we do and have done. At the start of early 2025, they were, ‘Cool, this is a good chatbot’. And then in mid-2025, as we all began to see how you can use <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/large-language-model-LLM">LLMs</a> [large language models] directly, they started integrating the LLMs into their attack chains to handle dynamic tasks.</p> <p>“There was a step change around about October last year where we all thought, ‘This could be the future’, and went from being AI sceptical to embracing it. At the same time, we saw the attackers integrate [AI] directly into their environments. Then at the start of 2026, we saw attackers collaborate to find a zero day in a content management platform. Luckily, through some Google intel, we were able to see what they were going after, and we worked with the vendor to patch it before it could be actively exploited.”</p> <p>McKenzie expanded on how the way a defender sees their network is completely different to how an attacker sees it: “When a security person draws their network, they draw a beautiful network architecture of how they think it’s all being segregated. They have these lovely diagrams of where all the workstations are, what the servers are and what the connections look like.</p> <p>“But the attacker finds all the misconfigurations and systems that aren’t supposed to be connected, they’re supposed to have logical gaps between them. They see this view of network that is a real-world view. That is why we always suggest that defenders use adversarial emulation or red teaming to be able to work out: how does that network exist, does it really have all the logical separation you think it has, are there bits that have changed over time?</p> <p>“Their network will have grown organically over time and they’re still looking at the network diagram from when it was designed. They’ve forgotten that something’s been layered on top and changed and connected or someone’s made a policy change, and so on.”</p> <p>Security fundamentals have not changed, he said, but AI has sped up attacks and so sped up required defence.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Cyber criminal ecosystem evolves"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Cyber criminal ecosystem evolves</h2> <p>On the second day of the event, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366625059/Infosecurity-2025-NCA-cyber-intelligence-head-spells-out-trends">William Lyne</a>, head of economic and cyber crime at the Metropolitan Police Service, offered a picture of how cyber criminality has been changing as its ecosystem has evolved.</p> <p>There is now less stove piping of criminality, and cyber criminals are getting involved in a fuller gamut of activity, he said. Lyne said that when he joined the UK National Crime Agency as a trainee investigator 15 years ago, “you had cyber crime, hacktivists and hostile state actors, and everything sat quite nicely in those particular stove pipes. But this has changed quite a lot recently.</p> <p>“People aren’t just involved in cyber crime, or another type of online offending, they’re involved in many&nbsp;different types of offending, which is something that we never used to see previously,” he added.</p> <p>Lyne said there is now an evolved cyber adversarial ecosystem, with a commoditisation of cyber crime over the past few years that – among other things – means you can rent malware as a service, just as a business will use software as a service for its customer relationship management. “You can get a service for basically anything in the cyber crime ecosystem now,” he added.</p> <p>Another step change is that the rise of <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/cryptocurrency">cryptocurrencies</a> has made cyber crime much more profitable. Cashing out used to be “massive pain in the backside” for cyber criminals, said Lyne. “How do you convert the data you have stolen into money? How do you launder the money you’ve stolen from credit card fraud and other types of identity theft? Cyber criminals were losing between 50% to 75% of their ill-gotten gains due to those kinds of complexity. Cryptocurrencies have changed all of that; now 99.5% is realisable.</p> <p>“Virtual currencies are also massively helpful because, if you want to commoditise, if you want to run as a service entity, you’ve got to trade with each other. Criminals trading with each other is inherently quite dodgy.” Virtual currencies have been tremendous for ensuring trust among those dedicated to criminality.</p> <p>Nevertheless, UK law enforcement has had big successes in recent years, said Lyne. Like Chichester, he appealed for collaboration between the security services and civilian business organisations: “Collaboration is critical for every one of our investigations – with multiple organisations, across the UK and local and international partners.</p> <p>“We want to have meaningful, strategic and tactical integration with industry partners who we know hold keys to the questions and challenges that we have in this space. It’s important for us to build and generate trust. And it can be a challenge, but I’m grateful for those partners.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about Infosecurity Europe 2026</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Infosecurity Europe <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638558/Infosecurity-Europe-launches-cyber-security-startups-stream">launches cyber security startups stream</a>.</li> <li>Infosec 2026: <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/microscope/news/366641752/InfoSec-The-Channel-Zone-returns">The Channel Zone returns</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642956/Security-chiefs-too-polite-for-startups-says-cyber-flywheel-founder-Alastair-Paterson">Security chiefs ‘too polite’ for startups</a>, says cyber flywheel founder Alastair Paterson.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> AI is accelerating cyber attacks by criminals and hostile states, with attackers faster, more persistent and increasingly collaborative, say experts speaking at Infosecurity Europe 2026 https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/Infosecurity-Europe-2026-PR-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643943/Infosecurity-Europe-2026-AI-turbo-charging-cyber-crime-and-response Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:19:00 GMT <p>Anyone making predictions about IT and networking will inevitably come up against a major problem – the pace of development is so quick that it is difficult to make accurate estimations. There is also a prediction that seems axiomatic, in that network management will rely increasingly – if not exclusively at some point – on artificial intelligence (AI).&nbsp;</p> <p>AI is being deployed to observe and gain insight from a host of networking operations, including, but not limited to, configuration data, messages from devices and monitoring data. Companies can rely on the fact that AI “knows” how networks should be operating and will send alerts when they do not operate as expected, as well as explaining why and suggesting ways to resolve these issues.&nbsp;</p> <p>Inevitably, it seems that any conversation about the power of AI in networking must start with Nvidia and its CEO <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640515/Nvidia-workforce-to-be-dominated-by-AI-agents-in-a-decade">Jensen Huang</a>. When it comes to predictions, the AI company’s founder has been consistently on the money – almost literally – for a long while. &nbsp;</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-skys-the-limit-with-the-two-sides-of-AI-and-networking" rel="noopener">At a tech conference in 2024</a>, Huang said the era of generative AI (GenAI) had already arrived, and that enterprises must engage with “the single most consequential technology in history”, noting that what was happening was the greatest fundamental computing platform transformation in 60 years, encompassing general-purpose computing to accelerated computing. &nbsp;</p> <p>For Huang, the key to success is making use of the vast amounts of data that enterprises generate through the deployment of AI tools and services. This means a radical shift in what IT organisations within businesses do. &nbsp;</p> <p>“We’re sitting on a mountain of data – all of us. We’ve been collecting it in our businesses for a long time. But until now, we haven’t had the ability to refine that, then discover insight and codify it automatically into our company’s natural experience, our digital intelligence. Every company is going to be an intelligence manufacturer. Every company is built on domain-specific intelligence. For the very first time, we can now digitise that intelligence and turn it into our AI – the corporate AI,” he observed.&nbsp;</p> <p>“AI is a lifecycle that lives forever. What we are looking to do is turn our corporate intelligence into digital intelligence. Once we do that, we connect our data and our AI flywheel so that we collect more data, harvest more insight and create better intelligence. This allows us to provide better services or to be more productive, run faster, be more efficient and do things at a larger scale.”&nbsp;</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Making strides towards autonomous networks"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Making strides towards autonomous networks</h2> <p>Today, network management and network operations are indeed being done at a faster rate. In February 2026, Nvidia’s fourth annual <i><a target="_blank" href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/lp/industries/telecommunications/state-of-ai-in-telecom-survey-report/" rel="noopener">State of AI in telecommunications</a> </i>survey concluded that AI has already accelerated how AI is driving enterprise transformation, unlocking new business and revenue opportunities.&nbsp;</p> <p>Respondents encompassed a range of industry segments, including internet service providers, independent software suppliers, network equipment providers, consulting service providers, operators and systems integrators. The study showed AI has a tangible revenue impact and return on investment (ROI). The top AI use cases cited by respondents were AI for autonomous networks (50%), improved customer service (41%) and internal process optimisation (33%).&nbsp;</p> <p>Overall, around nine out of 10 respondents said AI was helping to increase revenue and reduce costs. Operators, representing about a quarter of the 1,000 responses in the survey, were also seeing the benefit, with 90% saying AI has had a positive impact on revenue and costs. Some 60% said their organisation was using or assessing GenAI, up from 49% in 2024, while 89% said open source models and software were important to their AI strategy.&nbsp;</p> <p>The impact on revenue and ROI was found to be leading telecommunications companies to increase their AI budgets in 2026. Overall, 89% of respondents said their AI budget would increase in the next 12 months, up from 65% in the 2024 survey, with 35% saying their budgets would increase by more than 10% compared with 2025.&nbsp;</p> <p>According to Nvidia, these findings signal a bold step towards autonomous networks – AI-driven, self-managing systems that can self-configure, self-heal and self-optimise with minimal human intervention. In addition, 88% of organisations reported being between levels 1-3 of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tmforum.org/resources/introductory-guide/ig1218f-autonomous-networks-framework-v1-0-0/" rel="noopener">autonomy, as defined by the TM Forum</a>, and the use of GenAI and agentic AI was expected to accelerate the shift to level 5 autonomous networks.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="A new era of agentic network management"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>A new era of agentic network management</h2> <p>According to <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/tip/Agentic-AI-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-network-management">John Burke,</a> chief technology officer and research analyst at <a target="_blank" href="https://nemertes.com/" rel="noopener">Nemertes Research</a>, this era of network management is being ushered in – and redefined – by agentic AI. “AI agents are designed to exhibit goal-directed behaviour. In the context of the network, AI agents work to keep the network functioning at expected levels and maintain network configuration according to company security policies,” he says.</p> <p>“In addition, agentic AI can show some level of environmental awareness, such as knowing not to restart a switch as part of routine maintenance during business hours. Like their non-agentic counterparts, agentic AI systems can create multistep plans and adapt plans to changing circumstances. But AI agents can execute those plans as well as more broadly pursue policy and&nbsp;behavioural&nbsp;objectives&nbsp;with minimal human intervention.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Burke says agentic AI constantly cycles through the four stages of what is known as an OODA – observe, orient, decide and act – loop and learns as it goes.&nbsp;In operation, this means: observe, as in identifying what happens in the network; orient, by analysing and understanding the data based on its past learning; decide, by determining which actions it should take in response based on the data; and act, as in executing the agent’s decisions.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Improved time to value"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Improved time to value&nbsp;</h2> <p>This results in a faster ROI, as Chetan Sharma, CEO of Chetan Sharma Consulting, explains: “Autonomous networks are delivering return&nbsp;on investment faster than any other AI use case because they directly reduce outages, energy consumption and manual intervention. Agentic AI accelerates this by coordinating decisions across domains in real time.</p> <p>“Generative AI delivered fast productivity gains, but agentic AI is where telecoms begins to see structural ROI. Autonomous agents can act across networks, IT and customer journeys, turning insights into decisions without human delay.”&nbsp;</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Generative AI delivered fast productivity gains, but agentic AI is where telecoms begins to see structural ROI. Autonomous agents can act across networks, IT and customer journeys, turning insights into decisions without human delay </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Chetan Sharma, Chetan Sharma Consulting</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>From an operational perspective, this will likely result in the transition of IT departments from the traditional practice of reactive troubleshooting to proactive management. This concept is being deployed by Tata Communications, which launched the IZO DC Dynamic Connectivity self-healing network platform in March 2025. The platform is designed to eliminate costly datacentre downtime and support the growing demands of AI. In this, enterprises operate across global locations and cloud environments, moving huge volumes of data in real time to support AI workloads and business needs.&nbsp;</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640695/Tata-Communications-unveils-self-healing-network" rel="noopener">Explaining the rationale for the launch</a>, the digital ecosystem provider said that in the current digital economy, disruptions from cable cuts, route failures or sudden AI workload spikes can bring business to a standstill.&nbsp;</p> <p>The company also warned that the networks connecting many enterprise datacentres were built for a different era – traditional datacentre links were designed for predictable workloads and stable traffic patterns, while the current reality is far more dynamic. Increasing geopolitical constraints, cable outages, route failures or sudden spikes in demand could cascade into service disruption and operational risk, leading to costly downtime. In such scenarios, the traditional response has often been reactive and manual, consuming valuable time when businesses need certainty and speed.&nbsp;</p> <p>In contrast, the new platform deploys deterministic multipath routing to deliver predictable latency and performance. This promises to transform resilience from a reactive process into an autonomous capability, changing how enterprises connect their datacentres in an increasingly AI-driven and distributed world.&nbsp;</p> <p>The new Tata Communications platform is smart enough to re-route traffic automatically within seconds without manual intervention during disruptions and is able to maintain very high levels of service availability across mission-critical infrastructure that supports business-critical applications. Through a unified digital interface and application programming interfaces (APIs), enterprises can monitor performance, receive proactive alerts and dynamically scale bandwidth as workloads evolve. The result is that resilience becomes an autonomous capability and a default state, not a contingency.&nbsp;</p> <p>In a similar vein, in mid-2025, Nokia announced the launch of its <a href="https://www.nokia.com/autonomous-networks/fabric/">Autonomous Networks Fabric</a>, designed to accelerate full network automation in an open, cloud-native, multi-supplier environment, including trained models, integrated security and AI apps for automation workflows. The fabric was designed to enable automation at scale and address issues encountered in this endeavour – the comms tech provider said it had seen a steady increase in the number of companies moving towards implementing fully autonomous networks, yet it also found that many have been held back by legacy systems, siloed processes and fragmented data.&nbsp;</p> <p>The&nbsp;Autonomous Networks Fabric looks to reduce the complexity of automation while allowing network providers to improve reliability and make operational cost savings by quickly testing new ideas and integrating those that deliver desired benefits.  It combines <a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366569032/Cisco-unveils-innovations-for-observability-as-it-looks-to-future-networking-vision" rel="noopener">observability</a>, analytics,&nbsp;security&nbsp;and automation across every network domain,&nbsp;allowing a network to behave as one adaptive system, regardless of supplier,&nbsp;architecture&nbsp;or deployment model.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>In addition, the fabric federates the use and distribution of data and AI across an organisation, monitoring the chain of custody from end to end and ensuring quality and consistency in automation. Trained large language models (LLMs) support all automation through a knowledge engine designed to give reasoning for how data is interpreted, how issues are analysed and why certain actions are recommended.&nbsp;</p> <p>The fabric is also constructed to work with Google Cloud’s GenAI, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/news/366596173/Google-launches-Distributed-Cloud-Edge-hardware" rel="noopener">Vertex AI</a> and BigQuery, to deliver agent-driven workflows for network operations. Capabilities on offer include real-time monitoring and visibility into network traffic patterns, anomaly detection, zero-touch remediation of performance issues, and support for elastic scale-out and disaster recovery to the cloud.&nbsp;</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Adopting AI for network management"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Adopting AI for network management</h2> <p>Between the likes of Nvidia, Tata Communications and Nokia, a whole host of AI-driven autonomous network management solutions are currently available. Yet there are a few fundamental assumptions at play in looking at how firms can best take advantage of AI for autonomous network management – one of which is the intrinsic robustness of company infrastructures.&nbsp;</p> <p>April 2026 research by Cisco found that while as many as two-thirds of industrial organisations have moved to active AI deployments in live operational environments, infrastructure and organisational alignment – especially networking and security – will dictate how businesses achieve real transformation.&nbsp;</p> <p>The resulting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/networking/industrial-iot/2026-state-of-industrial-ai-report.pdf" rel="noopener"><i>State of industrial AI report 2026</i></a> looks to provide a data‑driven view into how industrial organisations are adopting AI, the challenges they face as AI moves into live operations and the opportunities created as AI becomes embedded in physical systems, infrastructure and workflows. &nbsp;</p> <p>One of the top findings is that AI organisations are harnessing AI to drive progress and overcome industry challenges, and that it is now delivering measurable operational benefits, in particular in use cases such as process automation, automated quality inspection, predictive maintenance, logistics and energy forecasting. Strong expected benefits from AI include productivity (59%), cost reduction (42%) and sustainability.&nbsp;</p> <p>Yet just as adoption is accelerating, many firms in the survey conceded that they are struggling to sustain and expand deployments, with readiness across network infrastructure, security and skills increasingly determining whether AI can scale consistently across core physical environments. &nbsp;</p> <p>Network readiness and security posture were cited as the primary factors shaping how quickly and safely organisations scale AI across connected assets, machines and sites. The report observes that as AI becomes embedded in machines, sensors, vision systems and autonomous operations, organisations face rising demands for reliable connectivity, wireless mobility, predictable latency, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640723/Akamai-launches-AI-Grid-intelligent-orchestration" rel="noopener">edge</a> compute and power. This is making network readiness a gating factor for AI deployments.&nbsp;</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Seeking network efficiency, security and scalability"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Seeking network efficiency, security and scalability</h2> <p>Such concerns are also voiced by Gordon Thomson, president of EMEA at Cisco, who believes that in a world defined by AI, companies run the risk of being left behind if they are not leading with AI in their operations. He says that with AI, the tech industry has reached a key point as regards to infrastructure, compute, networks, security and monitoring. However, according to Thomson, the IT infrastructure organisations have relied on to date was not built for the scale and the velocity of future workloads. &nbsp;</p> <p>“The solution isn’t about stacking tiny new products on top of each other – that just creates complexity and will slow you down. [Success] requires a platform that uses data to be more efficient, more secure and more scalable,” he says.&nbsp;</p> <p>The bottom line is that there is simply a seismic shift underway in how networks are being managed, and the key to all of this is AI – and increasingly agentic AI. As networks become more autonomous, they will require different forms of AI – from classical algorithms to language-based systems and intelligent agents – to each contribute distinct capabilities.&nbsp;</p> <p>Networking has now evolved far beyond moving data to moving gatherable intelligence across local and regulated infrastructure. Moreover, autonomous networks can deliver immediate ROI by eliminating human effort from repetitive, reactive workflows, with the fastest impact areas being energy management, fault prediction, configuration drift correction and capacity planning. And this will likely be the future – a future that will be autonomous and observed.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about AI in network management</h3> <ul type="disc" class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/tip/AI-driven-network-management-tasks">10 AI-driven network management tasks</a>: AI can automate key network operations tasks, such as anomaly detection, event correlation and ticketing. This shifts network engineers toward governance and system design.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/tip/AI-driven-self-healing-networks-bring-new-capabilities">AI-driven self-healing networks bring new capabilities</a>: Self-healing networks use AI to continuously monitor, diagnose and fix issues autonomously, shifting IT from reactive troubleshooting to proactive management.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Network management is becoming reliant on artificial intelligence-enabled tools, which use machine learning based on network monitoring data https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ezines/carousel/ezine_networking_05.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/How-AI-is-being-used-to-manage-networks Mon, 08 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT <p>The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is taking another significant step in its cyber security strategy with the launch of a national Crypto Discovery Tool (CDT), designed to help organisations identify, manage and ultimately replace cryptographic systems that could become vulnerable in the era of quantum computing.</p> <p>Developed through a partnership between the UAE Cyber Security Council and Abu Dhabi-based cyber security firm QuantumGate, the platform forms part of the country’s National Post-Quantum Migration Programme and has been customised to requirements established by the UAE National Cryptography Centre.</p> <p>The initiative reflects a growing global recognition that quantum computing, while still emerging, could eventually undermine many of the cryptographic algorithms that currently protect sensitive data, digital identities and critical infrastructure. Governments and enterprises worldwide are therefore beginning to assess their cryptographic exposure and plan migration paths towards quantum-resistant encryption standards.</p> <p>According to the UAE Cyber Security Council, the CDT will provide organisations with comprehensive visibility into cryptographic assets across complex IT environments, automatically identifying embedded cryptography, cataloguing dependencies and supporting ongoing risk management efforts.</p> <p>“​​Our partnership with QuantumGate on the national Crypto Discovery Tool marks a critical step forward in strengthening the UAE’s national cyber security posture in the face of emerging quantum threats,” said Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of cyber security for the UAE government. “As we advance our National Post-Quantum Migration Programme, having sovereign capability to discover, assess and manage cryptographic assets across sectors is essential.”</p> <p>One of the biggest challenges facing organisations preparing for post-quantum cryptography is the lack of visibility into where encryption technologies are deployed. Many enterprises operate thousands of applications, devices and systems that rely on cryptographic algorithms, often without a complete inventory of where those technologies are embedded.</p> <p>The CDT aims to address that challenge by automating cryptographic discovery and inventory management at scale. The platform will also provide continuous monitoring capabilities, enabling organisations to maintain visibility of cryptographic assets over time, support compliance requirements and adapt to future regulatory directives issued by the Cyber Security Council.</p> <p>“Organisations cannot defend against risks they cannot account for,” Najwa Aaraj, chief executive officer of QuantumGate, said. “With the Crypto Discovery Tool, we have built a solution that brings that risk into full visibility, enabling organisations to act decisively and migrate with confidence.”</p> <p>The launch further demonstrates the UAE’s ambition to position itself among the world’s leading nations in cyber security preparedness and digital resilience. Unlike many countries that remain in the assessment phase of post-quantum planning, the UAE is pursuing a coordinated national programme that combines governance, operational tooling and sector-wide implementation.</p> <p>The tool’s outputs will also be integrated into the UAE’s National Cybersecurity Index platform, creating what officials describe as a national Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Index. By consolidating cryptographic posture information across public- and private-sector entities, the Cyber Security Council will gain a centralised view of the country’s readiness for quantum-safe security.</p> <p>The announcement follows a series of initiatives designed to strengthen the UAE’s sovereign cyber capabilities. Earlier this year, the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642990/UAE-Cyber-Security-Council-and-Dell-launch-cyber-security-centre-to-strengthen-digital-resilience" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UAE Cyber Security Council and Dell Technologies</a> launched a Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence in Abu Dhabi to enhance national cyber resilience through AI-driven security operations, skills development and local innovation.</p> <p>Together, the initiatives illustrate a broader strategy that combines advanced threat detection, continuous monitoring and national coordination. As cyber threats become increasingly sophisticated and concerns over future quantum-enabled attacks grow, UAE authorities are seeking to ensure that critical infrastructure operators, government entities and private-sector organisations are equipped to transition securely towards the next generation of cryptographic protection.</p> <p>While large-scale quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption standards are not yet commercially available, security experts increasingly warn that organisations should begin preparing now. The challenge is particularly urgent for sectors handling long-lived sensitive data, where information intercepted today could potentially be decrypted years later using future quantum capabilities.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about cyber security</h3> <ul style="list-style-type: square;" class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639768/CISOs-on-alert-Strengthening-cyber-resilience-amid-geopolitical-tensions-in-the-Middle-East">CISOs on alert – strengthening cyber resilience amid geopolitical tensions in the Middle East</a>: As regional uncertainty rises, security leaders across the Gulf focus on resilience, faster incident response and deeper threat intelligence to protect critical systems and data.</li> <li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.techtarget.com/healthtechsecurity/news/366640347/CISA-urges-companies-to-bolster-Microsoft-Intune-systems-after-Stryker-cyberattack" target="_blank">CISA urges companies to bolster Microsoft Intune systems after Stryker cyber attack</a>: CISA is urging US organisations to strengthen the security of their endpoint management systems after cyber threat actors infiltrated Stryker’s Microsoft environment.</li> </ul> </div> </div> Partnership between the UAE Cyber Security Council and QuantumGate aims to provide nationwide visibility of cryptographic assets, helping critical infrastructure operators to prepare for the emerging risks posed by quantum computing https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/IT-security-padlocks-red-1-denisismagilov_adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643900/UAE-launches-national-cryptography-discovery-platform-to-accelerate-post-quantum-security-transition Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:33:00 GMT <p>A survey conducted by analyst Gartner of 350 respondents in organisations that are more advanced in their use of AI agents and intelligent automation, reported that <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Cliff-Sarans-Enterprise-blog/Return-of-the-Luddites">80% had seen some degree of job cuts</a> following their implementation of AI.</p> <p>Discussing the survey with Computer Weekly, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/podcast/AI-job-chaos-A-Computer-Weekly-Downtime-Upload-podcast">Gartner distinguished vice president analyst, Helen Poitevin</a> says: “There are job cuts, but if you're getting more ROI (return on investment), you're actually not cutting more jobs.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Poitevin does not believe reducing headcount to fund AI investment is a viable strategy long-term. She says: “The belief is there that if we invest in this technology, we somehow have to make the trade-off by decreasing spend on personnel or decreasing spending on headcount. But what our research shows is while that may help cash balances in the short term, in the long term, the real ROI - those organisations who are getting the most benefit from AI - actually heavily invest in people.”&nbsp;</p> <p>According to Poitevin, such organisations are much more likely to be building new skills, creating roles for orchestrating agents, and more likely to be mapping out career paths for their people moving forward. “What we see is that it's actually short-sighted only thinking about headcount as the form of value instead of thinking much more broadly about value,” she says.&nbsp;</p> <p>Poitevin believes that trying to emulate the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642756/Tech-sector-job-losses-show-AI-replacement-in-action">tech giants, which are making big job</a> cuts as part of their long-term AI strategy, is not the right approach. “They are going after new forms of value where AI is a core part of their business, and the trade-offs they're making is that they believe it's just about productivity and headcount,” she says. For Poitevin, reducing headcount has a detrimental effect on business in the long run.&nbsp;</p> <p>Some people will argue that AI is taking away junior roles, such as in software develoment, which reduces the opportunity for people to gain job-related experience early on in their careers. Poitevin says: “This is another case of shortsightedness.” Rather than believing that AI will essentially replace these people, she says businesses need to consider what tasks go away, and which ones remains when AI is deployed in certain job roles.&nbsp;</p> <p>For instance, in software development, a measure of success is how quickly can code be produced to deliver the outcome the business requires,&nbsp;</p> <p>If AI accelerates the organisation's ability to get from a problem to a solution, as Poitevin notes, this means the software development team is able to tackle more problems. From an IT leadership perspectibve, she says: “Those who are creatively looking forward to how they build their future with software are definitely doubling down on making sure they have the talent pipeline to enable them to build up junior software engineers so that they go more quickly from the business problem to the software solution. “It's a bit of a Jevons paradox and it'll actually create more demand,” she adds. In other words, the more efficient a business gets at developing the software it needs, the cheaper producing software becomes. "So you get more efficient at solving problems with software, which means there's more demand, and therefore more demand for the people who can do that kind of work,” she adds.</p> We speak to Gartner analyst Helen Poitevin about why business leaders should not use AI to reduce headcount https://www.computerweekly.com/podcast/Why-AI-wont-cut-jobs-A-Computer-Weekly-Downtime-upload-podcast Fri, 05 Jun 2026 03:29:00 GMT <p>Online publishers and news organisations will now be able to prevent Google from using their content to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models, or from appearing in the company’s AI search summaries, the UK’s competition watchdog has announced.</p> <p>In October 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority&nbsp;(CMA) <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366632720/What-will-happen-now-Google-has-been-given-strategic-market-status-by-CMA">classified Google search and search advertising</a>&nbsp;with strategic market status (SMS), a designation that enables it to consider proportionate, targeted interventions to ensure that general search services are open to effective competition.</p> <p>Following a <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366637816/UK-competition-regulator-looks-into-Googles-AI-search">consultation</a> on potential digital market fairness measures launched in January 2026, the CMA has now introduced conduct requirements to give publishers more control and stronger bargaining power over the use of their content.</p> <p>This includes requiring Google to provide “effective tools” that allow publishers to prevent their content being used in the company’s AI features, and allowing publishers to opt out of allowing their content to be used for the “fine-tuning” of AI models.</p> <p>Google must now ensure that publisher content is properly attributed, with clear links displayed in AI‑generated search results. The measures follow complaints from media and civil society organisations that publishers have experienced a drop in click-through traffic to their sites since Google started placing AI-generated summaries at the top of search results. Until now, websites were unable to opt out of their content being scraped for AI overviews without also withdrawing from appearing in traditional Google search results.</p> <p>“Today, we have introduced a world‑first requirement on Google’s search services in the UK, enabling fair treatment, greater transparency and meaningful choice for businesses and consumers,” said CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell.</p> <p>“With features like AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used. At the same time, these measures will help tens of millions of UK search users better understand and trust the information presented to them.”</p> <p>The watchdog added while these new requirements are expected to “put publishers, like news organisations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google”, it will take an “active role” in overseeing how Google implements the measures.</p> <p>“[Google] will have nine months to implement all changes but the CMA expects important parts of the controls to become available to publishers well before that deadline,” said the CMA in a blogpost announcing the measures. &nbsp;</p> <p>“Google will also be required to submit and publish compliance reports, supported by key data and metrics, explaining changes it has made and how it has complied. These are due every six months for the first year, after which the CMA will review the frequency of reporting.”</p> <p>Google has said it would start testing a new control from Wednesday on a subset of UK-based media sites, allowing owners to manage how their links and content appear in its AI search features, with the aim of rolling the controls out globally.</p> <p>A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/24/ai-summaries-causing-devastating-drop-in-online-news-audiences-study-finds">study</a> by search engine optimisation platform Authoritas from July 2025 previously found that a site ranked first in a search result could lose around 79% of its traffic if it was listed below an AI overview.</p> <p>However, a Google spokesperson at the time said in a statement that the study was “inaccurate and based on flawed assumptions and analysis”, using outdated estimations and a set of searches that did not represent all the queries that would generate traffic for news websites.</p> <p>A further study run by the Pew Research Center also showed a big hit to referral traffic from Google AI Overviews, with a month-long survey of almost 69,000 Google searches revealing that users only clicked a link under an AI summary once every 100 times.</p> <p>A Google spokesperson said that study also used “flawed methodology and skewed queryset that is not representative of search traffic”.</p> <p>In a&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/new-controls-website-owners/">blogpost</a> published on 3 June 2026, Google said&nbsp;it was engaging with regulators such as the CMA “to ensure website owners have the right tools as user preferences evolve”.</p> <p>Blog author Mrinalini Loew, the general manager at Google Search Ecosystem, added the company will begin testing a new tool allowing website owners to manage how their links and content appear in its AI search features, such as AI overviews and AI mode.</p> <p>“We are beginning to roll these features out to a subset of website owners in the UK, allowing for thorough testing before rolling them out to website owners globally,” she said, adding that the controls will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside the generative AI search features.</p> <p>Responding to the CMA announcement, tech-focused civil society group Foxglove said although it welcomes the regulator new measures, it is concerned that implementation needs to be faster to end ongoing damage to the news industry. It added further action may be needed to ensure effective scrutiny of Google’s compliance. &nbsp;</p> <p>“We’re delighted that the CMA is finally standing up to Google’s theft of journalists’ work,” said Foxglove’s co-executive director Rosa Curling, who added the group has been urging them to do this for the past year.</p> <p>“Google’s AI Overviews are a threat not only to an independent news industry, but to an informed democracy. Google’s AI Overviews don’t only take others’ work without payment. They also make it harder for journalists to directly reach their audience – threatening their survival. Without independent journalism, it becomes far harder to hold powerful governments and corporations to account.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Until now, the only way to stop Google stealing your work was to opt out from being visible at all in Google search. With Google controlling 90% of search, this was akin to removing yourself from the internet.”</p> <p>She added that there are concerns that Google may still be able to “wriggle out” of the obligations imposed by the CMA: “The measures would allow it to mark its own homework, rather than being subject to rigorous, independent audit. The timeframe is too generous – there is no reason to give Google nine months to put a stop to the terrible harm it is causing – which it has, itself, been aware of for years. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>“The CMA must watch Google like a hawk – both to ensure compliance with these measures, and to act urgently on any harm resulting from its new proposals around new AI features and agents in search.” &nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">&nbsp;Read more about artificial intelligence</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643449/Challenging-AI-hype-narratives-with-director-Valerie-Veatch">Challenging AI hype narratives with director Valerie Veatch</a>: Computer Weekly speaks with Valerie Veatch, the director of a documentary charting the historical development of artificial intelligence, about the difficulties of challenging hype narratives and the pressing need to build a culture of technological refusal.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643389/Google-AI-engineer-dismissed-for-opposing-tech-sales-to-Israel">Google AI engineer claims dismissal for opposing tech sales to Israel</a>: ‘Our work on AI was sold to facilitate genocide’: Artificial intelligence engineer claims Google unfairly sacked them for internally criticising the company’s decision to continue supplying technology to the Israeli military, despite credible claims of war crimes committed in Gaza.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640322/UK-MoD-awards-more-than-two-dozen-contracts-for-AI-targeting-systems">UK MoD awards more than two dozen contracts for AI targeting systems</a>: The UK Ministry of Defence is ramping up its investment into military artificial intelligence in a bid to increase the ‘lethality’ of the British armed forces.</li> </ul> </div> </div> The UK’s competition watchdog has ruled that Google must provide online publishers and news organisations with the ability to opt out of their work being summarised by artificial intelligence, or otherwise used to train the company’s models https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Google-magnifying-adobe-Editorial-Use-Only.jpeg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643963/Publishers-can-now-opt-out-of-Google-AI-summaries-and-training Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:52:00 GMT <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/CW-Developer-Network/LLM-series-Workday-How-LLM-ecosystems-can-prevent-model-collapse">Clare Hickie, chief technology officer (CTO) for EMEA at Workday</a>, sits in the Customer Experience Centre in the technology firm’s European headquarters in Dublin and reflects on the characteristics that have helped her to succeed during her digital leadership career.</p> <p>“I’m a change maker; I was born as one,” she says. “The most important thing for me is that I’ve always got a pragmatic understanding of what needs to happen and how it’s happening, and that’s the only way that I can help our customers move forward.”</p> <p>That’s certainly Hickie’s priority at Workday, where she’s helping the cloud-based HR specialist to stay competitive in the age of AI. As Computer Weekly discovered during a recent innovation media event in Dublin, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Workday-majors-on-Sana-acquisition-to-forward-agentic-AI-programme">Workday is developing a range of data-rich and agentic services</a> to help CIOs and other business executives embrace digital change – and Hickie relishes the opportunity to help other executives gain the benefits.</p> <p>“I genuinely believe I’ve got the best job in Workday. It’s an incredible role to be able to help our customers get the most from their investments, but equally to inspire our potential customers or prospects on their journey in terms of choosing Workday as the right partner for change,” she says.</p> <p>“I’m in the very fortunate position to be able to do that every day and to inspire, motivate and have the hard conversations. We’re very candid in our roles. To have these strong conversations with CIOs is an incredible job to have.”</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Taking on a new challenge"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Taking on a new challenge</h2> <p>Hickie joined Workday as regional CIO in June 2018 and was promoted to EMEA CTO in June 2021. Before joining the firm, she spent 15 years at multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK, latterly as global head of IT HR services.</p> <p>It was during her time with GSK that Hickie became exposed to Workday. She says the pharma giant started working with <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634678/Workday-sets-out-to-reinvent-ERP-with-agentic-AI-platform">the software-as-a-service (SaaS) specialist</a> in 2011. GSK was an early Workday customer, particularly from European organisations. The business was eager to standardise services across 135 countries and 120,000 employees by working with a trusted transformation partner – and Workday proved a good fit.</p> <p>“I was asked to lead that project from an IT perspective, and it was new technology,” she says. “At the time, it was one of the first big SaaS services to come in, because we were very much running on legacy infrastructure and architecture. After leading the implementation project, I went on to set up everything from a shared services perspective and to lead the teams.”</p> <p>Hickie reflects positively on her time with GSK: “I had a tremendous career at GSK that was very diverse and gave me a huge amount of development opportunities along my own career path. But once I got involved in this technology project, I thought the service Workday offered was incredible.”</p> <p>While Hickie says she didn’t expect to join Workday during her time implementing the firm’s technology at GSK, her interactions with the company left a good feeling. When the opportunity to join Workday came, she already had first-hand knowledge of its services. As a values-driven professional, she says the company’s people and its approach to business chimed with her.</p> <p>“It’s interesting, because a lot of people thought at the time that it was a bold move, especially leaving a company like GSK. But from the day I joined Workday, I’ve never looked back. GSK is still a major Workday customer. I’ve got huge admiration for GSK and everything it stands for in healthcare. But for me, at the time, I made the right decision,” she says.</p> <p>“I’ve never stopped developing – in my entire career and at Workday. As a digital leader, you’re at the heart and soul of innovation and development as it occurs, and you’re looking forward to what could happen next. To me, Workday is a great place to work, with super colleagues.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Managing technology operations"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Managing technology operations</h2> <p>Hickie says what’s clear from her CV is that she likes to get stuck into the business and develop new capabilities.</p> <p>“I’m a very loyal employee, as you can tell through my timeline,” she says. “I was at GSK for 15 years, and I’m now entering my eighth year at Workday. Even though I was at GSK for a long time, I had nine different roles as I developed my career.”</p> <p>During her time at Workday, Hickie has moved from a more internal-facing position as CIO to an external-facing role as CTO. In her current role, which she assumed as the business emerged from the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, she reports to global CTO Joe Wilson. Each major region in Workday has a CTO.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Clare-Hickie-Workday-PR-140px.jpg" alt="Headshot of Clare Hickie."> </div> <p><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“As a digital leader, you’re at the heart and soul of innovation and development as it occurs, and you’re looking forward to what could happen next”</span></strong></p> <p><em><span style="color: #34495e;">Claire Hickie, Workday</span></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Internal technology at Workday takes a centralised approach and is led by CIO Rani Johnson, based in the company’s US headquarters in Pleasanton. While technology continues to play an ever-increasing role in modern business operations, Hickie says decisions on the strategic direction of travel and implementation of services don’t have to take place at the local level.</p> <p>“I’m not sure that’s a necessity for an organisation like Workday,” she says. “Like many organisations that are built out at a global level, we’ve got our own technology stack, which involves more than just Workday. We’re also Workday’s first customer, and we’ve got everything bedded down for the applications and technology that’s available.”</p> <p>While decisions about technology strategy are taken at the global level, Hickie says local teams bed systems down and manage their own IT infrastructure, whether that’s in EMEA, Asia-Pacific or North America. She says the technology stack is supported around the clock, with systems and services swapped in and out due to business requirements.</p> <p>“As a company, we don’t need to make different decisions to support the regions. There are certainly areas that could operate slightly differently, but that variability is more about culture, languages and geographical locations, not at a technology level,” she says.</p> <p>“We come into work and we know exactly what we’re operating on. The stack runs really well in our enterprise. We’ve got escalation lines when something doesn’t happen correctly, but we’re pretty slim in how we operate.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Leading from the front"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Leading from the front</h2> <p>While Hickie’s role is more externally than internally facing, she still has to keep a watchful eye on technology developments behind the enterprise firewall. A strong awareness of Workday’s innovative activities makes it easier to work with CIOs and other customers.</p> <p>“It’s about working with the product teams and understanding requirements from a technology perspective,” she says. “We have to understand the architecture, the infrastructure and then be able to communicate those capabilities out as an external perspective. Equally, we always need to understand the roadmap and what we’re doing.”</p> <p>Hickie says Workday benefits from having access to a big network of customers and potential clients. Interacting regularly with these outsiders gives Workday’s insiders a sense of the challenges that CIOs face and the product innovations they require.</p> <p>“Most of my role is having one-to-one conversations with CIOs and CTOs,” she says. “We also work with digital leaders in large forums. I was in London this week with 120 CIOs, including some who were customers and some who were not. We also bring a lot of our customers into Workday to have these conversations and understand their challenges.”</p> <p>Hickie says her biggest achievement since becoming CTO is helping some of the firm’s key customers get the most bang for their buck. As one of the most senior executives in the business, she also serves on the board of directors for the Workday Ltd subsidiary, suggesting that another main focus area is supporting <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366627877/Thousands-of-women-in-tech-leave-their-roles-each-year">women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)</a>.</p> <p>Workday was named STEM Employer of the Year at the 2025 Women in STEM Awards in Dublin last October for the second consecutive year. Hickie also leads Women@Workday, an employee belonging council that creates mentoring circles, encourages shared learning, and opens new opportunities for professionals to develop.</p> <p>“A big achievement for me is to see how diverse we continue to be and that we’re shining a light in terms of encouraging young females into technology,” she says. “For the staff who are here at Workday, we’re mentoring and coaching them every day in terms of this technology sector, which can be a tough place to work but also provides an incredible career.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Developing new skills"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Developing new skills</h2> <p>Hickie recognises that the IT profession is undergoing fundamental changes due to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a transformation that’s taking place in Workday and externally, as the company rolls out new agentic AI services to its customers.</p> <p>At the event in Dublin, her senior executive colleagues discussed the company’s product roadmap and the introduction of agents that the firm hopes will remove repetitive tasks from human resources, finance and other business functions. Hickie says the human remains very much in the loop, even in an era of agentic AI and increased automation.</p> <p>“Skills become absolutely imperative,” she says. “Our unique capabilities are becoming the foundation of how we operate as people in our job roles and functions. Emerging technology brings change, but it also brings flexibility, as the enabler of new and interesting career paths.”</p> <p>Hickie suggests that many organisations are eager to take a two-phased approach to AI – they want to boost productivity through automation, but they also want to retain their talent. While some industry experts worry that the introduction of emerging technology could lead to a jobs apocalypse, Hickie is more optimistic.</p> <p>“In terms of dealing with our customers every day, we’re often asked how we see other organisations are managing those changes,” she says. “It’s interesting, because as businesses have continued to grow and be successful, we’re seeing that other skills are literally being created every single day. And you can only see that trajectory accelerating.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more interviews with tech supplier IT leaders</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639330/Interview-Nick-Pearson-CIO-Ricoh-Europe">Interview: Nick Pearson, CIO, Ricoh Europe</a> – Working for a company undergoing a major pivot in its business model means variety and opportunity for the supplier’s tech chief.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366635509/Interview-Art-Hu-global-CIO-Lenovo">Interview: Art Hu, global CIO, Lenovo</a> – The IT chief at the PC, servers and storage supplier is using his experience of rolling out tech internally to boost the growing services ambitions of the Chinese tech giant.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366620510/Interview-Cynthia-Stoddard-CIO-Adobe">Interview: Cynthia Stoddard, CIO, Adobe</a> – After nearly 10 years in post, Adobe’s CIO is still driving digital transformation and looking to deliver lasting change through technology.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> The IT chief went from implementing Workday software at one of the firm’s largest customers to leading technology at the supplier – she discusses what she learned https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/LeMagIT/hero_article/Workday-Rugby-Ducellier-Hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643836/Interview-Clare-Hickie-EMEA-CTO-Workday Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:02:00 GMT <p>A property sector initiative to introduce a digital identity scheme is being scrapped due to concerns over UK government policy and a lack of consumer benefits.</p> <p>Organisers of the scheme have informed Whitehall departments backing the plan, along with regulators and industry bodies, that they are withdrawing support for the implementation of a standard digital ID into the property sector.</p> <p>The MyIdentity initiative aimed to allow home buyers and sellers to prove their identity once, instead of having to do so multiple times. This information would then be shared with other parties, such as estate agents, mortgage providers, solicitors and conveyancers, within a <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366635638/Use-of-digital-ID-in-UK-achieves-statutory-status">government-approved digital identity trust framework</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252504904/11-areas-will-trial-digital-identity-scheme-for-residential-property-sector">A pilot in 2021/2022</a> was backed by funding from Innovate UK and supported at the time by ministers. However, after what organisers described as “repeated delays and false starts in progressing a coherent identity strategy”, MyIdentity and backers at the Home Builders Federation have advised more than 250 companies in the sector to reconsider any further investment of time and money into digital identity systems “until the government sets out clear regulation and legislation, a failure on their part”.</p> <p>“We are putting all activity on digital ID in the property sector on hold. We’re not convinced that it will work, as it provides no consumer benefit and, by default, no real sector benefit,” said Stuart Young, managing director of <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252494817/Etive-to-create-digital-identity-trust-scheme-for-home-sales">Etive, the company leading the MyIdentity scheme</a>.</p> <p>“This is not a decision that has been made lightly. Following extensive work over the last year or so, it is clear that the people who work on the coalface of property are not convinced of what government is trying to do. In fact, confidence has dropped dramatically. Plus, the business case just doesn’t seem to be there.”</p> <p>The government has encouraged industry sectors to set up digital ID schemes as part of its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-digital-verification-services-trust-framework">Digital Verification Services Trust Framework</a>, established by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The withdrawal of one of the leading schemes will come as a blow to the wider policy to introduce a government-backed digital identity programme across the UK.</p> <p>Young cited long-term, continued uncertainty over government policy, as far back as Tony Blair’s physical ID card scheme, through the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252498143/Government-bids-final-goodbye-to-Govuk-Verify">failed Gov.uk Verify programme</a>, and up to the mixed messaging and confusion caused by Keir Starmer’s announcement of a mandatory national digital ID scheme and his <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366637189/UK-government-backtracks-on-plans-for-mandatory-digital-ID">subsequent U-turn</a>.</p> <p>“All the same mistakes are being made,” said Young. “We have told DSIT, the Ministry of Housing, etc about this over the years but they just aren’t interested. I think it is wrong to mislead companies and it was clear to me that [companies] are fed up with more failed initiatives or ’not another initiative’. Fatigued is probably the best word to describe how people feel.</p> <p>“For the government to try to introduce digital identity, which is only guidance and voluntary, makes it a tough sell for companies that have other shifting business priorities to deal with.”</p> <p>Currently, home buyers and sellers must complete multiple identity checks during a single transaction, paying repeated fees. Rather than reducing friction, Young says such digital identity processes are increasing both costs and delays.</p> <p>In a letter to government representatives in April, MyIdentity said: “The current landscape for customer identity is characterised by significant ambiguity. Divergent and, at times, conflicting perspectives across government and industry have resulted in a lack of clear direction regarding policy, regulatory intent and the permissible scope of private sector activity. This uncertainty is compounded by the absence of definitive guidance on the government’s long-term strategy and mandates in this area.”</p> <p>A report by MPs on the Home Affairs Committee last month <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643374/Government-digital-ID-launch-was-a-fiasco-report-finds">described the government’s launch of its digital ID policy as “nothing short of a fiasco”</a> that “undermined what existing public support” there was for digital ID.</p> <p>Young added: “We remain hopeful that, over time, the digital identity challenge can be resolved and contribute positively to improving the home buying and selling process. What the industry needs is demonstrable progress, clear leadership and tangible outcomes capable of building market and consumer confidence.”</p> <p>Computer Weekly has asked DSIT to comment on this story, but had not received a response at the time of publication.&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about government digital ID policy</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640072/The-UK-governments-digital-identity-scheme-Dystopian-nightmare-or-modernised-public-services">The UK government’s digital identity scheme: Dystopian nightmare or modernised public services?</a> Critics and supporters of digital ID are honing their arguments for the government’s consultation – but it’s the public that will decide. How should you choose?</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634197/Industry-calls-for-clarity-on-government-digital-ID-plans">Industry calls for clarity on government digital ID plans</a> – The digital identity industry asks UK government for transparency on its digital identity scheme and proposes a formal collaboration agreement.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Computer-Weekly-Editors-Blog/UK-governments-U-turn-on-digital-ID-was-inevitable-from-the-start">UK government’s U-turn on digital ID was inevitable from the start</a> – The UK government’s plans for a national digital identity scheme were never going to be mandatory. That’s not some sort of scoop – although Computer Weekly predicted as much last year.</li> </ul> </div> </div> A major initiative to introduce a standard digital identity scheme for house buying and selling has been shelved due to political uncertainty and lack of clear benefits https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/terraced-houses-uk-teamjackson-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643785/Property-sector-plans-for-digital-ID-collapse-over-government-policy-concerns Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:40:00 GMT <p>MPs on the Science, Industry and Technology Committee have called for a “period of over-correction” to break the cycle of supplier lock-in and foster <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Cloud-computing-services">a domestic UK cloud ecosystem</a> through mandatory re-competition and open source standards.</p> <p>One notable measure recommended in the report – <em><a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/53352/documents/298462/default/">Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government</a></em> – is that the UK government should exercise the break clause with <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640417/Health-workers-call-for-Palantir-to-be-booted-from-NHS-contracts">Palantir and the Federated Data Platform (FDP)</a> in the NHS and publish a fully costed exit plan by the end of 2026.</p> <p>Elsewhere, the report highlights a “lack of competition” in government cloud spending, which totals about £10bn per year. It cites the March 2026 HM Revenue &amp; Customs (HMRC) contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a primary example of market failure. AWS was the sole bidder for <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640606/Flaws-in-government-procurement-show-in-HMRC-473m-AWS-award">the 10-year, £472m deal</a>, despite concerns over restrictive licensing practices.&nbsp;</p> <p>Meanwhile, the report recommends the establishment of a unit to monitor and disseminate digital government best practices from the European Union (EU), including how member states encourage the development of sovereign alternatives to incumbent providers.&nbsp;</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Dangerous levels of lock-in"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Dangerous levels of lock-in</h2> <p>The report warns that the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643799/Data-dive-Mapping-the-UK-public-sectors-hyperscale-dependence">UK public sector’s heavy reliance on a small group of US-based technology providers</a> – specifically Microsoft, AWS and Palantir – creates <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-sovereignty-all-just-a-case-of-Trust-me-bro">dangerous levels of supplier lock-in and systemic fragility</a>.</p> <p>The committee’s report argues that these dependencies, often driven by proprietary software and complex, opaque contracts, undermine competition, hinder innovation by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and expose the government to significant operational risks, including potential data access by the US under the Cloud Act.</p> <p>To address such vulnerabilities, the committee recommends a comprehensive strategy to achieve “technology sovereignty” and that the government should prioritise open source alternatives and mandate that a defined percentage of procurement budgets go to UK-based startups.</p> <p>Key interventions include exercising the break clause for the NHS FDP, implementing a rigorous cloud consumption dashboard to monitor supplier power, and legally requiring public bodies to favour open standards over proprietary systems to ensure the government retains the ability to make strategic choices independent of dominant incumbents.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Key recommendations in the report"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Key recommendations in the report</h2> <p><strong>Federated Data Platform:</strong> The government should commit to exercising the February 2027 break clause in the Palantir FDP contract and develop an in-house replacement or seek an alternative from UK-owned and UK-based providers, with a fully costed exit plan for the FDP published by the end of 2026.</p> <p><strong>Data access and transparency:</strong> The government must confirm the nature of Palantir’s access to patient data, the statutory basis for this authorisation, when and by whom it was authorised, and whether the information commissioner was consulted.</p> <p><strong>NHS single patient record</strong>: The government should prioritise using UK-owned and UK-based suppliers <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643138/NHS-Modernisation-Bill-promises-single-patient-record-by-2028">to develop and implement this</a> and award all contracts through open and transparent procurement processes.</p> <p><strong>Ministry of Defence and Palantir:</strong> The government must set out the reasons for awarding a £240m Ministry of Defence contract to Palantir without a competitive tender process.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">What is the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee?</h3> <p>The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee is a cross-party body of MPs tasked with scrutinising the expenditure, policy and administration of its parent department. Via formal inquiries, it gathers evidence from ministers, officials and experts to produce research-backed reports. While the committee’s findings are not legally binding, they serve as a powerful mechanism for parliamentary oversight and provide ammunition that can hold the government accountable for digital strategy.</p> <p>The committee’s influence is exercised through mandatory government responses (usually within 60 days), public pressure and the ability to shift the national debate. Even when the government does not adopt specific recommendations, the committee’s oversight can lead to increased transparency, policy adjustments and internal reviews.</p> </div> </div> <p><strong>Procurement and SMEs:</strong> Central departments and public bodies should be required to spend a defined minimum percentage of their technology procurement budgets on products from UK-based and UK-owned startups and SMEs, with quarterly progress updates published.</p> <p><strong>Ending supplier lock-in:</strong> The Government Digital Service (GDS) should produce a strategy to end supplier lock-in, including targets for supplier diversification across departments and public bodies, with quarterly reporting.</p> <p><strong>Cloud consumption dashboard:</strong> The government’s promised cloud dashboard should include a breakdown of contract awards by company, their value, details of break clauses, specific licensing terms, and a value-for-money assessment.</p> <p><strong>All of Government cloud contract:</strong> The government should detail how this contract will prevent supplier lock-in, including its engagement with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and how it will embed a pro-competition approach.</p> <p><strong>Technology sovereignty strategy:</strong> The government should define technology sovereignty. The definition should be reviewed annually, and it should set out how the government intends to support sovereign alternatives to incumbent providers.</p> <p><strong>Open source in the Procurement Act 2023:</strong> The government should use the update to this act to require public sector bodies to prioritise open source tools and technology over proprietary offerings.</p> <p><strong>Data access contingencies:</strong> The government should detail its contingencies for safeguarding citizens’ data should the US trigger data access provisions under the Cloud Act 2018, and share relevant impact assessments.</p> <p><strong>Monitor EU digital government initiatives:</strong> As part of the government’s “wider reset” in relations with the EU, DSIT should establish a unit to monitor and disseminate digital government best practice from, with a remit to engage with European Commission and member state-level bodies, in particular to focus on how the EU and member states develop sovereign alternative providers.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Industry reaction: Welcomed but measured</h3> <p>Nicky Stewart, senior advisor to the Open Cloud Coalition, said: “We agree with the need to reduce vendor lock-in across the public sector and to move towards a system that rewards choice, interoperability and fair competition for all providers.”</p> <hr> <p>Conservative peer Lord Chris Holmes said: “This is an important report from the committee which the government must consider seriously and respond to. The most important recommendation is to increase competition in the UK cloud market. This is a critical question of resilience. The cloud concentration risk for the UK right now is beyond worrying. It is also a question of economic value and growth for UK business and a key consideration for any serious discussion around sovereign capability and capacity.”</p> <hr> <p>Bill McCluggage, director of IT strategy and policy in the Cabinet Office and deputy government CIO from 2009 to 2012, said: “I applaud the committee’s thoroughness, but we need to be honest about what select committees actually do. They shine a light; they don’t drive change. This is Parliament holding the executive to account, not the government committing to act.</p> <p>“With the current political pressures bearing down on the government, economic headwinds, a crowded legislative agenda, and an ever-present lobbying machine from the big tech players, I’d be really surprised if more than a handful of these recommendations make it into policy in any meaningful timeframe. We’ve seen this film before.”</p> <hr> <p>Owen Sayers of Secon Solutions, an enterprise architect with more than 20 years’ experience in delivering national policing systems, said: “It’s the most radical set of recommendations I’ve seen in any Parliamentary report in 10 years. The title of the report clearly means they are laying out – or seeking to reset – government policy.</p> <p>“I doubt the government can fully ignore it, but some of the measures – such as following Europe’s lead, which is very sensible right now in technical and compliance/derisking terms – might be hard for Whitehall and the government to stomach. Are they brave enough to take the recommendations and work through them to develop a new, more balanced and less US-centric policy? I seriously doubt it.”</p> </div> </div> </section> A Science, Innovation and Technology Committee report contains recommendations that would radically alter UK public sector IT, procurement and relationship with hyperscalers if adopted https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Westminster1-fotolia.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643883/SIT-Committee-urges-Palantir-exit-in-push-to-end-US-cloud-grip Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:41:00 GMT <p>In spite of efforts by the UK government to encourage smaller IT firms to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640606/Flaws-in-government-procurement-show-in-HMRC-473m-AWS-award">bid for contracts</a>, HM Revenue &amp; Customs (HMRC) has <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/A-decade-after-breaking-HMRCs-Aspire-deal-the-Post-Office-scandal-exposes-glaring-similarities">signed a multi-year contract with Capgemini</a> worth £500m to deliver contact centre as a service (CCaaS).</p> <p>Duncan Aitchison, <a href="https://www.techmarketview.com/ukhotviews/archive/2026/06/03/capgemini-wins-new-500m-contract-at-hmrc">research director at TechMarketView</a>, noted that the contract shows the IT service provider’s two-decade-long relationship with HMRC is set to continue for a further 10 years.</p> <p>Last August, as part of its Enterprise Customer Relationship Management programme, <a href="https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/procurement/ocds-h6vhtk-0584b5">HMRC put out a tender</a> for a provider of software as a service (SaaS) customer relationship management to replace its existing system. At the time, HMRC said it would also be tendering for what it called “an intelligent client function” along with system and service integrators and supplementary software capabilities.</p> <p>Capgemini’s role in the contract is support implementation, system design, workflow integration, ongoing support and continuous optimisation to enable greater adaptability.</p> <p>To achieve this, it will be working in <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638574/HMRC-chooses-cloud-SAP-S4Hana-for-tax-system-overhaul">collaboration with Nice</a>, a provider of CCaaS, and Route 101, a Nice implementation partner. The overall goal is to deliver a system that expands self-service options and uses technologies such as AI to make it easier for customers to get the information and support they need.</p> <p>Nice is categorised as a leader in Gartner’s <em>Magic quadrant for contact center as a service</em>&nbsp;report, where other companies in the top quadrant include Genesys, Amazon Web Services, Five9 and Talkdesk.</p> <p>In the report, Gartner noted that its clients are increasingly voicing frustration regarding Nice’s AI project deployment times, which, according to Gartner’s analysis, often exceed initial expectations. “Clients considering deploying Nice AI capabilities should work closely with their account team to validate the proposed functionality, availability of deployment resources and readiness of their own data environment to meet deployment commitments,” the analyst warned.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more HMRC stories</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>How <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639490/Revealed-How-HMRC-has-been-quietly-building-surveillance-capabilities">HMRC has been quietly building surveillance</a> capabilities: HMRC has bought phone scanning equipment and analysis software capable of extracting data from mobile devices as it steps up its electronic intelligence gathering capabilities.</li> <li>Amazon Web Services bags <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640737/Amazon-Web-Services-bags-Fujitsus-HMRC-loss">Fujitsu’s HMRC loss</a>: US tech giant wins contract to run three datacentres for the government department after cutting ties with Fujitsu.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p>HMRC has recognised the need to make its contact centre more streamlined. In <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/the-administrative-cost-of-the-tax-system.pdf">February 2025, the National Audit Office reported</a> that HMRC spent £4.3bn between 2023 and 2024 to collect £829bn of tax.</p> <p>According to the HMRC, the new system is cloud-native, and will deliver improved operations and efficiency gains to meet key outcomes including enhanced digital experiences, smarter automation, and more seamless customer interactions.</p> <p>Seamless customer interaction is something businesses have asked for. The Chartered Institute of Taxation’s survey of members found that the inefficiency of HMRC is causing problems in businesses. Technical officer Lindsay Scott said: “Our survey highlighted examples of prolonged and difficult interactions with HMRC customer services to ask for HMRC errors to be corrected. The introduction of a complex cases service could help to provide an avenue for resolution of these difficult cases, reducing costs and the negative impact that these errors have on taxpayers and their businesses.”</p> <p>The contract, which is set to begin in August, will see HMRC use the Nice CXone AI-powered customer experience platform, deployed on a purpose-built UK sovereign cloud, to orchestrate intelligent self-service. HMRC said the platform will enable it to streamline complex citizen journeys, and empower contact centre operations with real-time, AI-driven insights while supporting strict compliance with UK data security requirements.</p> <p>Rob Walker, managing director at Capgemini in the UK, said: “This new agreement reflects the strength of our long-standing commitment to HMRC innovation and our ability to deliver complex, large-scale, AI-powered transformation programmes that create tangible value for citizens. In collaboration with HMRC, Nice and Route 101, we are building a value partnership that goes beyond technology delivery – one that is focused on long-term outcomes, innovation and continuous improvement for millions of users across the UK.”</p> <p>In May, HMRC signed a 10-year, £175m contract with Quantexa, which provides a data unification platform to support the modernisation of HMRC’s core data infrastructure. According to Quantexa, this will give HMRC a clearer, connected view of its data to improve performance, help identify tax at risk, and strengthen control. It also lays the groundwork for advanced AI capabilities and supports wider transformation efforts such as more seamless customer service.&nbsp;</p> This particular deal is for contact centre as a service, which sees artificial intelligence being deployed to streamline processes https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/call-centre-headphone-2-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643880/Capgemini-wins-another-10-year-HMRC-deal Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:45:00 GMT <p>“You’ll never see a product with our logo…we’re what our customers want us to be,” says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonatangustafsson/">Jonatan Gustafsson, business applications manager at Kitron</a> Group, a leading Scandinavian electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company that’s headquartered in Asker, Norway.</p> <p>Kitron works across the value chain of electronics from design and development through to manufacturing, service and upgrades. It may not be a marquee name outside its domain, but Kitron has scale and breadth. It reported around €738m in annual revenues for its last fiscal year, has about 3,000 staff and has an operational footprint that extends across Europe, Asia and North America. As for its electronics products, it serves businesses in everything from connectivity and electrification to industry and defence/aviation via medical devices.</p> <p>This is classic enterprise resource planning (ERP) territory, and Kitron is a prized customer of IFS, a software company that is also from Scandinavia and is squarely focused on industry. Kitron is a company that works under the hood of customers – and under its own hood is IFS, where it’s has been core to operations for 15 years.&nbsp;</p> <p>Gustafsson says: “Since we span from Europe to the US, China, Malaysia and India, we have people working around the clock. So it’s important to be stable, have a solid foundation and make sure that everything is available all the time, from the shop floor and reporting production to financial reporting.”</p> <p>In environments such as this where multiple-nines uptime is essential and domain expertise has high relevance, it’s important that supplier and customer have stronger bonds than those of an everyday tech-buyer relationship.</p> <p>“We’ve had a great relationship with IFS and we’ve been able to influence and have a tight connection,” Gustafsson says. “IFS is strong in the EMS domain in the Nordics and it’s nice to know there’s a lot of competence. Within an hour from where I live, there’s a lot of competent people in the area and a big consulting and knowledge base in the region. That makes the people working with the system stronger.”</p> <p>Kitron is expanding rapidly with a stated aim of becoming a €1.5bn annual revenue player, and it is trying to do so without losing its central controls and culture.</p> <p>“We have special systems in some areas but it’s usually IFS in the background supplying and feeding other systems for product and maintenance, Gustafsson says. “Kitron is a fast-growing company and we’re trying to have a standardised approach using the ‘One Kitron’ unified model.”</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Up close and personal"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Up close and personal</h2> <p>Gustafsson is taking practical steps to build intimacy and influence in the IFS ecosystem:| “First, we’ve been part of the company advisory board so we’re not just looking a year ahead. And then we have the partner network which is quite well established, so we have access to people with specific competence in the ecosystem that we talk to at partner conferences.</p> <p>“We are in countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and we know that with the IFS partner ecosystem we can find, if not IFS itself, then a network partner operating at a certain level, with local domain knowledge in any area.”</p> <p>That level of intimacy is proving of value as Kitron upgrades to the latest IFS software offerings. “We are in the process of upgrading to the latest generation of <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/sustainability/news/366614737/IFS-exec-Moving-to-cloud-creates-sustainability-benefits?_gl=1*adxily*_ga*Mjg4MTcxMzU3LjE3Nzk5NjUxNTU.*_ga_TQKE4GS5P9*czE3ODAwNDAwMDAkbzckZzEkdDE3ODAwNDQyMDMkajU3JGwwJGgw">IFS Cloud</a> but we’re using the functionality through mobile devices and we’re not being locked down to a PC or whatever other fixed device,” Gustafsson says.</p> <p>Cloud would appear to be a good fit for a company with wide geographic spread and ambitions to scale. “We have a lot of global support functions, sourcing, procurement…and we want to be efficient in what we do,” Gustafsson adds.</p> <p>An example of that growth came recently from the defence industry where Kitron recently announced it had picked up a €16m order for products used in counter-drone systems.&nbsp;</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Here comes AI"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Here comes AI</h2> <p>Despite their focus on operational excellence and lean manufacturing, Kitron’s IT leaders see value in the ever-changing technology landscape and, inevitably, artificial intelligence (AI).</p> <p>“AI and an agentic framework can go from 25% progress and it’s going to learn along the way how to complete a product. We’re seeing a technology shift in utilising AI but [the opportunity and challenge] is not so much about IT but people and change,” Gustafsson says.</p> <p>“The opportunity is to set the foundation and let it learn along the way. People have to treat it not as an RPA [robotic process automation] flow following rules but as a tool that learns. Kitron has roots that go back into the 1960s with waterfall type of development and we’re moving into a more Agile sort of development.&nbsp;</p> <p>“How do we get people working as efficiently as possible together with AI instead of performing repetitive manual tasks? How do you scale without having to hire? It’s very important that people are interested and enjoying it. People have to get on board to be successful as we’re in a world constantly changing and we have to learn, learn, learn. But before starting to hand out information to LLMs [large language models], we are relying on our security framework and keeping safety first when it comes to data.”</p> <p>AI will doubtless change EMS just as it will change everything but Kitron ultimately wants to keep its feet on the ground and outperform on operations.</p> <p>“We are a manufacturing company and that’s where we’re making our money,” Gustafsson says. “Stable and efficient operations – that’s what’s paying our salary and that’s what I tell my staff.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about IFS</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/sustainability/news/366614737/IFS-exec-Moving-to-cloud-creates-sustainability-benefits">IFS exec: Moving to cloud creates sustainability benefits</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/news/366562277/IFS-Cloud-bolsters-ESG-reporting-reverse-supply-chains">IFS Cloud bolsters ESG reporting, reverse supply chains</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/CW-Developer-Network/What-to-expect-from-IFS-Industrial-AI-Unleashed">What to expect from IFS Industrial X Unleashed</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/news/252526130/IFS-doubles-down-on-industry-specificity-for-cloud-platform">IFS doubles down on industry specificity for cloud platform</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/news/366613952/IFS-ups-its-industrial-AI-sustainability-capabilities">IFS ups its industrial AI, sustainability capabilities</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Norway-headquartered Kitron Group is on a growth path and relies on local-market nous and partners https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/LeMagIT/hero_article/ERP-Industrie.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Scandinavias-Kitron-leans-into-AI-but-depends-on-ERP-and-local-links-to-keep-electronics-production Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:32:00 GMT <p>The National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP) was hit by a ransomware attack after a bug was exploited in its web hosting provider’s software.</p> <p>The attack is still causing technical problems, with emails between the Post Office and the NFSP “paused”, said the Post Office.</p> <p>The NFSP was targeted on 30 April, days after a bug in software from web hosting company cPanel was discovered and exploited by hackers.</p> <p>The affected software, the cPanel web‑based hosting control panel, is used to manage servers and websites. In April, the provider released a security advisory to address a critical <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/cyber-and-data-security/about-us/cyber-security-glossary#vulnerability">vulnerability</a>&nbsp;affecting its software.</p> <p>“The cPanel attack resulted in our website having a ransomware attack, with the attackers making demands for release of our files,” said NFSP CEO Calum Greenhow. He said the ransomware attack has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), adding that his IT team had confirmed that no data was lost during the attack. He told Computer Weekly he has just received a report on the issue and is “still trying to get to the bottom of it”.</p> <p>Ransomware is malware that locks and encrypts a victim’s data, files, devices or systems, rendering them inaccessible and unusable until the attacker receives a ransom payment.</p> <p><a href="https://www.securityweek.com/over-40000-servers-compromised-in-ongoing-cpanel-exploitation/">According to reports</a>, tens of thousands of servers were likely compromised as a result of the cPanel vulnerability.</p> <p>Computer Weekly learned of the ransomware attack on the NFSP after staff received warnings from the Post Office that a security issue was affecting emails to and from the federation.</p> <p>The Post Office’s chief information security officer (CISO) wrote to staff, warning them of a security issue affecting the NFSP that has forced it to pause emails.</p> <p>A Post Office spokesperson told Computer Weekly: “Following a recent security incident experienced by an external supplier, we have taken the precaution of temporarily suspending some interactions and integrations between the Post Office and the affected supplier. The Post Office is managing the incident in accordance with its cyber security incident management processes and is working with the impacted party.”</p> <p>The spokesperson added that branch operations are not impacted, and that no compromise of Post Office networks or applications has been identified.</p> <p>In his initial correspondence with staff on 22 May, CISO Neil Bennett wrote: “Following a recent security issue involving an external organisation, we have taken the precaution of temporarily pausing inbound and outbound email between the Post Office and [NFSP].</p> <p>He said emails sent to @nfsp.org.uk will not be delivered and senders won’t receive an automatic bounceback. He added that emails from @nfsp.org.uk will not reach the inbox during this period.</p> <p>“Please don’t email @nfsp.org.uk addresses until further notice,” he wrote.</p> <p>Bennett warned staff not to try to work around the pause via insecure means of electronic communication, such as personal email, text or WhatsApp.</p> <p>“If required, you may engage in telephone calls with NFSP stakeholders, but please ensure you validate their identity before discussing anything potentially sensitive, such as turning on cameras,” he advised.</p> <p>In an update on 2 June, Bennett said the issue remains ongoing and that there has been no change to prior guidance.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about ransomware</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Analysis of a form of ransomware called Vect has uncovered a serious flaw that breaks its core functionality and&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642421/Vect-ransomware-actually-destructive-wiper-malware" rel="noopener">turns it from a locker to a wiper</a>.</li> <li>Ransomware exponents can target identity, bypassing technical defences. Boards should prioritise identity security, align investments <a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Identity-the-new-perimeter-of-ransomware-defence" rel="noopener">and embed cyber risk in governance</a>.</li> <li>Ransomware-as-a-service operations are increasingly seeking to forge connections with employees, contractors and trusted partners of their target organisations as an alternative to straight-up hacking,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638772/Ransomware-gangs-focus-on-winning-hearts-and-minds" rel="noopener">says NCC</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> National Federation of Subpostmasters suffered a ransomware attack in April after hackers exploited a bug in the web hosting software it uses https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/LeMagIT/hero_article/Ransomware_hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643958/Subpostmaster-federation-hit-by-ransomware-attack Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:10:00 GMT <p>The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in tax administration worldwide. What began with the introduction of VAT across several Gulf states has evolved into a broader push towards digital tax compliance, driven by<a target="_blank" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643031/Buyers-call-for-electronic-invoicing" rel="noopener"> e-invoicing</a> mandates, corporate taxation and increasingly sophisticated regulatory oversight.</p> <p>For organisations operating across the region, compliance is no longer a periodic exercise conducted at the end of a reporting cycle. Instead, governments are moving towards real-time or near real-time monitoring of business transactions, fundamentally changing how tax obligations are managed.</p> <p>Saudi Arabia has emerged as one of the region’s pioneers through its Fatoora e-invoicing platform, while the UAE is preparing to introduce its Decentralised Continuous Transaction Control and Exchange (DCTCE) framework as part of its own e-invoicing roadmap. Similar initiatives are expected to expand across other GCC markets as governments continue investing in digital public infrastructure and revenue collection capabilities.</p> <p>“Saudi Arabia’s Fatoora system is among the most advanced continuous transaction control regimes anywhere in the world,” said Jay Riche, CEO of Dariba Technologies. “The UAE’s incoming DCTCE framework is distinct from almost anything operating at scale in North America or Europe. These are not adaptations of legacy models but redesigns of the compliance relationship itself.”</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="From periodic reporting to continuous compliance"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>From periodic reporting to continuous compliance</h2> <p>Historically, tax compliance has centred on periodic reporting cycles, allowing organisations to identify and correct errors before submitting returns to tax authorities. Continuous transaction control (CTC) models change that dynamic by requiring invoice data and transaction details to be validated electronically in real time.</p> <p>This shift places greater emphasis on the quality and structure of enterprise data, particularly within enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.</p> <p>Industry experts argue that many organisations underestimate the operational challenges involved in meeting new e-invoicing requirements. Beyond generating electronic invoices, businesses must ensure that transaction data is accurate, consistent and aligned with evolving technical specifications issued by regulators.</p> <p>“The question is not how to manage compliance more efficiently,” said Riche. “It is how to make continuous compliance structurally inevitable.”</p> <p>To address these requirements, many organisations are embedding tax logic directly within financial and operational systems rather than relying on downstream compliance processes. This approach enables tax validation to occur at the point of transaction, reducing the risk of errors and improving audit readiness.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Data becomes a strategic asset"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Data becomes a strategic asset</h2> <p>The expansion of digital tax regimes is also increasing the strategic value of tax-related data. The UAE’s introduction of corporate income tax in 2023, combined with the planned roll-out of e-invoicing from 2027, is expected to create new opportunities for both regulators and businesses to analyse financial information with unprecedented detail.</p> <p>As tax authorities gain access to structured transaction data, compliance activities are likely to become increasingly data driven. At the same time, organisations that can leverage the same information internally may gain valuable insights into operational performance, tax planning and risk management.</p> <p>“The biggest near-term impact in the GCC is at the intersection of e-invoicing and corporate tax,” said Riche. “Companies that leverage that data for their own planning, rather than simply producing it for the authority, will have a genuine competitive advantage.”</p> <p>Artificial intelligence is also beginning to play a larger role in this environment. Suppliers and tax teams are exploring the use of AI for regulatory monitoring, transaction analysis, anomaly detection and audit risk assessment.</p> <p>Businesses operating across multiple Gulf countries must navigate different reporting obligations, technical standards and data localisation requirements. This complexity is creating demand for specialist technology providers that can help organisations interpret regulations and configure systems accordingly.</p> <p>According to Riche, one of the key challenges lies in keeping pace with rapidly evolving guidance from authorities such as Saudi Arabia’s Zatca and the UAE’s Federal Tax Authority (FTA).</p> <p>“Global vendors understand the mandate but often underestimate what it demands operationally, the field-level data requirements, the ERP configuration discipline and the pace at which technical specifications evolve,” he said.</p> <p>As tax processes become increasingly digital, organisations are also paying closer attention to data security and sovereignty. Tax records contain highly sensitive financial information, and regulators across the GCC are introducing rules governing where data can be stored and processed. These requirements can vary significantly between jurisdictions, creating additional complexity for multinational organisations.</p> <p>Experts say businesses should avoid assuming that a single cloud deployment model will satisfy regulatory requirements across the region. Instead, compliance strategies increasingly need to account for local data residency obligations, auditability and transparency around AI-driven decision-making processes.</p> <p>Looking ahead, industry observers expect tax authorities across the GCC to continue expanding their use of analytics, automation and digital oversight tools.</p> <p>The longer-term vision extends beyond electronic invoicing towards fully interconnected compliance ecosystems capable of analysing transactions, tax filings and corporate disclosures in near real time. Some experts also anticipate greater cooperation and data sharing between tax authorities across the region, potentially increasing visibility into cross-border business activities.</p> <p>“The companies that treat tax data as a strategic asset, and not simply a compliance obligation, will find it a genuine competitive advantage,” said Riche.&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about tech in the Middle East</h3> <ul style="list-style-type: square;" class="default-list"> <li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639621/Resilience-under-pressure-How-regional-conflict-is-reshaping-the-Middle-East-tech-strategy" target="_blank">Resilience under pressure – how regional conflict is reshaping the Middle East tech strategy</a>: From AWS outages in the UAE to stronger focus on data control and cyber security, tech leaders say the Israel-US-Iran conflict is challenging, but not stopping the region’s digital goals.</li> <li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366636636/Middle-East-tech-trends-2026-AI-cyber-security-and-sovereign-infrastructure-take-centre-stage" target="_blank">Middle East tech trends 2026 – AI, cyber security and sovereign infrastructure take centre stage</a>: As artificial intelligence moves from experimentation to production and cyber threats escalate, the Middle East is entering a decisive phase of digital transformation, says Omdia chief analyst Trevor Clarke.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> As Gulf governments accelerate tax digitisation initiatives, organisations face growing pressure to modernise financial systems, improve data quality and prepare for a future of continuous compliance https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/paperwork-calculator-finance-miss-irine-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643877/E-invoicing-and-digital-tax-compliance-reshape-the-GCC-regulatory-landscape Wed, 03 Jun 2026 07:38:00 GMT <p>Back in 2024, research at Harvey Nash found that just over 10% of businesses already had or were planning to appoint a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/C-suite-shakeup-Demand-for-chief-AI-officers-accelerates?_gl=1*114guyy*_ga*MTMxMDQ1OTgxMi4xNzc3OTY4NDc4*_ga_TQKE4GS5P9*czE3ODA0ODA2MDYkbzc2JGcxJHQxNzgwNDgwNjcyJGo1OCRsMCRoMA..">Chief AI Officer</a> (CAIO). This was an exciting development – but would it last, or would AI roles perhaps become subsumed into existing tech leadership briefs such as CIO, CTO, CDO as AI became business as usual?</p> <p>&nbsp;A couple of years later, the answer is clear: it is here to stay – and it’s spreading fast. We see this ourselves in the mandates we work on with clients who are increasingly looking to appoint senior postholders with direct responsibility for AI. Of course, the job title for this may not be CAIO specifically – there are a host of titles emerging such as Head of AI, Chief AI Scientist, AI Transformation Officer, Responsible AI Director and more.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Sector hotspots"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>&nbsp;Sector hotspots</h2> <p>These appointments are especially prominent in financial services where organisations are generally advanced in their technology systems and data platforms, and where AI is a natural fit with the tech-enabled operating models of digital banking. <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640627/HSBC-gets-its-first-artificial-intelligence-chief">HSBC has recently announced the appointment of a CAIO</a>, for example, while <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639140/NatWest-hails-progress-after-12bn-spent-on-tech-last-year-but-true-AI-transformation-to-come">NatWest</a> appointed a Chief AI Research Officer last year.</p> <p>Senior AI roles are also widespread in highly regulated sectors such as energy, where there is a particular focus on ensuring there is strong governance over the deployment of AI, managing the risks and maintaining compliance with data privacy and security rules. Other sectors where AI is really on the march include legal, accountancy and consultancy. The Big Four firms, for example, have CAIOs or equivalent and are driving significant efforts to integrate AI into both internal ways of working and solutions for clients. Graduate recruitment has reportedly dropped as AI begins to do more and more analytical work.</p> <p>In general terms, it is the large FTSE and Fortune enterprises where AI roles are proliferating. At the mid-market level, it is more likely that the CIO or equivalent retains the lead on AI, perhaps with the appointment of a role a level below to lead on data, automation and the factors that lay the foundations for AI. The reality, after all, is that many organisations are still a long way from being AI-ready: there is still a considerable amount of modernisation and digitisation that needs to happen first.</p> <p>Nevertheless, the CAIO role is rapidly reaching into more and more businesses. Indeed, an <a href="https://newsroom.ibm.com/2026-05-04-ibm-study-ceos-are-reshaping-c-suite-roles-for-the-ai-era">eye-catching piece of research from IBM</a> finds that as many as three-quarters of organisations (76%) now have a CAIO or equivalent, a huge jump from 26% in 2025.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Qualities of a CAIO"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Qualities of a CAIO</h2> <p>So what are the skills and attributes of this new generation of CAIOs? Needless to say, a strong track record in and passion for technology comes with the territory. Many postholders have a CTO type background. But they are not merely ‘techies’ excited by the inner workings of an LLM. We have in fact seen quite a marked evolution of the CAIO role over the last couple of years. In the early days, they were often positioned as ‘evangelists’ whose function was in essence to raise awareness of AI, spread the word, and prepare the way for adoption. Now, as AI has matured and agentic deployment is the buzzword, the CAIO role has become much more about ‘doing’: commercially credible leaders who are driving ROI, engaging with boardrooms, managing enterprise change, reshaping operating models and managing governance and risk controls too.</p> <p>It is not an overstatement to say that there is now a new, fixed career path for technology professionals to aspire to: the CAIO position is becoming a career goal for many, alongside the traditional targets of CIO, CTO, CDO, CISO etc. The role may sit slightly below the CIO and CTO in terms of seniority and remuneration, but it is becoming an established feature of the tech leadership org chart.</p> <p>In some ways, this reflects the wider reality that tech roles are always evolving. Another post on the rise, for example, is Chief Product Officer (CPO). We are seeing this especially in fintech organisations where products need a tech solution for their channels to market. We are even seeing the appointment of some Chief Product and Technology Officers (CPTO) as a result.&nbsp;</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="CAIO here to stay"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>CAIO here to stay</h2> <p>Looking ahead, we expect the ubiquity of the CAIO to only increase. AI is the fastest moving market we have ever seen. The pace of development is incredible, so that organisations need to constantly check themselves, via a CAIO or equivalent, against key questions such as: Do we have the best utilisation possible? Are we keeping up with our competitors? Are we governing this appropriately and managing the risks?</p> <p>&nbsp;This brings us back to the business as usual (BAU) question at the start. With AI moving so fast, it feels like it will never just be BAU. How could it be, when AI never stands still? For that reason, a CAIO or equivalent feels like a necessity for more and more organisations. Say ‘ciao’ to the CAIO therefore – they’re spreading and are here to stay.</p> <p><i>Kirsteen Bell and Peter Birch are Directors of technology &amp; digital executive search at Harvey Nash</i>&nbsp;</p> </section> Chief AI Officers are proliferating as organisations look to deploy agentic AI, make a return on investment, and meet their governance obligations. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Artificial_intelligence_AI.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-unstoppable-rise-of-the-Chief-AI-Officer Wed, 03 Jun 2026 06:20:00 GMT <p>An artificial intelligence (AI) agent developed by Microsoft has been credited with helping it half the projected time it thinks it will need to develop a commercially viable&nbsp;<a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366619350/Microsoft-overcomes-quantum-barrier-with-new-particle">quantum computer</a>.</p> <p>During the company’s annual Build 2026 software developer conference, Microsoft showcased how its Discovery agentic AI tool has enabled it to improve the quality of qubits in its next quantum chip, Majorana 2.</p> <p>Using Discovery, which has been designed to speed the scientific process and accelerate collaboration, Microsoft’s quantum team said the chip’s qubits can maintain their quantum state 1,000 times longer than its first-generation hardware, enabling more reliable computation. Majorana 2 offers a mean qubit lifetime of 20 seconds, with some instances lasting as long as one minute.&nbsp;</p> <p>The research team has focused on developing topological qubits, which it said offer inherently low error rates, small size and digital control. The Microsoft researchers said they have improved <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/news/366619479/Microsoft-unveils-quantum-chip-Majorana-1-for-future-advances">Majorana 1’s material stack</a> to create a more stable topological phase.</p> <p>Majorana 2 replaces Majorana 1’s superconductor, aluminium, with lead, and also updates the semiconductor active region to a combination of indium arsenide and indium arsenide antimonide. According to Microsoft, this change in materials results in significant increases in performance.</p> <p>The researchers said the topological gap, which protects the topological qubits from environmental noise and errors, is more than double that of the previous quantum processor.</p> <p>According to Microsoft, the improvement in reliability, speed and small qubit size have put the team on a path to achieve a scalable quantum computer that is commercially viable by 2029.</p> <div class="youtube-iframe-container"> <iframe id="ytplayer-0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1bN4O5_meB4?autoplay=0&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;widget_referrer=null&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.computerweekly.com" type="text/html" height="360" width="640" frameborder="0"></iframe> </div> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="With a little help from AI"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>With a little help from AI</h2> <p>The quantum team is spread across multiple countries, with specialists in areas like physics, mechanical engineering and process engineering. To support the interdisciplinary research, Microsoft’s quantum team created an AI agent for organising and analysing information, and making it easier for others to find.</p> <p>“The AI is able to synthesise knowledge from all these different disciplines,” said Zulfi Alam, corporate vice-president for quantum at Microsoft, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641591/Novo-Nordisk-partners-with-OpenAI-to-AI-power-drug-development">providing researchers with access to information and recommendations</a>.</p> <p>The quantum team’s scientists and engineers have been using the agentic AI capabilities in Microsoft Discovery to manage workflows, automate measurements, optimise fabrication, pinpoint previously unnoticed flaws and propose fixes.</p> <p>AI is also being used to help researchers understand the vast amount of data that has been collated in quantum research. “As you run AI agents on this data, they’re able to essentially resynthesise and make correlations that we as humans cannot see because no single individual has that much vision across that much data,” said Alam.</p> <p>AI’s pattern-recognition abilities are also being used to help measure the state of qubits, which, in Microsoft’s quantum chip, means detecting whether there is an even or odd number of billions of electrons on a semiconductor wire. AI agents run the process automatically and continuously, building a 3D map of the conditions that a single scientist would never be able to do in the same way, said Alam.</p> <p>“Using agentic AI to automate the measurements was a game changer,” he said. “It goes through some math and starts saying, ‘Hey, where do I find the lowest point where everything sort of works?’ And it can do all these voltage adjustments in parallel, which a human cannot do. The way our minds work, we are more linear.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more quantum computing stories</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>How does <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/sustainability/feature/How-does-quantum-computing-affect-sustainability">quantum computing affect sustainability</a>: Quantum computing presents unique sustainability challenges due to its specialized infrastructure and energy demands, while also offering potential efficiency gains.</li> <li>Quantum risk to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Quantum-risk-to-quantum-readiness-A-PQC-roadmap">quantum readiness</a>: A PQC roadmap: No one knows exactly when quantum computing will arrive, but accelerating progress is prompting security and IT leaders to recognise the potential risks.&nbsp;</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p>The improvements being made with the help of agentic AI mean Microsoft sees a way to accelerate quantum development.</p> <p>“We need to make improvements each year that will get us closer to delivering a computer that we believe will have massive commercial and societal value,” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow.</p> <p>“We’ve got to keep marching to that roadmap to accomplish that, but where are we relative to last year? We’re 1,000 times better.”</p> <p>Commenting on the use of agentic AI in quantum research, he added: “Agentic AI has permeated almost everything we do – it’s just become kind of a very natural part of our workflow.</p> <p>“The agents can really accelerate things as much or as little as you want,” said Nayak. “It can be as little as pulling information together and summarising it, or it can go further down the road of synthesising it more or generating an interesting hypothesis. I think that’s extremely powerful right now.”</p> </section> Microsoft researchers have made a breakthrough in quantum reliability with the help of agentic artificial intelligence https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/quantum-computing-2-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643935/Agentic-AI-helps-Microsoft-speed-up-viable-quantum-computer Wed, 03 Jun 2026 06:15:00 GMT 60 editor@computerweekly.com