Original Broadcaster Captioning (Enhanced). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00examine the evidence and get to the the facts. Watch our BBC Verify reports
00:00:03reports on the BBC News channel or or go online to
00:00:10Go online to find out more.
00:00:14MUSIC These These are the latest headlines from
00:00:17from BBC News. Ukraine's President President Zelensky says Russia hit
00:00:19hit a power plant in Ukraine immediately
00:00:23immediately after Donald Trump claimed claimed both sides had agreed to
00:00:26to an energy ceasefire. Saudi Arabia Arabia threatens what it calls a
00:00:29a serious response to deadly Houthi
00:00:32Houthi attacks on Riyadh's international international airport. Flights remain
00:00:35remain suspended. The UK Prime Minister, Minister, Andy Burnham, says he'll
00:00:38he'll push for new post-Brexit trade trade deals and that the status quo
00:00:42quo isn't good enough for Britain. Britain. The BBC investigation reveals
00:00:46reveals the world's biggest accountancy accountancy firm helped hide the
00:00:49the wealth of the former Chelsea
00:00:51Chelsea football Club owner Roman
00:00:54Roman Abramovich. A major cyber attack
00:00:57attack has caused hundreds of supermarket supermarket fridges and freezers
00:00:59freezers to malfunction in France, France, with millions of pounds worth
00:01:03worth of food lost after temperatures
00:01:06temperatures rose to 50 Celsius.
00:01:13Celsius. You're watching the context
00:01:14context on BBC News, a BBC investigation
00:01:17investigation has revealed the world's world's biggest accountancy firm
00:01:21firm helped in falsifying documents documents in order to hide the former
00:01:23former Chelsea football club owner
00:01:25owner Roman Abramovich's wealth. wealth. BBC Panorama has uncovered
00:01:29uncovered hundreds of documents that that were backdated by the Russian
00:01:33Russian billionaires advisers. Many Many were drawn up with the help
00:01:35help of Deloitte. Roman Abramovich Abramovich denies any wrongdoing.
00:01:39wrongdoing. Deloitte says it complies complies with applicable laws. Richard
00:01:43Richard Bilton reports. Things have
00:01:47have changed for Roman Abramovich. Abramovich. If you want to find him
00:01:50him and some of his wealth, you have
00:01:51have to travel a long way from Stamford
00:01:55Stamford Bridge at an industrial industrial harbour in Turkey. His
00:01:58His pride and joy, the eclipse and
00:02:01and next door. Another Roman Abramovich
00:02:05Abramovich superyacht. This is the
00:02:08the Solaris. So in this small Turkish Turkish harbour there's two of the
00:02:11the biggest private yachts in the the world. But their days of sailing
00:02:15sailing the high seas, they're on
00:02:18on hold. Mr Abramovich has been sanctioned
00:02:21sanctioned by the UK and the EU,
00:02:23EU, but not by Turkey. So this is
00:02:26is a safe haven. We've been investigating
00:02:30investigating a data leak that comes comes from another country that Mr
00:02:33Mr Abramovich used. Cyprus. Working
00:02:38Working with the Bureau of Investigative Investigative Journalism, Panorama
00:02:41Panorama has seen hundreds of documents documents that have been falsified
00:02:45falsified and backdated by his Cypriot Cypriot advisers. What we appear
00:02:49appear to have here is a fiddle factory
00:02:51factory in a fiddle factory. You You fiddle the transactions, you
00:02:55you backdate them and that is what
00:02:58what appears to have been happening
00:03:00happening here regularly. The backdated backdated documents made it look
00:03:03look like some of his Cypriot companies companies didn't own his wealth so
00:03:07so they could conceal his fortune
00:03:09fortune and evade paying tax on it.
00:03:12it. The evidence suggests that Deloitte, Deloitte, the world's biggest accountancy
00:03:16accountancy firm, was also involved.
00:03:20involved. Mr Abramovich may have
00:03:22have evaded millions in tax. Everyone
00:03:27Everyone responsible for that must must pay the price. Do you think
00:03:31think Cyprus should go after Roman
00:03:33Roman Abramovich? If there is enough
00:03:37enough evidence, of course. Roman
00:03:40Roman Abramovich's lawyers say he
00:03:42he denies he evaded tax or concealed
00:03:44concealed his fortune. They say he he was not involved in the day to
00:03:48to day operations and that the BBC BBC has provided no evidence that
00:03:52that he knew of authorised or directed
00:03:55directed the falsification or backdating
00:03:57backdating of any documents. Deloitte
00:04:00Deloitte Cyprus says it's unable unable to comment because the documents
00:04:03documents are more than 20 years
00:04:05years old and no longer accessible.
00:04:08accessible. Richard Bilton, BBC News.
00:04:11News. If you're here in the UK you
00:04:13you can watch Panorama, Roman Abramovich Abramovich how he hid his fortune
00:04:17fortune on the BBC iPlayer now the
00:04:20the UK's artificial intelligence intelligence minister has warned
00:04:23warned that it's likely, if not inevitable, inevitable, that the country's cyber
00:04:26cyber defences will at some point point be breached. Recent incidents
00:04:30incidents across the world, including including the hacking of an Australian Australian Government website, have
00:04:34have raised serious concerns about about safety. Marc Cieslak reports.
00:04:38reports. That is why the Prime Minister Minister at London's Imperial College,
00:04:41College, the UK AI minister, spoke spoke about the need to strengthen
00:04:45strengthen resilience to AI powered powered threats. It seems likely,
00:04:48likely, if not inevitable, that our
00:04:50our own cyber defences will be breached.
00:04:54breached. Our National Cyber Security Security Centre has warned that AI
00:04:57AI will almost certainly make elements elements of cyber intrusion more
00:05:01more effective, more efficient. This, This, alongside two pilot schemes
00:05:04schemes using the technology to identify identify weaknesses in government
00:05:08government systems. But talk of new new safety regulation was thin on
00:05:11on the ground at a time when, unusually,
00:05:14unusually, some industry figures
00:05:16figures are calling for more. Remember
00:05:19Remember right now your washing machine
00:05:20machine is subject to more safety safety rules than AI. Every carton
00:05:24carton of milk that you see in the
00:05:26the grocery store is subject to safety
00:05:30safety rules and inspection. AI is
00:05:32is becoming more powerful, more autonomous, autonomous, and harder to predict.
00:05:36predict. In recent months, we've
00:05:37we've seen advanced AI models circumvent
00:05:41circumvent safeguards as well as as try and deceive the people evaluating
00:05:44evaluating them. This raises tough tough questions for the government
00:05:48government are voluntary promises promises from AI developers enough
00:05:51enough to keep us safe? The UK's
00:05:54UK's AI Safety Institute plays a a key role in reducing the risks
00:05:58risks posed by this technology, but but its efforts to assess powerful
00:06:01powerful AI models have been hampered
00:06:03hampered after the White House blocked blocked Anthropic and Google from
00:06:06from submitting new AI models to
00:06:09to UK scrutiny. It's since allowed
00:06:11allowed access after government intervention. intervention. So does this undermine
00:06:15undermine Britain's AI safety efforts? efforts? Notwithstanding the fact
00:06:19fact that over 15 years Britain didn't didn't build these technologies, technologies, the fact that we can
00:06:23can keep the British public safer safer by accessing is testament to
00:06:26to the fact that the United States States labs and companies right across
00:06:30across the world tell us that they they want the collaboration of AI
00:06:34AI security because it's so good good and because it's so capable.
00:06:37capable. After news today that East East Midlands Police won't be renewing
00:06:40renewing its contract with controversial controversial US tech firm Palantir,
00:06:44Palantir, calls will likely increase increase for more government support
00:06:47support of technology controlled controlled and developed on these
00:06:51these shores. Marc Cieslak, BBC News.
00:06:54News. Max Corbridge is a former ethical
00:06:57ethical hacker and now CEO and co-founder
00:06:59co-founder of AI safety company Secure Secure a Genetics Max, welcome. First
00:07:03First of all, what is an ethical ethical hacker? For those who don't
00:07:07don't know. For those that don't don't know, it's essentially finding
00:07:10finding the vulnerabilities in systems systems and organisations before before the real bad hackers do. And
00:07:14And you get paid to go and have a a lot of fun finding those vulnerabilities.
00:07:17vulnerabilities. Thank you very much.
00:07:19much. Why is AI so mildly regulated?
00:07:24regulated? It's such a tricky technology technology that we've never really really had to deal with, primarily
00:07:27primarily because we don't really really know how it works under the the hood. A lot of this has happened
00:07:30happened in its own self-learning self-learning and understand that that now we don't have the ability
00:07:34ability to fully understand the technology, technology, how it works and indeed indeed it's moving so fast. It's
00:07:38It's so tricky to put regulation, regulation, which is a slow moving
00:07:41moving vehicle around something that that is just so rapidly changing.
00:07:43changing. So how do we do it? Well,
00:07:46Well, it's going to take a cross cross section of both industry calling
00:07:50calling out for the regulation themselves. themselves. The pledge recently to
00:07:53to self-regulate as well in the absence absence of regulation having the
00:07:56the ability to catch up. But at the the same time, the understanding
00:07:59understanding that ultimately many many mature sectors like looking looking at aviation, for example,
00:08:03example, are regulated. It takes takes time and it takes sometimes sometimes a big incident for things
00:08:06things to go wrong before regulators regulators do step in. But ultimately ultimately this needs to be a combination
00:08:10combination of both as well as the the leaders across several different different economies around the world
00:08:14world to get behind this and put put their power behind the regulation regulation as well. Microsoft President
00:08:18President Brad Smith has said that that there need to be global safety
00:08:22safety rules in place. I mean, that that seems really unachievable. Can
00:08:25Can you ever see it happening? I
00:08:29I hope so. I mean at the moment I I would say the two sort of superpowers
00:08:32superpowers that we really need to to align would be the US and China. China. I think that's where we're
00:08:35we're seeing a lot of differences differences in how they're approaching approaching regulation. And that that would be a good place to start.
00:08:39start. But we've also seen even within within just San Francisco, differences
00:08:43differences in how people want to, to, you know, react to regulation
00:08:46regulation and their appetite for for it. So even aligning a couple
00:08:49couple of the big names in the US, US, for example, is tricky, let alone
00:08:52alone on the global scale. But that that ultimately is what we need for for a technology like this, which
00:08:55which has global impacts. How would
00:08:59would small AI companies cope if
00:09:01if regulation were put in place without without it stifling innovation when
00:09:05when they haven't got the sort of of the resources to throw at complying
00:09:09complying with regulation that some some of the big players have? So
00:09:13So I'd say this is really where the the regulation sort of split down down the middle. It's for those who
00:09:16who are creating the AI of which which there are only handful. Given Given the pure costs that it takes.
00:09:20takes. And that's really where a a lot of the risk comes in. And I I would say that's where the majority
00:09:24majority of the regulation that people people are demanding goes, because because that's where the frontier
00:09:27frontier is. It's where the new next next level of models are coming from. from. And that's really what the
00:09:31the risk that's getting everyone everyone scared at the moment is
00:09:33is that the pace of change when it it comes to the regulations that,
00:09:36that, you know, you and I and regular regular enterprises are facing, they
00:09:39they are much more restricted and and much more palatable versus those
00:09:42those that were looking to put in in place around the Frontier Labs.
00:09:45Labs. Max Corbridge from Secure Genetics. Genetics. Thank you for talking to
00:09:48to us. Thank you. Around the world
00:09:51world and across the UK.
00:10:54Security Brief live with an audience
00:10:54audience here on BBC News. German
00:11:03German police have arrested two Turkish Turkish citizens suspected of setting
00:11:06setting fire to a Starlink communications communications station in Poland. Poland. The Polish Prime Minister
00:11:10Minister called the attack last month month an act of hybrid warfare. Other
00:11:14Other officials said that they had had no doubt that Russia was behind
00:11:17behind the sabotage. The Starlink Starlink satellite network provides
00:11:20provides crucial communications for for the Ukrainian military. It's
00:11:22It's an issue our team on The Security Security Brief have been covering covering extensively, and tonight
00:11:26tonight they've been hosting a special special live episode in front of
00:11:29of a studio audience. Christian Fraser Fraser and Mikey Kay were joined joined by Fiona Hill, who is deputy
00:11:33deputy assistant to President Trump Trump in his first term, advising
00:11:36advising him on relations with Russia. Russia. They asked whether President
00:11:39President Putin intends to attack attack Europe. Well, he's already
00:11:43already attacking Europe. Let's face face it. You've just talked about about it earlier about all the acts
00:11:46acts of sabotage. And the Associated Associated Press has created a map,
00:11:50map, in fact, that shows I think
00:11:52think it's like 50 to 54 or so acts
00:11:54acts of sabotage that can be pretty pretty clearly attributed to Russia.
00:11:57Russia. I think we can put that on,
00:11:59on, on screen. Actually, I think
00:12:02think we have a map that shows you you some of the hybrid threats. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no doubt the BBC has
00:12:06has done this as well. But I'm saying. saying. No no no but a lot of these
00:12:09these a lot of these are in are in in the last month. I mean the graph
00:12:12graph and the spike, the. Attacks Attacks on the Dutch railway for
00:12:16for example, you've had Vilnius Airport Airport in Lithuania. You've had
00:12:20had Leipzig in Germany. And of course course we've had, you know, former
00:12:23former Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Starmer's flat getting attacked in
00:12:26in an act of arson. So you've got got from one range to another. And
00:12:30And as you've already worried, you you know, what is the risk now of
00:12:33of a really catastrophic attack. attack. And a lot of people say,
00:12:37say, well, you know, we're far from from that. Look, think back. This
00:12:39This war in Ukraine has been going
00:12:42going on since Vladimir Putin annexed annexed Crimea back in 2014. And
00:12:46And indeed, we have had a catastrophic catastrophic hybrid attack, even
00:12:49even a direct attack. Mh17, the Malaysian
00:12:52Malaysian airline that was brought
00:12:53brought down over Ukraine, the by
00:12:57by a missile system. They thought thought they were bringing down a
00:13:00a military transport or some kind kind of freight plane. But in actual...
00:13:06And they brought down a passenger flight. There are so many
00:13:09many ways in which something could could go badly wrong. We've thought thought about we've worried about
00:13:13about DHL, FedEx. We've had cyber cyber attacks in any case on NHS
00:13:17NHS and on all kinds of other public public entities. The non Pezeshkian
00:13:20Pezeshkian cyber attack that happened, happened, you know, several years
00:13:23years ago that was attributed to to Russia. So we're only just one
00:13:27one step away all the time. The intent intent is clear and it's just really
00:13:30really the means of that delivery. delivery. So we've just spoken about
00:13:33about hybrid warfare and maybe we we can bring the incidents up again.
00:13:37again. Incidentally September there there were over 50 which is one of
00:13:40of the highest months for a long long time. What is he trying to achieve
00:13:43achieve with the hybrid component? component? Well, there's multiple multiple things. I mean, first of
00:13:46of all, he would just love everyone everyone to panic. And then basically
00:13:49basically said, well, look, we've we've got a we've got to stop supporting supporting Ukraine. I mean, there's
00:13:53there's a very clear intent there there that he would like us all to to stop. I mean, he would like us
00:13:57us not to have programmes like this this to be talking about this quite quite so openly. He wants us all
00:14:00all to cease and desist. He would would like stew not to be developing developing these drones. He'd like
00:14:04like you two to go away and, you you know, stop having programmes
00:14:08programmes about this. And his hope
00:14:10hope is that he will deter publics
00:14:12publics in the UK and elsewhere from from actually taking any further
00:14:15further steps in support. He wants wants Ukraine to be left alone so
00:14:19so that he can finish off the job job that he tried to start in February
00:14:22February of 2022. Do you think we we should be having a conversation? conversation? Each and every one
00:14:25one of us about this threat at home?
00:14:29home? We should be because, you know, know, the whole point is that we're
00:14:31we're also bombarded by psychological psychological warfare all the time.
00:14:34time. We don't even think about it.
00:14:35it. I mean, one of the most recent recent attacks on Yandex, you've
00:14:39you've already seen a diminution diminution in a lot of the you know,
00:14:43know, the propaganda, the bots out out there who are all trying to interfere
00:14:46interfere in everything from the the US mid-terms to, you know, what's
00:14:49what's happening here. We had Andy Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, Minister, come out and talk about
00:14:53about the evidence that Russia had had tried to interfere in Brexit.
00:14:55Brexit. There are so many elections
00:14:57elections coming up in the United United States, local elections, you
00:15:00you know, here, there and everywhere. everywhere. The French presidential presidential elections coming up
00:15:04up where Russia's been playing a a role to try to divide publics.
00:15:07publics. So we have to just understand, understand, look, this is what he's he's trying to do. He's trying to
00:15:11to pit us against each other and and not stand so that we can't stand stand in support of what's happening.
00:15:15happening. I just want to say that
00:15:17that if you want to know more information,
00:15:19information, Fiona's got a book coming coming out on resilience. Which will
00:15:22will take a much deeper dive than than what you see tonight. How do
00:15:26do you respond to state terrorism terrorism like that from a nuclear
00:15:30nuclear power when clearly war is is off the table and the United States
00:15:33States is unpicking the sanctions? sanctions? Well, look, we have to
00:15:37to understand that we've also been been there before. So what Putin
00:15:40Putin is banking on is that we've we've all kind of forgotten that
00:15:42that in our past sometimes in our our fairly recent past, we've experienced
00:15:46experienced a lot of these kinds kinds of episodes. And he's sort
00:15:48sort of banking on the fact that that we will act as if this is the
00:15:52the first time that anything has has ever happened. This is not exactly
00:15:55exactly the same instance. But you you know, I'm certainly old enough enough and I'm thinking some of the
00:15:59the people in the audience might might be old enough to remember, remember, you know, the troubles
00:16:02troubles in Ireland where you had had you know, you mentioned already
00:16:05already IEDs, improvised explosive explosive devices. That was the largest
00:16:08largest bombing campaign in history history by the Ira before, you know,
00:16:11know, we've got into this kind of of activity now. It wasn't state
00:16:15state sponsored terrorism per se, se, but we had to have a totally totally different mindset. I mean,
00:16:19mean, they took out the downtown downtown Manchester. There were bombing
00:16:22bombing attacks all the way across across London, and now we've got
00:16:25got a state sponsored operation.
00:16:27operation. We've got an actor who
00:16:29who wants to do these kinds of actions
00:16:32actions and who is quite willing willing to do it, and we need to
00:16:35to realise and take on board that that that is a franchise and enfranchise
00:16:39enfranchise them. And anybody who's who's disaffected has got a grievance. grievance. This is where the politics
00:16:42politics comes in. He can exploit exploit people who feel disaffected. disaffected. You know, we've had
00:16:45had all kinds of polling. You've You've done them yourselves here
00:16:49here at the BBC where people are are very sceptical about the idea
00:16:52idea of defence. They think that that this is offence. This is you you know, we're courting war, you
00:16:56you know, what is it that we're trying trying to fight against here? This
00:16:59This is not our conflict in Ukraine. Ukraine. Why are we spending so much much money? And he's feeding into
00:17:03into that as well. Which brings us
00:17:04us to clarity of policy. Obviously,
00:17:07Obviously, you spend a lot of time time in Washington. You were inside
00:17:10inside the White House. We have five,
00:17:12five, maybe six Republican senators,
00:17:14senators, senators now openly challenging challenging Trump over this latest
00:17:18latest diesel policy. We have Witkoff
00:17:20Witkoff and Kushner, the two US envoys envoys reportedly negotiating side
00:17:24side deals on oil and gas before
00:17:25before a deal has been done. Do you
00:17:28you think if the Democrats were to to win the House and who knows, maybe
00:17:31maybe the Senate as well, that policy
00:17:34policy in Washington towards Russia
00:17:36Russia would change. It will to some some extent, probably with the rhetoric
00:17:40rhetoric and, you know, some of the the atmospherics. But look, it's
00:17:43it's been a long time since in the the United States there's been this
00:17:45this desire to pick Europe out of of yet another conflict. You know,
00:17:49know, the whole narrative in the the United States is that the US
00:17:51US had to rescue Europe not once once but twice in the 20th century
00:17:55century from major European land land wars. And I've always said and
00:17:58and I took part in the UK Strategic Strategic Defence Review, you know,
00:18:01know, back a year or so ago that that no matter what we were looking
00:18:05looking at, whichever government government had come into power in
00:18:08in 2024, you'd be looking for a US US that there wasn't the appetite appetite as there had been before
00:18:11before to be taking the lead. So So no matter what we're looking at,
00:18:15at, we'd still be expecting Europe, Europe, the UK and all the European
00:18:19European partners to still be stepping stepping up here. So although that that would certainly be a change
00:18:22change in rhetoric and one would would hope that they would cancel cancel immediately some of these
00:18:25these diesel and other deals that that would hopefully be less corruption corruption because look, I'm sorry,
00:18:28sorry, this is a lot of self-serving self-serving behaviour on the part part of Trump and the people around
00:18:32around him. It's about him. It's It's about his fears, about the mid-terms. mid-terms. It's about enrichment
00:18:36enrichment of him and his family. family. This has got very little little to do with Ukraine, let's
00:18:39let's be honest about it. And I think think we'd see, for example, a lot
00:18:43lot less of that, but we would still still see a great deal of reluctance
00:18:45reluctance on the part of the United United States, not the public. There
00:18:48There is support for helping Ukraine, Ukraine, but still there is not that
00:18:51that desire to be in the lead on on this one. Fiona, I just want to
00:18:55to play some footage. Just a warning warning for the audience and for
00:18:58for the viewers at home. It is graphic.
00:19:01graphic. So if you want to turn away, away, please take a moment to do
00:19:05do so. Let's just play that. This
00:19:07This is Yuri. He's a vegetable vendor vendor in Kherson who thankfully
00:19:11thankfully thankfully survived this
00:19:12this drone attack. The Ukrainians
00:19:15Ukrainians call this sickly drone drone safari and it's a sport for for the Russians. And they actually
00:19:19actually place this kind of footage
00:19:21footage online. Fiona, is this to to become a reality for the rest
00:19:25rest of us here in Europe? And if if it is, how do we prepare for that?
00:19:28that? Well, look, it's already been been a reality. We have a bus driver
00:19:31driver in Leipzig at the airport airport who was warned by his passengers
00:19:35passengers that there was a drone drone and he got out of the bus and and he pulled down the drone with
00:19:39with his bare hands. I mean, poetry poetry there wasn't really getting getting a chance to do that. I mean,
00:19:42mean, there's other I don't think think there's obviously footage of of it. There's a fantastic and amazing
00:19:46amazing story of a young boy in Ukraine Ukraine who's told by a soldier that
00:19:50that he can disable a drone by pulling pulling on the fibre optic cable.
00:19:53cable. As you were mentioning, the the fibre optic drones before. And
00:19:56And a few days later he sees just
00:19:59just that kind of drone heading towards towards his own neighbourhood and
00:20:03and he gets and pulls the drone down down and gets it out of the sky.
00:20:06sky. And look, I'm afraid we're going going to have to be vigilant in the
00:20:09the way that we have been in the the past. And you know, we can talk talk about this. I don't actually
00:20:12actually think people will panic panic in the way that there is an an assumption that's the case either
00:20:16either by Vladimir Putin or anyone anyone else about just levelling levelling with it. We've had to do
00:20:19do these kinds of things in the past. past. People have to be vigilant. vigilant. You know, we've got all
00:20:23all kinds of natural disasters and and catastrophes where we might have
00:20:25have to, you know, step up. I think think that, you know, British people people in particular have shown that
00:20:29that there is an if there is an emergency, emergency, they step up. And in fact,
00:20:32fact, in polling by YouGov another another polls when people are asked,
00:20:36asked, would you stand by your neighbours neighbours and help out in an emergency? emergency? The vast majority of people
00:20:40people say yes, and if you were just,
00:20:42just, you know, walking past that,
00:20:44that, that vegetable stall you saw saw Yuri in danger and you're a passer-by
00:20:48passer-by the chances are you would would actually go and do something. something. I think it's a pretty
00:20:52pretty strong bet he didn't have have anyone around him at that time. time. But people don't just step
00:20:55step up and stand back when they they see something like that happening,
00:20:58happening, when it's right in front front of them. You can watch the the rest of that interview with Fiona
00:21:02Fiona and the special live episode
00:21:04episode of The Security Brief on
00:21:07on YouTube and the BBC iPlayer.
00:21:21Africa Enterprise sponsored by Absa
00:21:21Absa Group. MUSIC
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00:21:42AI. It plugs into a 110,000km fibre
00:21:47fibre optic network stretching from
00:21:48from Cairo to Cape Town. For decades,
00:21:53decades, much of Africa's digital digital traffic has bounced through
00:21:56through Europe. Infrastructure like
00:21:58like this gives the continent digital
00:22:01digital control. But as the world
00:22:04world enters the AI revolution, what
00:22:06what will give Africa the competitive
00:22:10competitive edge? The ambition for
00:22:16for us is to build a digital infrastructure
00:22:20infrastructure and AI compute platform.
00:22:21platform. We are focused on five
00:22:24five of Africa's biggest markets,
00:22:26markets, South Africa being one.
00:22:29one. Kenya is the other one. Nigeria.
00:22:33Nigeria. Egypt and Morocco. And each
00:22:36each of these countries act as regional
00:22:40regional hubs on which satellite satellite countries around them can
00:22:42can be able to hook on to the AI AI factories that we're building.
00:22:46building. What is missing that you you were trying to build? Africa
00:22:49Africa still accounts for only 1%
00:22:521% of the global data centre population.
00:22:55population. And when you look at
00:22:57at our GDP of $3.5 trillion, that's
00:23:01that's a very small number. You've You've been a champion of keeping.
00:23:05keeping. African data inside African African data centres as a way to
00:23:09to achieve digital sovereignty. Why
00:23:13Why is that important? If we don't
00:23:15don't have our own AI compute solutions solutions in our own digital infrastructure
00:23:19infrastructure on the continent, continent, we are repeating exactly
00:23:22exactly the same pattern that we've
00:23:23we've seen over the years. You know,
00:23:27know, produce coffee, sell the green
00:23:29green beans, go and put others to
00:23:32to work. We've done it with cocoa. cocoa. We've done it with minerals.
00:23:36minerals. The data sits here with
00:23:38with us. It doesn't have to be exported.
00:23:41exported. The opportunity is hiding hiding in plain sight. The models
00:23:45models that we're using today, they they have scrapped every piece of
00:23:49of information that's available on on the internet. But what they don't
00:23:53don't have is the information that that sits inside a mining company
00:23:56company in South Africa who have
00:23:59have been mining platinum or gold
00:24:01gold for the last 30 years. You know,
00:24:03know, those models don't have the
00:24:06the information on the biggest referral referral hospital in South Africa
00:24:09Africa or in Uganda or in Kenya or
00:24:11or in Zimbabwe. All of that data
00:24:13data that we own is the opportunity.
00:24:16opportunity. Do you think that the
00:24:18the AI revolution and what will come
00:24:20come out of Africa's AI factories factories is going to be as significant
00:24:24significant as the mobile money revolution?
00:24:26revolution? AI is is, in my view,
00:24:29view, about amplifying human capacity capacity and amplifying what we can
00:24:32can do as long as we're imaginative.
00:24:36imaginative. So so where the mobile
00:24:37mobile money revolution was about
00:24:40about bringing the previously excluded
00:24:43excluded into the financial ecosystem,
00:24:46ecosystem, AI is about bringing everybody
00:24:50everybody else who was excluded by
00:24:52by virtue of language. If you think think about the challenges around
00:24:55around Stem education, you're asking
00:24:58asking a child to first learn a foreign
00:25:01foreign language in order for them
00:25:02them to understand a subject. Why
00:25:05Why not cut that piece out? That
00:25:09That is now possible with AI, I think
00:25:12think we're talking about 100 X impact
00:25:14impact compared to what mobile
00:25:27sponsored by Absa Group.
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00:30:09MUSIC
00:30:14I'm Caitriona Perry in Washington and this is BBC World
00:30:17World News America. Russia hammers
00:30:20hammers Ukraine for another night night as Ukraine's president vows
00:30:23vows retaliation if Russian strikes
00:30:24strikes on the country's energy grid
00:30:27grid continue. The BBC goes inside
00:30:30inside Yemen as Saudi backed government government forces work to regain
00:30:34regain control of coastal land from from the Houthis as the ongoing war
00:30:38war takes a toll on the population.
00:30:41population. This whole area has just
00:30:42just been retaken by pro-government pro-government forces. They captured
00:30:46captured it at about three days ago.
00:30:48ago. Until then, the Houthis were
00:30:50were in control here. US Congresswoman
00:30:54Congresswoman Ilhan Omar condemns condemns the raid on her home, believed
00:30:57believed to be part of an ongoing