What moved, and where.

Sunday 30 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Eight items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Pacific Islands Forum

The 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting opens in Koror, Palau on 30 August and runs to 4 September, with the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles before leaders after Forum foreign ministers backed them on 14 August, the principles meant to feed a regional artificial intelligence governance framework and to be tested and adapted before leaders consider that framework in 2027, and ministers also backing work on a Pacific Regional Approach to Safer Digital Spaces after leaders raised the effect of social media platforms on young people and on the wider population. This page logged the ministers' decision on 26 August as sitting outside the window; what is new is that the meeting where leaders take the principles up has started.

pina.com.fj

pacific regional-bloc summit ai-strategy guidelines

Australia

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission published a joint information paper on 27 August drawn from nine roundtables held in June and July with more than 600 people from the financial system, run alongside the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and said that awareness of frontier artificial intelligence risk now has to turn into action, that the ordinary work of cyber security still decides most outcomes, that boards should set risk appetite, escalation and communication before a crisis rather than during one, that interest in using artificial intelligence for defence is growing while the capability remains limited, and that reliance on a small number of service providers can turn one incident into a sector wide one, with ASIC commissioner Simone Constant saying now is the time to make sure a tested plan is in place for when the worst happens.

finextra.com

pacific regulator safety guidelines

China

Public comment on the draft Anti Cyber Violence Law closed on 28 August, a month after the Cyberspace Administration of China put the text out on 29 July, the draft requiring platforms to trace, remove, block and report to the authorities cyberbullying content that is generated or spread using artificial intelligence, to run automated detection, and to give users a one click protection feature, with fines up to 10 million yuan, and with a site, an application or a business licence able to be shut down or withdrawn for serious or repeat breaches.

lawstreet.co

asia regulator online-safety consultation

Morocco and India

Morocco and India agreed in Rabat on 24 August to set up a joint commission on languages and digital technologies, with large language models named as its subject, at the seventh session of the Morocco India Joint Commission attended by Morocco's minister delegate for digital transition and administration reform, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, and India's minister of state for commerce and industry and for electronics and information technology, Jitin Prasada, the first stated aim being to carry Moroccan Darija and Amazigh into Idarati, the platform Moroccans use to reach government services online, with Seghrouchni pointing to an Indian application that already works in 28 languages.

moroccoworldnews.com

africa asia national-government new-institution capacity-building

Brazil

The National Data Protection Authority argued in public on 26 August for the quick passage of an artificial intelligence law, its superintendent for technological innovation Lucas Costa dos Anjos telling a panel at Febraban Tech in Sao Paulo that a bill is needed because it would bring more legal certainty to the whole ecosystem, and that while the general data protection law already carries rules that reach artificial intelligence, a new law would add protection for people whose rights could be breached, with the country still working without a dedicated artificial intelligence statute while the authority runs a regulatory sandbox in the gap.

convergenciadigital.com.br

latin-america regulator ai-law

Pataskala, Ohio, United States Q9

The Pataskala city council voted seven to nil on 25 August to reject the site plan for a 200 megawatt, three building campus proposed by Aligned Data Centers in the city's industrial park, council members saying they could not vote on plans that did not yet say how the site would be powered, because that question falls to the Ohio Power Siting Board only after the city approves, and that they would not make decisions based on guesses, with the developer having put the project at more than 100 permanent jobs and more than 5 billion United States dollars, and with voters in Pataskala and Granville due to decide a proposed ban on large data centres at the ballot on 3 November.

thereportingproject.org

north-america local-government data-centres participation planning energy

California, United States

The California legislature sent four artificial intelligence bills to the governor between 24 and 26 August, ahead of its 31 August adjournment: AB 2656, which would require state and local public employers to give written notice to employee organisations at least 45 days before bringing in generative artificial intelligence that affects represented jobs, passed on concurrence 74 votes to 2; SB 503, which would require developers and deployers of medical clinical decision support tools to find and reduce biased effects, passed 39 to nil; AB 2392, which would have the state's universities convene a joint working group on procurement standards for generative artificial intelligence by 1 January 2028, passed the Senate 38 to nil; and AB 2025, which would require disclosure when artificial intelligence has altered promotional material for real property, passed the Senate 39 to 1 and the Assembly 78 to nil.

transparencycoalition.ai

north-america parliament ai-law transparency procurement

United States

Bloomberg reported on 26 August that political opposition is slowing data centre growth and pushing developers and the firms funding them to take community objections into account, citing the investment firm Kimmeridge Energy Management for an estimate that as many as half the data centres proposed in the United States are at risk of delay or cancellation, and McKinsey for the observation that the backlash is real enough that some operators are abandoning sites they have already spent money on.

bloomberg.com

north-america industry data-centres participation

Three of the eight items are from the United States and none are from Europe, so the two places this page works against over-representing account for three of eight, and the United States on its own stays under half. The Pacific, East Asia, Africa with Asia, and Latin America make up the rest. One item carries Q9, the Pataskala vote, where a residents' petition put a ban on the November ballot and the council refused a project because it could not see how it would be powered. Nothing found today answers the question of the accounts nobody reads, so no item carries Q10.

Dropped as older than the window: six organisations, among them Acción Cívica, the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts and human rights clinics at Virginia and Anglia Ruskin universities, asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on 21 August to make Chile explain Supreme Decree 17/2025, published on 21 January 2026, which lifted the fuel storage threshold that triggers environmental assessment from 80 tonnes to 1,000 tonnes and narrowed the electrical infrastructure trigger, and which lets the 200 million United States dollar Cerrillos data centre proceed without assessment after an environmental court had partly revoked its permits over water. That is two days outside the seven day window, so it is recorded here rather than logged as current, and it is the clearest thing found this week for both open questions.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Europe beyond items already on this page, searched by name and in Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic as well as English. Brazil's PL 2338 is still with the Chamber of Deputies special committee, Kenya's draft artificial intelligence and emerging technologies policy closed for public comment on 4 August, Malaysia's artificial intelligence governance bill consultation closed on 31 July, and the African Union's continental strategy produced nothing new in the window. Correcting yesterday's note: PACNEWS has published editions on 25, 26, 27 and 28 August, so the claim that none had appeared since 21 August was wrong; none of those editions carried an artificial intelligence or data centre item. Ahead: submissions to the Australian Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres close on 1 September, Japan's revised guidelines for government procurement and use of generative artificial intelligence take effect on 1 September, the Council of Europe framework convention on artificial intelligence takes effect for the European Union on 1 September, the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting runs to 4 September, Spain's data centre consultation closes on 4 September, the Eastport city council takes up its permanent ban on 9 September, Mexico's regional forums run to 17 September, Spartanburg County has its third reading on 21 September, Ofcom's consultation on fraudulent advertising codes closes on 2 October, and Pataskala and Granville vote on a data centre ban on 3 November.

Nothing was left out under the defence rule today: no item found in this window was primarily military or defence.

Saturday 29 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Eight items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Spain Q9

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition opened a public consultation on 27 August on a draft royal decree covering the energy sustainability, environmental protection, resilience and digital sovereignty of data centres, which would apply to new sites drawing a megawatt or more, set interim efficiency thresholds of 1.15 for power use and 0.1 for water use until the European classification system starts in August 2027, require a substantial share of the electricity consumed to be matched by newly built renewable generation, and require operators to be based in the European Union with public sector data held and moved only inside it, with companies, organisations and any other interested party able to file observations until 4 September.

estrelladigital.es

europe national-government data-centres consultation energy water data-sovereignty

United Kingdom Q10

The Green Party of England and Wales called on 28 August for a pause on approvals for new large scale data centres in England, its leader Zack Polanski telling the BBC that the government is putting artificial intelligence companies ahead of water stressed communities after the driest July on record, with the party's objection resting on the classification of data centres as critical national infrastructure, which places them alongside energy, water and food for priority access during a drought, and the party asking for an exception only for local scale centres serving a local community, while Labour rejected the call on the ground that it would cost jobs.

greenparty.org.uk

europe civil-society data-centres water moratorium

Mozambique Q9

The Mozambican Association of Artificial Intelligence was launched in Maputo on 28 August with its leadership sworn in at a ceremony opened by Lourino Chemane, chairman of the National Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, the association bringing together government bodies, private companies, universities, researchers, technology professionals, entrepreneurs and civil society, and the institute coordinating a proposed National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and a national data governance policy alongside it.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government civil-society ai-strategy participation

Indonesia and Malaysia Q10

A report published on 27 August set out how the water demand of data centres is being contested across South East Asia, with eighteen areas of Batam in Indonesia already classed as water scarce and household demand there projected at 280 million cubic metres a year against 139 million available, a single new centre using 3,000 cubic metres a day, about what 30,000 residents use, and nine planned centres by 2032 needing 29,000 cubic metres a day or roughly 8 per cent of the island's supply, with Batam residents protesting since December 2024 and occupying the mayor's office in January 2026, Greenpeace Malaysia and eight other civil society organisations objecting on emissions, noise, urban heat and water, Johor tightening its approval criteria to require sufficient energy and water, and Malaysia's National Water Services Commission issuing guidelines for developers.

khan.co.kr

asia civil-society data-centres water environment

More than one hundred companies

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, IBM, Hugging Face and more than a hundred other technology, finance and manufacturing companies published a joint open letter on 27 August saying that artificial intelligence enabled cyberattacks will become far more widespread within months and that the services communities depend on, from hospitals to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that carries the internet, are at risk, asking governments to coordinate locally, nationally and internationally, to fund essential services with limited budgets, and to widen access to defensive tools for hospitals, water utilities and local governments, and asking frontier artificial intelligence companies to provide funding, training and hands on support to operators who cannot act on their own.

axios.com

global industry safety funding

Eastport, Maine, United States Q9

The Eastport planning board voted unanimously on 27 August to recommend that the city adopt a permanent ban on data centres across every zoning district, widening a citizen initiated ordinance that the city's own lawyers had already found legally sound subject to formatting, the same lawyers finding a second citizen petition unlawful because it would have required a public vote on any new industrial or commercial development above 25,000 square feet on land or 10,000 square feet in the water, with the city council due to consider the recommendation on 9 September, the council having adopted a 180 day pause on 14 August, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission having accepted DeepGreen Western Passage's preliminary permit application on 24 August to explore placing a tidal powered data centre underwater off the city.

newscentermaine.com

north-america local-government data-centres participation planning environment

Palm Springs, California, United States Q10

The Palm Springs city council voted unanimously on 26 August for a 45 day pause on new large scale data centres, running to 10 October while the city considers zoning rules over the next two years, with residents raising water use, electricity demand and the extra cooling a desert site needs, other residents asking the council to keep the door open to future development, and councilmember Grace Garner saying the city needs to be thoughtful about regulating an industry that is changing quickly because other communities have faced huge detriments, the decision following temporary pauses in Desert Hot Springs and Indio and a permanent ban approved in Coachella in the same week.

kesq.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium water

Garfield Township, Michigan, United States Q10

The Garfield Township board voted unanimously on Tuesday 25 August for a one year pause on data centres and cryptocurrency mining, extendable by six months, adopted as a zoning ordinance amendment recommended by the planning commission rather than as a standalone resolution, after residents packed a zoning meeting in July over water, electricity rates and the environment, which stalls a proposal by an Illinois developer to convert a building on Cass Road into a small scale data centre.

interlochenpublicradio.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium energy

Three of the eight items are from the United States and two are from Europe, so five of eight come from the two places this page works against over-representing, and the United States on its own stays under half. Africa, Asia and a global industry item make up the rest. Two items carry Q9 and three carry Q10. The Spanish consultation is the clearest Q9, because the method is published and the door is open to anyone until 4 September; the Eastport item is the other, because the ordinance began as a residents' petition and is headed for a public vote.

Dropped as older than it looked: the Africa AI Governance Index 2026 from the Nairobi based Lawyers Hub, which scores all 54 African states on 80 indicators across eight pillars and finds every sub region strongest on written strategy and weakest on the funding, oversight and enforcement to run it, was covered on 27 and 28 August as though new, but the report was unveiled at the inaugural United Nations Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance in Geneva on 7 July. Mexico's regional consultation forums on the use of artificial intelligence and digital platforms by minors, running from 19 August to 17 September with the conclusions going to Congress separately from the Senate committee's own bill, were announced by the presidency on 20 July. Chile's science ministry set six priorities for 2026 to 2030, one of them treating artificial intelligence as critical infrastructure, and said a replacement artificial intelligence bill would go to Congress within weeks, but that was on 13 August.

Dropped as older than the window: Trinidad and Tobago's judiciary issued a practice direction on the use of artificial intelligence in legal proceedings on 20 August, and Grenada called for inclusion, capacity building and safeguards in the use of digitalisation and artificial intelligence for land restoration and drought resilience on 19 August. Both are Caribbean items and both fall just outside the seven day window, so they are recorded here rather than logged as current.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific beyond Australia, and the Middle East and North Africa, searched by name and in Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic as well as English. Brazil's PL 2338 sits with the Chamber of Deputies special committee with no sitting in the window, Colombia's bill last moved on 5 August, no PACNEWS edition has appeared since 21 August, and the most recent Arabic language items are the unified Arab artificial intelligence strategy and Saudi Arabia's copyright law, both earlier than the window. Ahead: the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting sits in Palau from 30 August to 4 September with the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles before leaders, submissions to the Australian Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres close on 1 September, Japan's revised guidelines for government procurement and use of generative artificial intelligence take effect on 1 September, Spain's data centre consultation closes on 4 September, the Eastport city council takes up the permanent ban on 9 September, Mexico's regional forums run to 17 September, and Spartanburg County in South Carolina has its third reading on a one year pause listed for 21 September.

Nothing was left out under the defence rule today: no item found in this window was primarily military or defence, and the open letter on artificial intelligence enabled cyberattacks is about civilian critical infrastructure, so it is logged rather than excluded.

Thursday 27 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Five items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Australia Q10

National Cabinet agreed on 26 August that large data centres have material impacts on energy, water and land use and that the Commonwealth will work with the states and territories on consistent mandatory national standards covering those three areas along with skills and training, the Prime Minister saying the standards would be legislated early next year, and the proposal that new large centres underwrite additional renewable generation with gas firming did not survive into the agreement, Queensland and the Northern Territory keeping a technology agnostic approach that allows gas or coal, which the Queensland Premier called a good win for his state. This page recorded yesterday that the meeting was under way and that the outcome was not known at the time of the scan; the outcome is what is new.

abc.net.au

pacific national-government data-centres energy water land

Sri Lanka Q9

The Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo policy institute, published a statement on 23 August on the government's plan to pilot artificial intelligence assisted drafting of legislation, starting with the proposed Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill in Sinhala, Tamil and English, saying that lawmaking in the country already suffers from inadequate consultation and limited transparency, warning that political choices presented as objective machine output would let decision makers step away from accountability, and asking for mandatory human review, public disclosure whenever the tools are used, independent audits for bias and accuracy, data protection standards and real openings for public scrutiny.

cpalanka.org

asia civil-society transparency consultation participation

Ireland Q10

Figures reported on 24 August show data centres drawing on Ireland's public water supply used 514 million litres between May and July, close to double the 276 million litres they used over the four months from January to April, with July alone above 200 million litres, about what 50,000 people use, and Uisce Éireann, the national water utility, said the volume is a fraction of total production and not a risk to public supply, while the government's data centre report replaced a draft recommendation for measurable targets on water use with a call for transparent reporting on energy and water instead.

thejournal.ie

europe national-government data-centres water transparency

Durham County, North Carolina, United States Q10

Durham County commissioners voted four to one on Monday 24 August for a nine month pause on new large data centres, running to May 2027 and matching the pause the city of Durham had already adopted, with the ordinance exempting only buildings under 100,000 square feet that use closed loop cooling and no diesel backup generators, which leaves the hyperscale projects covered, residents having raised water use, electricity demand, noise and air and water pollution, and the one commissioner who voted against saying she opposed the exemption rather than the pause.

publicradioeast.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium water planning

Marshalltown, Iowa, United States Q9

The Marshalltown city council passed the second and third readings of a four month pause on data centre applications on 25 August, in force from 27 August to 23 November, with residents asking that the people who pay the rates be the ones to decide and that the wider community be drawn into the conversation, and the developer Swarm Systems telling the council it wanted the chance to meet whatever standards the city sets, putting its proposal at about 345 million United States dollars, roughly 3 million a year in property tax and 50 to 60 permanent jobs, with no tax incentive sought.

timesrepublican.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium consultation

Two of the five items are from the United States and one is from the European Union, so three of five come from the two places this page works against over-representing. Searches by name for Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Pacific beyond Australia and East and South East Asia, including searches in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic, returned nothing inside the seven day window that is not already on this page. Three things sit just outside the window and are worth watching: Pacific Islands Forum leaders meet in Palau from 30 August with the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles before them, the House of Lords inquiry into the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act takes written evidence until 7 September, and Japan's revised guidelines for government procurement and use of generative artificial intelligence take effect on 1 September.

Two items carry Q9 and three carry Q10. The Sri Lankan statement is the clearest Q9 of the week, because it is about how the public would be let into a lawmaking process that is being partly automated, rather than about a consultation that has already been run.

Dropped as older than it looked: a data centre digest dated 25 August listed three moratorium decisions that had happened earlier, Madison County in Arkansas passing its three year pause on 17 August, Westover in Alabama passing its six month pause on 18 August, and the Westover town hall falling on 20 August. A search result dated 24 August on Mexico turned on President Claudia Sheinbaum's remark that the country will not become the world's data centre, which she made at her morning press conference on 18 August.

Nothing was left out under the defence rule today: no item found in this window was primarily military or defence.

Wednesday 26 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Five items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Australia Q10

National Cabinet met the Prime Minister in Sydney this morning with the proposed mandatory standards for large artificial intelligence data centres on the agenda, and the ABC reported at 5:15am that New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory back the standards while Queensland and the Northern Territory still object, energy minister Chris Bowen saying the government is requiring new data centres to bring their own renewable energy backed by gas firming and repeating that the Commonwealth is prepared to legislate over the states, Queensland deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie replying that Bowen should be working with state and territory governments rather than acting as a big brother bully, and the report putting data centre electricity use on a path from 3 per cent of national supply to 13 per cent within a decade. This page recorded on 24 August that the meeting was expected to settle the standards; what is new is the line up of states, the projected share of the grid, and that the meeting is under way. The outcome was not known at the time of this scan.

abc.net.au

pacific national-government data-centres energy water standards

New Mexico, United States Q10

The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously granted two petitions from environmental groups late on Sunday 23 August, pausing the state Environment Department's air quality permit hearing for the natural gas fuel cell system proposed at Project Jupiter, the Oracle and OpenAI data centre campus under construction in Doña Ana County, and ordering the Office of the State Engineer to stop allowing water from a particular well to be used for the site's construction, with both orders answering arguments that the permitting processes denied the groups due process, the air hearing that had been set for 14 September in Sunland Park now off the calendar, and the hearing officer in that case standing aside.

sourcenm.com

north-america court data-centres water environment litigation

Andhra Pradesh, India Q10

The substance of the 24 August hearing logged here yesterday has since been reported: the bench headed by Chief Justice Lisa Gill declined the petitioner's request for an interim status quo, which would have stopped work at the site, and instead directed the state to ensure that construction of the Google and Adani data centre project in Visakhapatnam goes ahead only after every legal and environmental permission is obtained, with a consolidated response required from the departments that granted the approvals before the matter returns next week.

thenewsminute.com

asia court data-centres water environment litigation

Ozark, Missouri, United States Q10

The Planning and Zoning Commission of Ozark voted unanimously on 25 August to recommend a data centre code to the Board of Aldermen, which would allow micro and large load data centres only on land zoned industrial and only with a conditional use permit and a public hearing, and would require an environmental impact report, disclosure of the building's size and intended use, compliance with noise limits, and a prohibition on open loop and once through cooling, with the city saying it has received no application from any developer.

ky3.com

north-america local-government data-centres water planning environment

Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States

The Lightstone Group's proposed 200,000 square foot, 60 megawatt data centre at 300 Jones Road went to the county Board of Zoning Appeals on 25 August after county staff denied the application in June for not complying with the land management ordinance and rejected a revised submission in July on procedural grounds, with the county's proposed one year pause on new data centre applications still awaiting its third reading, which council put off on 17 August to hear from more residents and experts and has now listed for 21 September.

wspa.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium planning

Three of the five items are from the United States, which is more than half and is the skew this page works against. Searches by name for Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific beyond Australia, the Middle East, Europe and East and South East Asia, including searches in Spanish, Portuguese and French, returned nothing inside the seven day window that is not already on this page. What those regions did produce this month is logged in the entries below: COMESA and Malawi, Lesotho, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, Türkiye, Japan, Vietnam, ASEAN and the Holy See.

Four items carry Q10, all of them decisions where water, air or land is the substance rather than a side effect. Nothing found today answers the question of how the many are asked, so no item carries a Q9 tag.

Dropped as older than it looked: an aggregator listed under 25 August a Marquette Law School poll finding that 76 per cent of Wisconsin voters think the costs of data centres outweigh the benefits, but that survey ran from 8 to 16 July and was released on 22 July. A second aggregator dated the discussion draft of the Great American AI Act to 25 August, but Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan released it on 4 June. A third listed California's SB 947, the No Robo Bosses Act, on 25 August, but the state Senate passed it 29 votes to 9 on 20 May.

Dropped as older than the window: New South Wales published its Data Centre Policy Framework, the first state detail under the national direction, on 17 August. Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers backed the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles on 14 August, for Forum Leaders to consider in Palau from 30 August. Ireland's debate over following New York into a data centre pause was reported on 7 August, and New York's own executive order was 14 July.

Tuesday 25 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Andhra Pradesh, India Q10

The Andhra Pradesh High Court heard the public interest petition against the Google and Adani data centre hub near the Kambalakonda wildlife sanctuary and the Mudasarlova drinking water reservoir in Visakhapatnam on 24 August, with counsel for the state telling the bench that care and caution is being exercised in ensuring that all steps are taken within the parameters of law, the petitioner arguing that temple land is involved, that no environmental impact study was done, and that the project sits close to forest and water reservoirs in a city already short of water, and the court giving the state and its authorities until a hearing next week to file counter affidavits.

barandbench.com

asia court data-centres water environment litigation

Brazil

The Chamber of Deputies science, technology and innovation committee approved Bill 4356/25 on 20 August, which sets rules for artificial intelligence used in Brazil's unified public security system and requires human supervision of every action and decision an artificial intelligence system produces, barring automatic arrests and seizures without qualified human intervention, with deputy Coronel Meira as rapporteur, and the proposal now going to three further committees before the Chamber and the Senate can pass it.

camara.leg.br

latin-america parliament ai-law safety

COMESA and Malawi Q9

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa opened a four day stakeholder consultation in Lilongwe, reported on 21 August, drawing on the public sector, the private sector, academia, development partners and civil society to build a regional artificial intelligence and digital inclusion strategy, an action plan and model policies, with COMESA infrastructure and logistics director Bernard Dzawanda saying artificial intelligence can transform public service delivery, agriculture, healthcare and trade but also raises governance and ethical questions that need coordinated regional responses, and Malawi's information and communications technology minister Shadric Namalomba saying digital transformation will benefit the region only when all citizens have equitable access to digital technologies.

socialnews.xyz

africa regional-bloc consultation ai-strategy participation capacity-building

Japan

The Cabinet Office put a revised draft Principle Code on protecting intellectual property and ensuring transparency in generative artificial intelligence to the thirteenth meeting of its study group on intellectual property rights in the artificial intelligence era on 18 August, resting on three pillars: publishing an overview of models, training data and accountability measures, answering enquiries from rights holders who are pursuing legal proceedings, and answering enquiries from users who generated content with the service, with no legal force behind it and a comply or explain approach taken from corporate governance stewardship codes.

timewell.jp

asia national-government guidelines copyright transparency

Türkiye

A presidential circular published in the Official Gazette on 18 August put the Türkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026 to 2030 into force, coordinated by the Ministry of Industry and Technology and following the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy that ran from 2021 to 2025, with technological sovereignty, data driven development, public sector efficiency and international competitiveness set as its aims, and human centredness, reliability, ethical responsibility, digital sovereignty and sustainable development named as its guiding principles.

resmigazete.gov.tr

middle-east national-government ai-strategy data-sovereignty

Australia

The Australian Parliament appointed a Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence on 20 August, with the government backing an opposition initiative, to examine the effect of artificial intelligence on national security, productivity, competitiveness and living standards, and to look at whether existing laws are adequate, at the importance of data sovereignty, and at the impact on communities.

miragenews.com

pacific parliament ai-law data-sovereignty

Nothing from the United States or the European Union met the window today, which is unusual for this page and is reported here rather than filled in with procedural items. The Q10 tag is the Visakhapatnam hearing, where a wildlife sanctuary, a drinking water reservoir and the streams between them are the substance of the case rather than a side effect of it. The Q9 tag is the COMESA consultation, which names civil society among the sectors it drew on and says what the input is meant to produce.

Left out under the defence rule: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a National Security Science and Technology Strategy on 18 August that puts artificial intelligence and autonomous systems at the front of military capability, which is a defence item and outside this page's scope.

Dropped as older than it looked: an aggregator dated the United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre's warning about frontier models taking unsanctioned actions on the open internet to 20 August, but the NCSC's own statement carries 4 August, so it was not logged.

Dropped as older than the window: CARICOM's agreement to set up a regional Blue Ribbon Commission on Artificial Intelligence at its summit in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia was reported on 3 August. Amazon Web Services withdrew its Calvert Cliffs data centre application in Maryland on 4 August, after three county commissioners who had voted against a pause lost their primaries. Malaysia's public consultation on its AI Governance Bill closed on 31 July, and Kenya's draft artificial intelligence and emerging technologies policy closed for submissions on 4 August. Joint comments by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and Fight for the Future against the Federal Trade Commission's artificial intelligence policy proposal were 3 August. The Canadian civil society open letter opposing the thirty day National Sprint consultation, which asked for the task force to be reconstituted and the survey redesigned, was October 2025.

Held rather than logged: the American local data centre items inside the window are all mid process rather than decided. Salem Township in Pennsylvania was voting on 24 August on expanding its data centre overlay zone for a 1.4 billion dollar campus, with no result published at the time of this scan; Spartanburg County in South Carolina has a zoning appeal listed for 25 August after planning staff refused an application during a moratorium; Doylestown Township in Pennsylvania and Cumberland in Rhode Island both advanced draft ordinances; and Kokomo in Indiana approved a zoning amendment on 17 August that still needs a council vote in September. Salix in Iowa is already on this page from the 22 August scan.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Europe, where the Commission's August items still date from the 2 August start of enforcement and no member state regulator moved; the Caribbean, including CARICOM and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union; the Middle East in Arabic beyond the Türkiye circular; and the Pacific island bulletins, where no PACNEWS edition has appeared since 21 August. Ahead: the Australian national cabinet is due to settle mandatory national standards for large artificial intelligence data centres on Wednesday 26 August, and the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting sits in Palau from 30 August to 4 September with the Pacific digital and artificial intelligence principles going to leaders there.

Monday 24 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Australia Q10

The federal government expects to settle mandatory national standards for large artificial intelligence data centres at a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday 26 August, the ABC reported on 24 August, with the rules requiring big centres to draw their power from new renewable projects and to underwrite their own energy and water infrastructure, Queensland and the Northern Territory saying they will not sign a standard that rules out coal and gas, energy minister Chris Bowen saying the government wants data centre investment that is in the best interest of Australians, Queensland premier David Crisafulli framing his objection as data sovereignty and respect for communities' wishes, and the Commonwealth signalling it will legislate the causer pays energy rules next year whether or not every state and territory agrees.

abc.net.au

pacific national-government data-centres energy water standards

Andhra Pradesh, India Q10

The Andhra Pradesh government approved AM AI Factory (Vizag) Pvt Ltd on Saturday 22 August to build a 512 megawatt green integrated artificial intelligence data centre at Amanam village in Bheemunipatnam mandal in Visakhapatnam district, an investment of more than 31,387 crore rupees expected to employ up to 1,000 people and to be built within two years and four months, with the state providing power infrastructure support and undertaking to ensure water supply, alongside exemptions from stamp duty and electricity duty.

business-standard.com

asia national-government data-centres energy water planning

Brazil

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched about 444 million United States dollars of artificial intelligence spending at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Norte on 20 August, splitting the work between a 1.3 billion real supercomputer in Rio de Janeiro built with the Chinese firms Huawei and iFlytek and a tender of about 1 billion reais in the north east expected to go to the American chipmaker Nvidia, with the government saying the strategy is not to depend on a single company, technology or country, and adding a national centre for algorithmic transparency at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and semiconductor work with Spain.

chinaglobalsouth.com

latin-america national-government data-sovereignty funding transparency capacity-building

Argentina

Amnesty International published a report on 18 August finding that Argentina spent about 1.2 million United States dollars on artificial intelligence surveillance tools across 2024 and 2025, including facial recognition, social media monitoring and aerial surveillance, drawing on 21 interviews with journalists, activists and human rights defenders alongside procurement documents and freedom of information requests, and asking the government to prohibit remote biometric recognition used for discriminatory surveillance and to put accountability mechanisms around the rest.

infobae.com

latin-america civil-society ai-law transparency

Lesotho

Lesotho's Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation ran a five day workshop in Maseru from 17 to 21 August with the United Nations in Lesotho to draft a National AI Strategy and a Data Centre Blueprint, with deputy prime minister Justice Nthomeng Majara calling for a cautious and strategic approach that assesses the country's existing capability and puts safeguards, infrastructure, policy and people in place before scaling investment, and minister Nthati Moorosi noting that more than 100 stakeholders were brought together in 2025 to validate related policies.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government un ai-strategy data-centres capacity-building

California, United States

The California Senate gave SB 1159 final passage thirty seven votes to nil on 20 August, a bill that states an artificial intelligence system is not a person under the state's public records and open meeting laws.

transparencycoalition.ai

north-america parliament ai-law transparency

Nothing found today answers the question of how the many are asked, so no item carries a Q9 tag. The two Q10 tags are both infrastructure decisions where water and power sit in the reasoning: Australia's proposed standards, and the Andhra Pradesh approval, which was granted in the same district where the High Court hears a challenge on 24 August to a data centre hub near the Kambalakonda wildlife sanctuary and the Mudasarlova drinking water reservoir.

Left out under the defence rule: NITDA director general Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi urged the Nigerian Army on 20 August to use artificial intelligence and data for modern warfare, which is a military application and outside this page's scope.

Dropped as older than the window: Vanuatu's call for Pacific cultural and traditional knowledge to be protected from artificial intelligence systems without free, prior and informed consent, and for that safeguard to be made enforceable rather than voluntary, was delivered by special envoy Fred Samuel at the Forum ICT Ministers Meeting in Port Moresby that closed on 23 July and was reported on 4 August. Chile's science ministry said on 13 August it will bring a new artificial intelligence bill to replace the one in its second reading in the Senate. The Abidjan Declaration 2026 to 2030, adopted by data protection authorities from 24 African countries, was May 2026. Palm Beach County's refusal of the Project Tango data centre resurfaced in Spanish language coverage on 19 August, but the vote itself was July.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: the Middle East in Arabic and English; the Caribbean, including CARICOM and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, where the most recent movement is still the roadmap endorsed on 7 July; Europe, where the Commission's August items all date from the 2 August start of enforcement; and the Pacific island bulletins, which carried one opinion piece on 20 August about who owns the region's cables and no governance item. Ahead: the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting sits in Palau from 30 August to 4 September, with the Pacific digital and artificial intelligence principles going to leaders there.

Sunday 23 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

ASEAN

The ASEAN Law Forum met in Hanoi on 18 and 19 August on applying artificial intelligence in law making and law enforcement, with justice officials from all ten member states, the ASEAN Secretariat, the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the UN Development Programme, UNICEF and the European Union taking part, and Vietnamese deputy justice minister Nguyen Thanh Tinh closing on 19 August by saying the countries shared an understanding that artificial intelligence must be grounded in the rule of law, transparency and accountability, that no single governance model suits every country, and that the forum's ideas should be turned into regional cooperation frameworks.

en.vietnamplus.vn

asia regional-bloc guidelines transparency ai-strategy

Chesapeake, Virginia Q9 Q10

Chesapeake City Council voted nine to nil on 18 August to take data centres off the by right track altogether, so every future project needs a conditional use permit, and the ordinance also bars data centres from connecting to groundwater, after a hearing at which close to forty people spoke and most of them opposed data centres in the city at all; an eight month pause on applications already in place means nothing can come before the council until early next year.

whro.org

north-america local-government data-centres water planning participation

Harrington, Delaware Q9

Harrington City Council voted unanimously on the evening of 17 August against an ordinance that would have allowed data centres as a conditional use in the city's manufacturing zones, after close to an hour of public comment from a crowd of about a hundred people that filled a library meeting room and spilled into the hallway, with residents raising water, sewer capacity, electricity, infrastructure and noise; the decision blocks a 24 megawatt project on the former Harrington Logistics site.

delawarepublic.org

north-america local-government data-centres planning participation

El Paso County, Texas Q10

El Paso County Commissioners Court approved a resolution on 17 August and wrote to Governor Greg Abbott asking whether the data centre protections he ordered on 3 August reach the borderland at all, since El Paso sits outside the ERCOT grid those protections were built around, and asking him to pause further data centre development until water use, electricity costs, infrastructure and environmental impacts are dealt with, and to consider calling a special session of the legislature.

kvia.com

north-america local-government data-centres water energy environment

Fairborn, Ohio

Fairborn City Council passed a resolution on 21 August setting a twelve month pause on new data centres, and on self storage, convenience stores, service stations and car washes with them, with members saying the city has little commercial and industrial land left and that decisions about how it is used will shape the town for decades.

fairborndailyherald.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium planning

Vietnam and Brazil

A Vietnamese delegation led by ambassador Bui Van Nghi visited Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul from 17 to 19 August to widen cooperation on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and digital transformation, and the embassy and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul jointly ran a Vietnam and Latin America forum on innovation and digital transformation there on 19 August, which took up Vietnam's place in the Global South, the effect of artificial intelligence on education and workforce development, and the use of large data sets in precision agriculture.

en.vietnamplus.vn

asia latin-america national-government capacity-building global-south

Four of the six are American local government, which is more than this page should carry on a normal day. The reason is the weekend: the searches by region turned up almost nothing dated 21 or 22 August anywhere, and the American council calendar was the part of the week still running.

Held rather than logged: five more American local items fell inside the window and are not here, because logging them would have left the page almost entirely American. Alamance County in North Carolina passed a one year moratorium five to nil on 17 August after a hearing at which more than twenty three residents spoke and several asked for two years. Keller in Texas voted unanimously on 19 August to take legal action against neighbouring Westlake over a data centre proposed 506 feet from Keller homes, and began its own 90 day moratorium. Spokane County in Washington approved a four month pause, Kalamazoo in Michigan a one year pause, and residents in Granbury, Texas went to court on 17 August to revive a recall of the mayor and four council members over a roughly 2,000 acre project.

Dropped as older than the window: Thailand's Board of Investment will screen data centre projects against four tests covering benefit to the country, energy security, water resources and environmental impact, but that was announced on 10 August. The Andhra Pradesh High Court brought forward its hearing on the Google and Adani data centre hub near the Kambalakonda wildlife sanctuary and the Mudasarlova drinking water reservoir in Visakhapatnam, but the court did that on 4 August; the hearing itself is set for 24 August. Statesboro in Georgia approved a data centre rezoning three to two on 18 August in front of a hostile chamber, and sits with the held American items above.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Africa in English and in French, and on the African technology outlets directly; Latin America and the Caribbean in Spanish and Portuguese, including the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's own site; the Middle East in Arabic and English; Europe; and the Pacific, where the PACNEWS bulletin for 21 August carried an Asian Development Bank commentary on digital infrastructure and no governance item. Australia's national cabinet was due to consider the national artificial intelligence and data centre standards announced on 15 July at a meeting in August, and no record was found that it has yet done so. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule.

Saturday 22 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Vietnam

Vietnam's list of 46 high risk artificial intelligence systems took effect on 15 August under Decision 33/2026/QD-TTg, covering transport with 31 systems, ethnicity and religion with seven, education with three, healthcare and banking with two each and litigation with one, and requiring providers to report the risk level to the Ministry of Science and Technology before use, run a conformity assessment and keep a risk management plan running for the life of the system.

vietnamnews.vn

asia national-government ai-law safety standards

Texas Q9 Q10

The Texas House Committee on State Affairs sat for more than six hours on 19 August taking invited and public testimony on data centre development and on the planning process behind proposed 765 kilovolt transmission lines, with the chair capping data centre testimony at 2pm to make room for the transmission item, water experts and local officials among those heard, and ERCOT chief executive Pablo Vegas telling members that the state audit of interconnection requests ordered on 3 August will not finish until late 2026.

communityimpact.com

north-america parliament data-centres water energy grid participation

Nigeria

Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency and the Budget Office of the Federation inaugurated a Joint Technical Committee on the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative on 21 August, chaired by Budget Office director general Tanimu Yakubu with NITDA director general Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi as co-chair, to work through the government cloud spending, procurement, financing, connectivity, power, cybersecurity and data governance questions the initiative raises.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government data-sovereignty data-centres procurement funding

Salix, Iowa

Salix City Council voted three to two on the evening of 20 August against a one year pause on data centre development that the council could have shortened or extended, at a meeting held a week late because city officials had received death and terroristic threats on social media, and after Google was named in early August as the prospective customer for the roughly 900 acres of farmland the town annexed in April.

iowapublicradio.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium planning participation

Malawi

The GSMA released a report in Lilongwe on 20 August finding that about 80 per cent of Malawians are offline although 87 per cent live under 4G coverage, with unique mobile internet penetration at 12.5 per cent and smartphone adoption at 33 per cent, and recommending that Malawi develop a national artificial intelligence strategy aligned with wider African frameworks alongside a coordinated national digital economy strategy.

gsma.com

africa industry ai-strategy capacity-building guidelines

Holy See

Pope Leo XIV told the International Catholic Legislators Network at the Vatican on 21 August, during its meeting in Rome from 20 to 23 August, that legislation on emerging technologies should protect users from exploitation, preserve personal privacy, require transparency in how the technologies are used and guarantee that they strengthen democratic institutions.

catholicworldreport.com

europe faith guidelines transparency online-safety

The Texas item follows through on the note in the 14 August scan: the House committee hearing was still ahead when that was written, and it has now been held.

Dropped as older than the window: Panama's Cabinet Council adopted the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy by Resolution 89-26, but that was reported on 12 August. The Caribbean Telecommunications Union's Caribbean AI Task Force final report was launched at the Caribbean AI Forum on 23 and 24 July. The Cherokee Nation's ban on hyperscale data centres on tribal and trust land was early August and is already noted on this page. Figures circulating from a Data Centers and Energy forum in Santiago dated 21 August turned out to be from August 2025, not this year.

Held rather than logged: the American local data centre items running through 20 and 21 August were the same set already held on yesterday's entry, with Tulsa County, Bay City, Tulare County, Piedmont, Austin and Sioux Falls all still moving. Salix is logged instead because the vote went against a moratorium and because the meeting had been delayed by threats against officials.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, the Middle East in Arabic and English, and the Pacific in the PACNEWS bulletins for 19, 20 and 21 August, which carried no artificial intelligence or data centre item. The Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers' AI principles are already on this page from the 14 and 18 August scans. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule.

Friday 21 August 2026

Scanned 07:05 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

New South Wales, Australia Q10

New South Wales released a Data Centre Policy Framework on 17 August, which pv-tech.org describes as the first state translation of Australia's national data centre policy direction into operating rules, requiring data centres to be net generators of renewable energy rather than net consumers, putting the cost of the extra energy infrastructure on the centres rather than on households and small businesses, ordering an independent review of water pricing to protect water security for other communities, and offering a 75 day assessment commitment to developers that meet the performance measures.

pv-tech.org

pacific national-government data-centres energy water planning consultation

Nye County, Nevada Q10

Nye County commissioners voted five to nil on 18 August to ban data centres in Basin 162, the Pahrump Valley groundwater basin, then voted four to one to set a public hearing on land use rules, special use permits and development standards for data centres in the rest of the county, while a third item proposing a special election on the question received no motion and failed.

reviewjournal.com

north-america local-government data-centres water land planning

Butte-Silver Bow County, Montana Q9

District Court Judge Frank Joseph declined on 19 August to rule immediately in the lawsuit brought by the group 406 People First against the county clerk over 3,652 signatures rejected on 10 August for a ballot initiative that would let Butte residents vote on whether data centres are allowed in the county, and ordered further briefing before deciding the following week.

kbzk.com

north-america court civil-society data-centres litigation participation

Zambia

At a seminar on artificial intelligence cooperation with China reported on 17 August, SMART Zambia national coordinator Percy Chinyama warned against adopting models built for mature environments without regard to Zambian circumstances, capabilities and culture, and Ministry of Technology and Science permanent secretary Dr Brilliant Habeenzu said cooperation should build on existing national capabilities rather than substitute for them, with officials citing Zambia's retained ownership of the health data in its SmartCare Pro platform as the precedent.

iafrica.com

africa national-government ai-strategy data-sovereignty standards capacity-building

Ghana

Ghana opened its 2026 National ICT Week on 17 August with deputy minister Mohammed Adam Sukparu describing the national artificial intelligence strategy adopted in April 2026 as covering data governance, infrastructure, talent development, ethical use and practical applications, and pointing to an AI capacity building programme for public officials run with UNESCO, the UN Development Programme and Japan.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government ai-strategy capacity-building guidelines

St Joseph County, Indiana Q9

A St Joseph County vote to widen a tax increment financing district to take in a Microsoft data centre project, expected in the week after 19 August, was moved to 22 September, with councilwoman Amy Drake questioning how the tax revenue would be shared rather than returned to taxpayers, and council candidate Jan Cervelli running a public education session to explain what the financing district would mean.

wsbt.com

north-america local-government data-centres planning participation

Left out under the defence rule: the National Information Technology Development Agency urged the Nigerian Army on 20 August to use artificial intelligence and data for modern warfare.

Dropped as older than the window: Chile's Ministry of Science set six axes for 2026 to 2030 and said a new artificial intelligence bill would replace the one in its second reading in the Senate, but that was 13 August. Parliamentarians from sixteen Asia-Pacific countries, including Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Tonga, called for responsible AI at a forum in Phnom Penh on 11 to 13 August. The World Bank's World Development Report 2026 on artificial intelligence, which reached African coverage on 17 August, was launched on 4 August. The Brazilian Senate's science and technology committee hearing on regulating AI data centres was 4 August. The British government's concession in the Iver data centre judicial review was January 2026.

Held rather than logged: six other American local data centre items surfaced on 20 August, with Google confirmed as the end user of a 506 acre campus in Tulsa County, a planning subcommittee formed in Bay City, a 45 day moratorium approved in Tulare County, citizen petitions gathered in Piedmont, rules under consideration in Austin, and the mayor of Sioux Falls arguing against a moratorium. Logging them would have made the page mostly American local government again.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Asia in English and in searches by country, Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, the Middle East in Arabic and English, and Europe. The Asian and Latin American items that did surface were either older than the window or already on this page.

Thursday 20 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Six items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Pennsylvania Q9

Governor Josh Shapiro signed Executive Order 2026-05 on 18 August, directing the Department of Environmental Protection to review a data centre permit application only where the developer has made a legally binding commitment to the Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development requirements and has already received local approval, removing AI data centre proposals from the state's fast track permitting process and prohibiting non-disclosure agreements on data centre projects, after the state House passed the same requirements and the Senate declined to bring them to a vote.

pa.gov

north-america national-government data-centres planning transparency participation consent energy

Mexico Q9

The first of Mexico's regional forums on regulating children's use of digital platforms, social media and artificial intelligence opened on 19 August at the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, two days after President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that more than a million basic education teachers would be asked their view on regulating phones in schools during the school technical council sessions on 24 and 25 August, with the forums' conclusions to be sent to the Congress of the Union to support a possible bill.

elsiglodetorreon.com.mx

latin-america national-government consultation participation online-safety ai-law

Vietnam

Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology issued a binding directive on 13 August prohibiting government agencies from uploading classified documents to public artificial intelligence platforms, which techtimes.com describes as the first time a Southeast Asian country has turned its AI law into an operational enforcement instruction.

techtimes.com

asia national-government ai-law data-sovereignty procurement safety

Mozambique Q9

Mozambique's information and communication technologies institute INTIC held a national and inclusive dialogue on 14 August on artificial intelligence and the cultural and creative economy, with the discussion centred on ethical governance, algorithmic transparency and protecting intellectual property in AI generated content, following its presentation of a draft national AI strategy to Vodacom on 12 August.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government ai-strategy consultation participation transparency copyright

Chesapeake, Virginia Q10

Chesapeake City Council voted unanimously on 19 August for a data centre zoning ordinance that allows new facilities only as a conditional use in industrial areas, prohibits them from drawing groundwater, and closes the by right development route that had let projects proceed without a council decision.

wtkr.com

north-america local-government data-centres water planning environment

Keller, Texas

Keller City Council voted unanimously on 19 August to take legal action against the neighbouring town of Westlake over a proposed 1.1 million square foot data centre on their shared boundary, and began a 90 day moratorium process of its own, a case of one town taking its neighbour to court over a development on their shared boundary.

wfaa.com

north-america local-government data-centres litigation moratorium planning

The Mexico item follows through on yesterday's note: the Nuevo Leon forum was still ahead when that scan was written, and it has now opened.

Dropped as older than the window: Egypt was elected to chair the AI governance working group of the Arab Permanent Committee for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, but that was 31 July in Tunisia. COMESA's national AI strategy consultations across 21 member states opened in Kenya on 29 June and reached Zambia on 13 July. Bangladesh's draft national AI policy for 2026 to 2030 reads as current on several sites, but its public consultation closed on 8 February 2026. The Caribbean Telecommunications Union's AI task force final report was launched at the Caribbean AI Forum on 23 and 24 July.

Held rather than logged: seven other American local councils acted on data centres on 18 and 19 August, with moratoria in Kalamazoo, Spokane County and Tulare County, a refining of thresholds in North Mankato, a halt to talks in Maquoketa, a residents' petition in Trumbull, and a hearing in Greensboro. Logging them would have made the page almost entirely American local government on a day when four regions had nothing.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Europe, the Middle East in Arabic and English, the Caribbean, the Pacific in the PACNEWS bulletins for 18 and 19 August, and East Asia. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule.

Wednesday 19 August 2026

Scanned 13:53 Brisbane (UTC+10). Seven items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

ASEAN and Vietnam

The ASEAN Law Forum 2026 opened in Hanoi on 18 August on applying artificial intelligence to law making and law enforcement, with Deputy Prime Minister Le Tien Chau proposing four areas of cooperation: common principles for AI in lawmaking and enforcement, shared standards for digitising legal data, training people who hold both legal and technical skills, and a standing dialogue between member states for sharing experience.

en.vietnamplus.vn

asia regional-bloc national-government ai-law capacity-building

Lesotho Q9

Lesotho's Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation opened a five day workshop with the United Nations in Maseru on 17 August to draft a National AI Strategy and a Data Centre Blueprint, with Deputy Prime Minister Justice Nthomeng Majara calling for safeguards, policies and human capacity to be in place before AI investment is scaled up, and Minister Nthati Moorosi saying more than 100 stakeholders validated related policies in 2025.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government un ai-strategy data-centres consultation capacity-building

Dubuque, Iowa Q9

Dubuque published the results of its data centre survey on 18 August: of 3,777 responses, 76 per cent said they would not support a data centre and more than 90 per cent named energy use, water use and environmental effects as the most important things for an ordinance to cover, with the council due to vote on a six month moratorium on 8 September, a draft ordinance in November and a final vote expected in December.

kcrg.com

north-america local-government data-centres consultation participation moratorium water energy

Louisiana Q9

The Louisiana Public Service Commission voted on 12 August to cancel a subpoena that would have required Meta to disclose its investment, its permanent job numbers and the electricity its north Louisiana data centre will demand, overruling the administrative law judge who had ordered the disclosure, after an hour and a half of public testimony from more than 20 people and objections from the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Alliance for Affordable Energy and Earthjustice; the commission decides on the associated gas plants on 16 December.

thelensnola.org

north-america regulator data-centres energy transparency participation

Westover, Alabama Q9

Westover City Council in Alabama voted unanimously on 18 August for a six month moratorium on data centres, having tabled the ordinance at its previous meeting, after residents objected to a proposed development during public comment, with Mayor Bobby Pardue saying the pause gives the city time to make the changes it needs.

abc3340.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation planning

Australia

Government News published criticism on 19 August of the Office of AI set up inside the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, with technologist Lambros Photios arguing that spreading responsibility for the national framework across several ministers leaves no single minister accountable for it.

governmentnews.com.au

pacific industry national-government ai-strategy new-institution

Fiji

Cybersecurity specialist Alex Teh told the annual Fiji CyberSec conference on 18 August that criminals are using artificial intelligence to run phishing and deepfake attacks at greater speed and scale, that the Pacific has become a cyber frontline as connectivity grows, and that the roughly 1,000 IT graduates Fiji produces each year are a workforce the country could build a cybersecurity capability on.

islandsbusiness.com

pacific industry safety capacity-building

The ASEAN item moved: yesterday's entry logged Vietnam's announcement that it would host the forum, and the forum has now opened, with the four cooperation priorities its Deputy Prime Minister put to member states.

Dropped as older than the window: the White House confirmed its voluntary frontier model review framework was complete and briefed OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta on it, but that was 3 and 4 August. The EU Action Plan on Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence is dated 7 July. Brazil's Senate science and technology committee held its public hearing on PL 3.018/2024, on regulating AI data centres, on 4 August. Fife Council's 1,200 objections to a hyperscale data centre were reported in July. An open letter from 41 organisations and 123 individuals opposing Canada's National Sprint AI consultation reads as current on several sites but is dated 31 October 2025.

Held rather than logged: Fort Worth City Council's unanimous first vote toward a data centre moratorium on 12 August sits inside the window, but logging it would have made four of seven items American local government. The first of President Sheinbaum's three regional forums on regulating AI and social media for children sits in Nuevo Leon on 19 August, which was still ahead in Mexican time when this scan was written, so it is not logged as having happened.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East in Arabic and English, and East Asia. Nothing today met the test for Q10, the accounts nobody reads. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule.

Tuesday 18 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Eight items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Pacific Islands Forum

The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat published the outcomes of the 2026 Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting on 12 August, recording that ministers, who met in Suva on 7 August under a Solomon Islands chair, backed the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles for Forum Leaders to consider at their 55th meeting in Palau, supported work on a regional AI Governance Framework to go to Leaders in 2027, and supported a Pacific Regional Approach to Safer Digital Spaces.

forumsec.org

pacific regional-bloc ai-strategy guidelines

Kenya Q9

Kenya's Office of the Data Protection Commissioner closed its public consultation on 17 August on three draft guidance notes covering artificial intelligence, emerging technologies and privacy-enhancing technologies, with the AI note mapping the Data Protection Act onto each stage of an AI system's life and placing content recommendation engines in the same compliance bracket as facial recognition and loan scoring.

ppc.land

africa regulator guidelines consultation data-sovereignty

Brazil Q9

Brazil's national data protection authority closed a public consultation on 17 August, open since 30 June on the government's Brasil Participativo platform, on rules for digital platforms under Decree 12,976 of 2026, which requires platforms to take down non-consensual intimate images within two hours of notice and bars the use of artificial intelligence to create false intimate images.

gov.br

latin-america regulator consultation online-safety participation

Punjab, Pakistan

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif chaired a meeting on 16 August reviewing progress on Punjab AI Vision 2029, a six-pillar plan she said should make Punjab the most artificial intelligence enabled province in South Asia by 2029, and directed work on an AI-enabled delivery unit and a Chief Minister AI stocktake to monitor it.

nation.com.pk

asia local-government ai-strategy

Franklin County, Virginia Q9

Crusoe's Project Flash data centre at Summit View Business Park in Franklin County, Virginia was dropped on 17 August after strained negotiations and opposition from residents, more than 200 of whom had attended meetings raising concerns about transparency and further development.

wsls.com

north-america local-government data-centres participation

Bayonne, New Jersey Q9

ROI-NJ reported on 17 August that Bayonne, New Jersey has banned data centres, with the city council approving the prohibition unanimously on 13 August and Mayor Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski signing it after months of grassroots opposition.

roi-nj.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation

Granbury, Texas Q9

Residents of Granbury, Texas asked a Fort Worth appeals court on 17 August to revive a recall effort against the mayor and four council members over their handling of the Project Patriot data centre, alleging breaches of open meeting rules in how the zoning approval was made.

keranews.org

north-america local-government data-centres litigation participation

Colorado

Colorado's House Bill 26-1263, which requires operators of conversational artificial intelligence services to disclose that the service is not a person, run a self-harm response protocol and estimate user age, entered into force on 12 August, with its content moderation duties for minors following on 1 January 2027.

digitalpolicyalert.org

north-america parliament ai-law online-safety

Dropped as older than the window: the African Union Commission and Smart Africa reaffirmed joint work on the Continental AI Strategy in Geneva, but that was reported on 20 July. CARICOM's endorsement of the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap was 7 July. The UAE's Artificial Intelligence and Data Authority was approved in mid June. The Future of Life Institute's Summer 2026 AI Safety Index was published in July. Mexico's forums on regulating AI and social media for children were announced on 20 July, with the first sitting on 19 August in Nuevo Leon, so that one is worth watching rather than logging.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: the Caribbean, the Middle East in Arabic, Europe, and East Asia. Nothing today met the test for Q10, the accounts nobody reads. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule.

Monday 17 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Eight items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day address from the Red Fort on 15 August was live translated into 22 Indian languages by Bhashini, the government's open source translation platform, and he pledged artificial intelligence skills training for ten million young people over the coming year under the theme Yuva Shakti for Viksit Bharat@2047.

businesstoday.in

asia national-government ai-strategy capacity-building

ASEAN and Vietnam

Vietnam's Ministry of Justice announced on 14 August that it will host the ASEAN Law Forum 2026 in Hanoi on 18 and 19 August on applying artificial intelligence to law making and law enforcement, with about 150 delegates from all ASEAN member states plus Japan, South Korea, China, the UNDP, UNICEF and the OECD, and sessions on the legal frameworks member states have built for AI.

vietnamnews.vn

asia regional-bloc national-government ai-law capacity-building

Anthropic

Anthropic published its second company wide Risk Report on 14 August, covering 24 February to 15 July, raising its rating of the risk of catastrophic harm from misalignment in high stakes settings from very low to low, describing the change as an uncertainty adjustment rather than a new finding, and disclosing an unreleased internal model it calls Model 2 which it says is somewhat more capable than its frontier model and which it has no current plans to release.

anthropic.com

global industry safety alignment transparency

California

California's Senate and Assembly Appropriations committees held their suspense file votes on 13 August, sending on bills covering chatbots and children's safety, customer service chatbots, workplace surveillance, artificial intelligence in healthcare and student privacy, while holding AB 412 on copyright documentation requirements and AB 2545 on assessing the effect of AI on the workforce.

transparencycoalition.ai

north-america parliament ai-law online-safety copyright

United States, Northern District of California

Judge William Orrick issued an order on 12 August granting in part and denying in part motions to dismiss in Andersen v Stability AI, letting the artists' direct and induced copyright infringement claims proceed to discovery, and citing a statement by Stability's chief executive that the company compressed 100,000 gigabytes of images into a two gigabyte file able to recreate any of them; trial is set for 8 September.

iclg.com

north-america court litigation copyright

Alberta Q9

The Alberta government announced on 11 August four town halls on artificial intelligence data centres hosted by Technology Minister Nate Glubish, the first in Ponoka on 19 August and the second in Sturgeon County on 20 August, and Ben Baril, who plans to protest at the Sturgeon County session near Meta's proposed one gigawatt facility, said genuine consultation would have come before the projects were approved rather than after.

globalnews.ca

north-america local-government data-centres consultation participation energy

Indianapolis Q9

The Indianapolis City-County Council voted 23 to one on 10 August to stop new data centre permitting until at least 31 December 2027 so a committee of experts and residents can study campus size, building height, sound levels and environmental effects, and the three projects that drew the most community opposition, in Warren Township, Martindale-Brightwood and Decatur Township, are exempt because they are already approved.

wfyi.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation planning

Fort Peck Tribes Q9 Q10

The Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board voted on 10 August to end all future discussions between the tribal government and data centre developers across the two million acre reservation in Montana, with Chairman Floyd Azure saying three companies had approached the tribes in the past year and none could answer what benefit the tribes would get, and board member Roxanne Gourneau citing the reservation's history of contaminated drinking water.

montanafreepress.org

north-america indigenous data-centres water consent land environment

Dropped as older than the window: the Cherokee Nation banned hyperscale data centres on tribal land after a task force survey of 1,593 citizens found 64 per cent opposed, and now requires robust consultation for proposals on non tribal land inside the reservation, but that decision was taken on 5 August and only reached wider outlets between 10 and 12 August. INTERPOL's African Cyberthreat Assessment 2026, released on 3 August, drew on 36 African member countries and found artificial intelligence linked to 55 per cent of reported cyber incidents on the continent. President Claudia Sheinbaum's regional forums to build a Mexican proposal on artificial intelligence and social media use by children run from 19 August to 17 September, but were announced on 20 July.

Dropped again as older than it looked: an English language aggregator carried Vietnam's directive barring government bodies from putting classified documents into public AI platforms as dated 13 August. The instrument is Official Dispatch 4920/BKHCN-CNCNTT, dated 7 July. This is the fourth run in ten days on which an aggregator carried a date the primary source did not support.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Africa in English and French, Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. Five of the eight items here are from North America, which is a worse spread than this page should carry. The weekend of 15 and 16 August was quiet almost everywhere, and the regional searches returned country guides and reference pages carrying no dates, so part of the gap may sit in the search layer rather than in the world. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule today.

Sunday 16 August 2026

Scanned 07:06 Brisbane (UTC+10). Seven items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

Canada, Alberta Q9 Q10

The Alberta Court of King's Bench ruled on 13 August that O'Leary Digital cannot take part in the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation's judicial review of water licences for the C$70 billion Wonder Valley AI data centre, with Justice P. K. Johal finding the company's connection to the licence contingent and speculative, and the review of whether the Nation was consulted before Alberta granted rights to six million cubic metres from the Smoky River is set down for December.

theenergymix.com

north-america court indigenous data-centres water consent consultation litigation

Louisville, Kentucky Q9

Louisville Metro Council voted 24 to one on the night of 13 August for a six month pause on new data centre construction, or until the council approves comprehensive zoning rules, amended during the meeting to cover the conversion of existing buildings, after a developer filed to turn a 350,000 square foot warehouse in the south west of the city into a data centre; resident groups had asked for a year.

lpm.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation planning

Texas Q9

The Texas Tribune reported on 14 August that Governor Greg Abbott's 3 August order for an ERCOT audit of data centres seeking grid connections, which pauses new connection approvals while it runs, still does not say how long the audit or the pause will last or how many facilities it covers, that ERCOT expects it to take several months and to begin on 20 August, and that 43 companies including Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have publicly endorsed it.

texastribune.org

north-america regulator data-centres energy water transparency moratorium

Spain Q9

Spain's Ministry of Labour and Social Economy closed a public consultation on 14 August, opened on 31 July, on a draft organic law covering generative AI in the employment of performing, audiovisual and music artists and their technical staff, which would require explicit consent and separate payment when a person's image or voice is used beyond the contracted work.

institutoautor.org

europe national-government consultation participation consent copyright

Zimbabwe

Africa AI News reported on 14 August that the Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services, Tatenda Mavetera, said Zimbabwe is preparing a Digital Industrial One Stop Policy covering digital transformation, cybersecurity and AI adoption, alongside a National Digital Regulatory Committee on AI regulation, data governance and digital trust and an AI Strategy Implementation Office inside the ministry.

africaainews.com

africa national-government ai-strategy regulator standards

Uganda

Africa AI News reported on 14 August that the Ugandan government is consolidating more than 700 separate ICT systems covering about 350 processes into one estate to support its National Artificial Intelligence Governance Framework across 14 priority sectors including health, agriculture, banking and the judiciary.

africaainews.com

africa national-government ai-strategy guidelines capacity-building

Arab Labour Organization

The Arab Labour Organization, a specialised agency of the League of Arab States, held a national symposium in Egypt on 9 and 10 August with about 50 participants including the Federation of Egyptian Industries, closing with seven recommendations that included a national data governance framework, a national AI strategy tied to economic priorities, and keeping human accountability in institutional decisions that use AI.

alolabor.org

africa middle-east regional-bloc consultation ai-strategy capacity-building

Dropped as older than the window: Mexico's Morena constitutional reform initiative to give Congress power to legislate on AI is dated variously 6, 7, 8 and 9 August across outlets and sits at or outside the seven day window, the Democratic Republic of the Congo validated its national AI strategy and digital economy policy on 4 August, the International Federation of Social Workers Indigenous Commission issued its statement on AI and Indigenous self determination on 6 August, and Japan's Ministry of Justice published final guidelines on AI voice cloning on 8 August.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Asia in English, Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule today.

Saturday 15 August 2026

Scanned 09:43 Brisbane (UTC+10). Five items met the brief. Each carries the date it happened, and what was searched without result is listed at the end.

COMESA Q9

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa opened a four day stakeholder consultation in Kigali on 6 August to draft a COMESA Regional Artificial Intelligence Strategy and a Regional Digital Inclusion Strategy, with government officials, regulators, private sector, academia, civil society and development partners from member states taking part and World Bank support through its IDEA programme.

techafricanews.com

africa regional-bloc ai-strategy consultation participation capacity-building

Australia, West Footscray Q9

Hundreds of people marched in West Footscray in Melbourne on 9 August, from Hansen Reserve to the proposed Perri data centre site and the operating NEXTDC M3 facility, calling for a moratorium on building AI data centres and raising concerns about water supply and environmental risk, in a protest called by the Borderlands Cooperative and Citizens of Tottenham.

greenleft.org.au

pacific civil-society data-centres moratorium water environment

Louisiana Public Service Commission Q9

The Louisiana Public Service Commission voted three to one on 12 August to overturn its own administrative judge's order that Meta show how it calculated the job and electricity figures for its Hyperion data centre campus in Richland Parish, leaving those workings confidential after Meta argued they are trade secrets.

lailluminator.com

north-america regulator data-centres transparency energy participation

Fort Worth, Texas Q9

Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously on 11 August to take the first step toward a 90 day moratorium on data centre construction and to set up a Data Center and Infrastructure Committee, with city staff to use the pause to assess noise, local water supplies, long term water availability and compatibility with surrounding land uses.

fortworthreport.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium water planning participation

Charlestown, Rhode Island Q10

Charlestown Town Council voted five to nil on 11 August to prohibit data centres and battery energy storage systems in the town, the second Rhode Island town to do so, with councillors citing the town's complete dependence on well water and septic systems and the risk of groundwater contamination.

ecori.org

north-america local-government data-centres planning water environment

Dropped as older than it looked: an English language aggregator reported on 14 August that Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology had issued a directive the day before barring government bodies from putting classified documents into public AI platforms. A Vietnamese language source identifies that instrument as Official Dispatch 4920/BKHCN-CNCNTT, dated 7 July, so it is left out. This is the third run in a week on which an aggregator carried a date the primary source did not support.

Also older than the window: Pakistan's draft National Data Governance Policy opened for consultation on 26 June, the SNP national council vote backing a moratorium on hyperscale data centres in Scotland was in early July, CARICOM's COTED-ICT endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap on 7 July, and Lesotho approved the Kobong hydropower and AI data centre project on 3 August.

Not logged, as repetition: council votes on data centre moratoria in Pima County Arizona, Bellevue Wisconsin, Waxhaw North Carolina and Marietta Georgia all fell between 11 and 13 August. The three United States items above were kept because each turns on a different question, being what the public may see, what a pause is for, and what groundwater is worth. The rest are the same vote in different towns.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, the Middle East in Arabic, Asia, and Europe. Nothing was excluded under the defence rule today.

Friday 14 August 2026

Scanned 12:55 Brisbane (UTC+10). A thin day: four items met the brief. What was searched and found nothing is listed at the end.

Pacific Islands Forum

Forum Foreign Ministers backed the Pacific Digital and Artificial Intelligence Technology Principles on 14 August and sent them to Forum Leaders for the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau, supported a regional AI Governance Framework whose principles are to be tested and adapted before Leaders consider them in 2027, and endorsed a phased Pacific Regional Approach to Safer Digital Spaces covering shared policy principles, engagement with digital platforms and capacity building. This moves the principles ICT ministers adopted in Port Moresby on 24 July, logged here on 11 August, up to Leaders; the report does not say whether the text makes free, prior and informed consent for cultural and traditional knowledge an enforceable requirement, which Vanuatu asked for on 4 August.

pina.com.fj

pacific regional-bloc ai-strategy guidelines online-safety

Mercer County, Kentucky Q9

The Mercer County Fiscal Court passed a one year moratorium on data centre applications in unincorporated parts of the county on 11 August, and the neighbouring city of Burgin can still annex land for a hyperscale project and bypass it, which more than a dozen residents objected to on the grounds of lost farmland and lost citizen voice.

lpm.org

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation land

Wrightstown, Wisconsin Q9

Village residents voted no on 11 August in a referendum asking whether Wrightstown should support or help build municipal infrastructure for large scale data centre development, after concerns about traffic, noise, power use and the character of the village.

wbay.com

north-america local-government data-centres participation planning

Texas Q10

El Mañana de Nuevo Laredo reported on 12 August that a Texas House committee will meet in Austin on 19 August to consider whether special rules are needed to protect residents' water and electricity from data centre demand, that the Laredo representative Richard Peña Raymond has asked the Governor for a special session and a moratorium on further approvals until impacts are assessed, and that data centres in Texas do not report how much water they use and need no permit from the state environmental commission to draw groundwater.

elmanana.com.mx

north-america parliament data-centres water energy moratorium

Dropped as unverified: aggregators reported that the UK AI Regulation and Safety Bill cleared the House of Commons on 14 August, giving the AI Safety Institute statutory powers to inspect foundation models before deployment. The parliamentary bills page returned an error and no primary or press source confirmed it, so it is left out. The same aggregator pattern produced a false California claim on the 11 August run.

Dropped as older than the window: Cape Town's approval of two hyperscale data centres totalling about 174MW, and the Equinix approval made despite community objections and Housing Assembly protests, were reported on 24 July and 4 August.

Searched and found nothing inside the window: Africa in English and French, South, Southeast and East Asia, Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Three of the four items here are from the United States, which is a worse spread than this page should carry. Regional searches mostly returned reference pages and country guides carrying no dates, so the gap may sit in the search layer itself.

Tuesday 11 August 2026

Scanned 12:34 Brisbane (UTC+10). Eleven days since the last scan, so this entry reaches back further than usual and each item carries the date it happened.

European Union

The European Commission's AI Office and national authorities began enforcing the AI Act on 2 August, and from the same day interactive AI systems must tell people they are dealing with a machine, deepfakes must be labelled, and AI-generated or edited content must carry machine-readable marks so it can be detected.

digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu

europe regional-bloc regulator ai-law transparency

United States, White House

About a dozen AI companies were shown a finalised voluntary framework at the White House on 4 August under which developers would give the federal government access to closed frontier models 30 days before release, and the administration said it does not plan to publish the framework.

fortune.com

north-america national-government industry guidelines safety transparency

World Bank

The World Bank released World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence on 4 August, reporting that 4.5 per cent of jobs in developing economies are exposed to automation by generative AI against 14.2 per cent in high income countries, and that nearly a third of rural schools in Sub-Saharan Africa still lack reliable electricity.

worldbank.org

global un global-south capacity-building

Brazil Q9 Q10

The Senate's science and technology committee held a public hearing on 4 August on a bill to regulate data centres, at which the Anacé cacique Roberto Anacé described them as a new colonisation, the Consumer Defence Institute warned that round the clock demand raises electricity costs for everyone, and a researcher from INESC said the environmental burden stays in the country while the services are exported.

senado.leg.br

latin-america parliament indigenous data-centres energy environment consultation

India Q10

Reuters reported on 6 August that the Andhra Pradesh High Court has told the state government to answer a challenge to the 15 billion US dollar Google and Adani data centre hub at Visakhapatnam, where the Kambalakonda wildlife sanctuary sits 860 metres from the site and the city draws 410 million litres of water a day against a requirement of 480 million.

kathmandupost.com

asia court civil-society data-centres water environment litigation

United States, tribal nations Q9 Q10

Prism reported on 5 August that the Seminole Nation has approved a moratorium on AI data centre development, the Cherokee Nation has set up a task force following an executive order signed by Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr in February, and the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation is holding tribal councils on a proposed 10,000 acre site in Utah.

prismreports.org

north-america indigenous data-centres moratorium consent participation land

Pacific Islands Forum Q9 Q10

The Vanuatu Daily Post reported on 4 August that Forum ICT ministers meeting in Port Moresby on 24 July adopted the Digital Technologies and AI Principles for the Pacific, and that Vanuatu asked for protection of Pacific cultural and traditional knowledge from use in AI systems without free, prior and informed consent to be made an enforceable requirement rather than a voluntary principle in the governance framework still to be written.

dailypost.vu

pacific regional-bloc national-government guidelines consent ai-strategy

Mexico Q9

President Claudia Sheinbaum told her morning press conference on 10 August that she was struck to learn young people use artificial intelligence as a psychologist, and said regional forums with parents, teachers and specialists, starting 19 August in Nuevo León, will produce a bill to Congress on children's use of digital platforms and AI.

infobae.com

latin-america national-government consultation participation online-safety

United States, Senate

The Senate Commerce Committee voted on 5 August to advance the CHATBOT Act, a bill by Ted Cruz and Brian Schatz that would give parents controls over how their children interact with AI companions.

transparencycoalition.ai

north-america parliament online-safety ai-law

Farmville, North Carolina Q9

Town commissioners voted unanimously on 3 August for a twelve month freeze on data centres after a public hearing at which residents objected on environmental grounds and over rising energy bills, and the mayor said the pause is for gathering information rather than a decision against any future facility.

wral.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium participation planning

Kenya Q9

Public participation on the draft Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy closed on 4 August, the deadline set when the ministry opened it on 27 July, and the draft proposes a National AI and Other Emerging Technologies Council with a governing board, a technical advisory forum and five directorates.

eastleighvoice.co.ke

africa national-government consultation participation ai-strategy

Mozambique

TechAfrica News reported on 6 August that Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo has opened a solar powered data centre for research, cybersecurity and AI work, and that the Minister of Communications and Digital Transformation, Américo Muchanga, asked universities to take over management of the national research and education network.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government academia data-centres energy

Left out under the defence rule: a daily governance digest for 5 August carried an item on AI use in the Ukraine conflict.

Dropped as older than it looked: Papua New Guinea's drafting of AI deepfake offences was announced on 7 July, the UAE Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data was created on 14 June, and the Cyberspace Administration of China's draft cyberbullying law covering AI-generated abuse was published in July. Dropped as unverified: an aggregator reported that California's Frontier AI Safety Act passed a final Assembly vote on 10 August, which no primary or legislative source confirmed, and a legislative tracker dated 7 August still had the state's AI bills at committee stage.

Nothing met the brief from the Caribbean or the Middle East in this window.

Friday 31 July 2026

Scanned 21:28 Brisbane (UTC+10), and again at 21:43.

Germany

The law implementing the EU AI Act in Germany, the KI-MIG, entered into force on 29 July and makes the Bundesnetzagentur the country's market surveillance authority, single contact point and complaints body for artificial intelligence, with direct oversight of systems used in employment, critical infrastructure and education.

bundesnetzagentur.de

europe national-government regulator ai-law

Ireland

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment announced on 30 July that the AI Office of Ireland has been established as an independent statutory body under the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Act signed on 21 July, with Paul Byrne appointed as its first chief executive and the office due to be operational by 2 August.

enterprise.gov.ie

europe national-government new-institution ai-law

European Union

The European Commission opened bidding on 30 July for up to seven AI gigafactories across the bloc, backed by about 10 billion euros of public money and an expected 30 billion euros in total once private investment is counted, with consortia given until 12 November to apply and awards due in early 2027.

euronews.com

europe regional-bloc data-centres funding procurement

South Korea

The Ministry of Science and ICT launched an AI data centre alliance on 29 July, co-chaired by the minister and the chief executive of SK Telecom, bringing twelve companies together behind a national target of 18.4 gigawatts of data centre capacity by 2035.

mt.co.kr

asia national-government industry data-centres energy funding

Malaysia Q9

The National AI Office closed its public consultation on a proposed AI Governance Bill on 31 July, after three weeks open from 10 July, on a law that would apply to AI systems placed on the market, developed or used in Malaysia.

digitalpolicyalert.org

asia national-government consultation ai-law participation

APEC

Digital and AI ministers from the 21 APEC economies met in Chengdu on 23 July and issued a joint statement backing human-centred and locally tailored AI, voluntary experience sharing and technical assistance, while recording that members take different approaches to their own AI policies.

apec.org

asia regional-bloc guidelines ai-strategy

Panama

President José Raúl Mulino launched the National Advanced Technologies Agenda on 30 July, whose AI strategy rests on six pillars including data governance and AI ethics and regulation, and which sits alongside a bill on adaptive governance of artificial intelligence now before the National Assembly.

presidencia.gob.pa

latin-america national-government ai-strategy capacity-building

Kenya Q9

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy opened public participation on 27 July on a draft Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy, taking written submissions from institutions, industry, academia, civil society and the public until 4 August.

techafricanews.com

africa national-government consultation participation ai-strategy

Côte d'Ivoire

The government approved a 170 million US dollar project reported on 24 July for a sovereign data centre, a government digital platform and a smart border system, to be delivered with Cisco and Cybastion.

africaainews.com

africa national-government data-centres data-sovereignty funding

Pulaski County, Arkansas Q10

The county quorum court voted 10 to 3 on 28 July against a twelve month pause on data centre construction, and separately rejected by 8 to 6 an amendment that would have required the AVAIO Digital project near Wrightsville to meet any future county rules before its later phases.

arkansasonline.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium water energy

Harrison County, Kentucky Q9

County leaders held a standing room only public forum on data centres on 28 July, at which the judge executive said every person present raised a hand against them and reported a survey of 1,500 residents in which 80 per cent said no, ahead of a fiscal court vote on a moratorium set for 11 August.

wkyt.com

north-america local-government civil-society data-centres moratorium participation

European Union

Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus on AI, entered into force on 27 July and amends the AI Act to push stand-alone high-risk obligations from 2 August 2026 back to 2 December 2027 and embedded high-risk systems from 2 August 2027 back to 2 August 2028, while adding two prohibited practices from 2 December 2026 covering AI that generates non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material.

hunton.com

europe regional-bloc ai-law online-safety

United States, Federal Trade Commission Q9

Public comment closed on 31 July on a proposed Federal Trade Commission policy statement on accuracy in AI systems, which argues that state laws appearing to coerce companies into altering the output of their models, naming Colorado's Artificial Intelligence Act, may be impliedly preempted by federal law.

ftc.gov

north-america regulator consultation ai-law participation

Montgomery County, Maryland

The full county council voted unanimously on 28 July to adopt the 18-month pause on new data centre permits, moving it past the committee stage logged here on 22 July.

bethesdamagazine.com

north-america local-government data-centres moratorium planning

San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The state congress repealed the artificial intelligence provisions of the state penal code on 30 July, striking the chapter on improper use of AI to cause social alarm, and Governor Ricardo Gallardo Cardona said a broader AI law would be drafted this year with academics, health specialists and psychologists.

sanluispotosi.quadratin.com.mx

latin-america parliament ai-law

Tuesday 28 July 2026

Scanned 02:03 Brisbane (UTC+10).

China

President Xi Jinping told the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on 17 July that the world needs a just and equitable system for governing AI, and announced a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation with 29 founding member countries plus joint AI application centres to be built with ASEAN, the League of Arab States, the African Union, CELAC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS.

english.news.cn

global asia national-government new-institution summit ai-strategy global-south

ASEAN

Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn set out the bloc's approach to AI governance at the high-level meeting held alongside that Shanghai conference on 18 July, saying governments, international organisations, industry and universities will all be needed to handle what is coming.

indiplomacy.com

asia regional-bloc guidelines ai-strategy

African Union

The African Union Commission and Smart Africa agreed in Geneva on 20 July to coordinate delivery of the Continental AI Strategy, with an action plan, a financing plan and AI governance guidelines in preparation, alongside a proposed African Union AI fund and a pan-African AI centre.

techreviewafrica.com

africa regional-bloc ai-strategy funding capacity-building

Pacific Islands Forum

Forum ICT ministers met in Port Moresby on 24 July with Papua New Guinea taking the chair, and put artificial intelligence, safer online spaces and how the region measures its own digital progress on the agenda under the Lagatoi Declaration.

pina.com.fj

pacific regional-bloc ai-strategy online-safety

Caribbean

The Caribbean Telecommunications Union closed its Caribbean Artificial Intelligence Forum in Trinidad and Tobago on 25 July and released the Caribbean AI Task Force report, which asks CARICOM states to harmonise AI policy and treat data sovereignty as a shared regional asset.

jamaica-gleaner.com

caribbean regional-bloc data-sovereignty ai-strategy capacity-building

United Nations, Indigenous rights Q9 Q10

At the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in July, delegates from Sámi, Inuit and Ojibwe organisations argued that data centre projects should have to meet the standard of free, prior and informed consent, citing a Chilean environmental tribunal's suspension of a Google site in Santiago and a complaint brought by the Anacé people against a data centre in north-east Brazil.

news.mongabay.com

global latin-america un indigenous data-centres consent litigation environment

Civil society coalitions Q9

Five coalitions published a joint read-out of the opening session of the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance on 24 July, reporting that women and Indigenous Peoples were insufficiently represented across the talks and that chances for governments and other stakeholders to speak to each other directly stayed limited.

apc.org

global un civil-society indigenous participation consultation

Colombia

Two artificial intelligence bills, one in the Senate and one in the Chamber of Representatives, had cleared committee and remained in play as of 16 July, setting out rules for the development and supervision of AI systems with the science ministry to lead implementation.

sercolombiano.com

latin-america parliament ai-law

Australia Q10

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on 15 July that large data centres will be required to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their share of connection costs and meet water efficiency standards under a mandatory national framework, to be put to national cabinet next month and to parliament early next year.

thenewdaily.com.au

pacific national-government data-centres standards water energy grid

New York Q10

Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order on 15 July halting new state environmental permits for data centres while regulators take up to a year to write rules on energy use, water use and protections for surrounding communities.

nystateofpolitics.com

north-america regulator data-centres moratorium water energy

Montgomery County, Maryland Q9

Two county council committees voted on 22 July to advance an 18-month pause on new data centres and zoning that would block any facility above 25 megawatts, backed on the record by a coalition of more than 30 community, environmental and faith groups.

foodandwaterwatch.org

north-america local-government civil-society data-centres moratorium planning

Left out under the defence rule: a UN News report on the Secretary-General's governance call was mostly about autonomous weapons, so it is not logged here.

Older entries move to the watch, kept when they scroll off the front. They are not shortened and they are not removed. Every item ever logged is also held one per line in a machine-readable file, so the whole record can be rebuilt if this page is ever redesigned.