From May 8, Zimbabwe has begun circulating digital tokens backed by gold reserves that people can use to conduct peer-to-peer payments and transact with businesses, said Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John P Mangudya. International gold prices determined by the London Bullion Market Association will dictate the local pricing of the tokens, he added. The African nation is introducing local digital tokens to reduce reliance on the US dollar. The tokens will be available to purchase via banks, and transactions will be enabled through “e-gold wallets or e-gold cards” held by banks. Ther
India aims to establish 100 semiconductor design startups to create innovative solutions and designs for the global market, says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT. The union minister said that the country also plans to create a talent pool of 85,000 highly-skilled professionals in the sector. Rajeev Chandrasekhar was speaking at the third edition of the Semicon India event, which brought together students, young innovators, industry stakeholders, and other key individuals at IIT Delhi. With a brand-new curriculum in place, he believes India will contribute to t
India is looking to ramp up its exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a target of $50 billion in exports by the financial year 2026-27. This goal was set during a meeting between India's Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, and the UAE's Minister of Economy, Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri. The UAE is one of India's top trading partners, and India has been working to strengthen its economic ties with the country. In the financial year 2020-21, India's exports to the UAE stood at $14.42 billion, with imports from the UAE at $17.77 billion. The Indian government is now look
US tech giantsGoogle and Apple once had a war going to get the services of three important engineers, Srinivasan Venkatachary, Steven Baker and Anand Shukla, who play a key role in ramping up the artificial intelligence (AI) services, according to a report by The Information. The three engineers had previously worked for Apple and were instrumental in modernising Apple's search technology. They are now with Google and working on large-language models (LLMs), to lower training costs and advance the precision of LLMs and the products based on these models. The report said that Google CEO Sun
From July 1, 2023, the emissions reduction scheme of the Australian government, called the Safeguard Mechanism, will help the country meet its climate targets. The policy is expected to drive down industrial emissions. A reboot of an existing scheme, the revised scheme will push more than 200 of Australia’s top greenhouse gas polluters to make deep emissions cuts, by nearly 5 per cent a year to 2030 against a baseline or limit set by the government. The Safeguard Mechanism represents a major turnaround in Australia’s climate policies after years of deep divisions among the main poli
Group of Seven (G7) advanced nations should adopt “risk-based” regulation on artificial intelligence, their digital ministers agreed on April 30. However, the ministers said that such regulation should also “preserve an open and enabling environment” for the development of AI technologies and be based on democratic values. The top tech officials from G7 – Britain, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – met for G7 Digital and Tech Ministers' Meeting in Takasaki, a city about 100 km northwest of Tokyo, Japan, on April 29-30. In a joint statement iss
South Korea has restored Japan to its list of countries it gives preferential treatment in trade on April 24, three years after the Asian countries downgraded each other’s trade status in the midst of a diplomatic row led by historical grievances. South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in a government gazette also said Seoul will further restrict technology and industrial exports to Russia and its ally Belarus over the war in Ukraine. Japan and South Korea are working to repair relations, as they boost three-way security cooperation with Washington to counter the threat p
The UK government has announced £100 million in funding for a taskforce that would develop artificial intelligence (AI) models similar to ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, to help the country build and adopt the next generation of safe AI. The Foundation Model Taskforce will be modelled on the success of the COVID-19 Vaccines Taskforce, and will work on safe and reliable use of this pivotal AI across the economy and ensure that the UK is globally competitive in this strategic technology. The expert taskforce will launch first pilots targeting public services in the next six months, said an off
A World Bank report has estimated a 120% rise in the incomes of Indians working abroad and a 40% increase in incomes of Indians who migrated internally. The World Development Report (WDR) 2023 said that low-skilled Indians who migrate to the US could see a 500% jump in their incomes, while those settling in the UAE could see nearly 300% income rise. People migrating to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations – Oman, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain are likely to see a lesser income gain. The report, Migrants, Refugees and Societies noted that apart from skills, o
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers meeting took place in New Delhi under the chairship of India, with ministers from Russia, China, the Central Asian nations and observer nations Iran and Belarus discussing critical issues related to regional security. The meeting was chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and included Russia’s Sergei Shoigu, Tajikistan’s Colonel General Sherali Mirzo, Iran’s Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiyani, Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu, and Kazakhstan’s Colonel General Ruslan Zhaksylykov and other leaders. Malik A