200 million US citizens have had their sensitive personal data exposed accidently by a marketing firm contracted by the Republican National Committee. The data - which included 1.1 terabytes worth of information such as birth dates, home addresses, telephone numbers, and political views of about 62 percent of the entire US population - was available on a publicly accessible Amazon cloud server.

Access to the latest and greatest in emerging technologies places us in a favorable position as a society when it comes to combatting the pandemic. COVID-19 has essentially affected the entire world, not just in terms of health, but has also placed many businesses and entire industries at risk and has forced us all to work and learn from home. This has caused quite the disruption and many organizations and governments across the world are working tirelessly to put an end to the crisis in recent months.

Facebook has announced that they will be collecting data about users’ movements and relationships in an effort to help researchers better anticipate the potential areas in which the coronavirus might spread.

Smart Cities are no longer a phenomenon of the future, they are rapidly becoming a part of our digital reality. Smart cities use emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), smart sensors, augmented/virtual reality and many others to better the lives of the city’s respective citizens.

A number of China's leading technology firms have partnered on a pioneering new smart city initiative that has been created to ensure the smooth integration of emerging technologies designed to transform major cities.

Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei has unveiled an ambitious project designed to empower the future development of smart cities at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Huawei has announced that it is aiming to build a 'nervous system' of smart cities by utilizing and infusing new information and communications technology such as Big Data, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

Huawei announced the industry's highest-performance Advanced RISC Machine (ARM)-based CPU. The new CPU, dubbed Kunpeng 920, is designed to boost the development of computing in big data, distributed storage, and ARM-native application scenarios. Huawei will join with industry players to advance the ARM industry and foster an open, collaborative, and win-win ecosystem, taking computing performance to new heights.

Under the theme "Leading New ICT, The Road to Collaborative Public Safety", Huawei Global Safe City Summit 2017 will be held in Dubai, UAE from April 26-27. The event will bring together leading enterprises, industry experts, and partners from across the world to explore the trends and challenges of digital transformation within the public safety industry, as well as share innovative technology application practices.

At Lenovo's TRANSFORM event held in New York on June 20, the company unveiled an end-to-end data center portfolio that enables customers to harness the power of the "intelligence revolution" and create a strong technology foundation that supports transformative capabilities such as data analytics, high-performance computing, hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Some of Norway's largest companies are joining forces in establishing a national powerhouse for artificial intelligence. Its aim is to improve the quality and capacity for research, education and innovation in the field.

Telecommunication organizations in Latin America are devising strategies aimed at implementing structures which can enable them to monetize 'Big Data'. Many are currently involved in developing and deploying 'Big Data' solutions. However, monetizing these efforts remains a challenge for telco's in South America.

Today we are standing at the beginning of the Fourth 'Intelligence' Revolution, said Yuanqing Yang, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo at the company's TRANSFORM event held in New York on June 20. Yang said Lenovo will "redefine IT" and encouraged "intelligent transformation" driven by cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The digital economy’s share in China's GDP rose from 21.6% to 39.8% between 2012 and 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology data states, as per state media resources.

The telecommunications sector has always been at the forefront of innovation in the way that it has been connecting people and driving digital transformation in other industries for decades. Telcos have helped businesses all over the world to comprehend and unlock their full potential through digitalization. It has a proven track-record of being the ultimate key enabler in advancing the commercial world into the fourth industrial revolution.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) revealed that the number of data systems provided in cooperation with the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority and other government entities on bayanat.ae has reached more than 500 systems, covering various educational, health, environment and other fields. TRA said that this achievement is the result of cooperation with the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority and more than 36 federal and local entities, to enhance the UAE strategic direction towards digital transformation, keep pace with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and utilize data in finding innovative solutions to future challenges.

With an aim to harness the potential of big data in supporting government efforts and initiatives, the UAE government development and the Future Office, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) launched the ‘Driving Data for Good’ initiative As part of the ‘Future Partnerships’ initiative.