• Five tech trends we’ll be watching in 2026

    From datacenters to AI, we’ll be keeping our eye on the technology that will be shaping your life in the coming yearHello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a happy New Year’s Eve filled with cheer, champagne and Mariah Carey’s comically awful rendition of Auld Lang Syne.Today, we’re looking forward to the next year in technology news. I am watching five trends I think will define the year: datacenters will see rapid proliferatio
  • The office block where AI ‘doomers’ gather to predict the apocalypse

    Safety researchers feel excessive financial rewards and an irresponsible work culture have led some to ignore a catastrophic risk to human lifeOn the other side of San Francisco bay from Silicon Valley, where the world’s biggest technology companies tear towards superhuman artificial intelligence, looms a tower from which fearful warnings emerge.At 2150 Shattuck Avenue, in the heart of Berkeley, is the home of a group of modern-day Cassandras who rummage under the hood of cutting-edge AI m
  • AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer

    Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warns against granting legal rights to cutting-edge technologyA pioneer of AI has criticised calls to grant the technology rights, warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed.Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain the
  • Five charts that explain the global economic outlook for 2026

    Inflation is predicted to cool but uncertainty over AI-driven growth and trade policy poses risks in the year aheadThe global economy proved to be more resilient in 2025 than had been feared, despite severe headwinds that ranged from Donald Trump’s trade war to geopolitical tensions and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.Entering the new year, the hope is that the worst of the recent inflation shock has passed, as the world’s most powerful central banks lower interest rates
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  • ‘Data is control’: what we learned from a year investigating the Israeli military’s ties to big tech

    Our reporting revealed a symbiotic relationship between the IDF and Silicon Valley – with implications for the future of warfareIn January this year, Harry Davies and Yuval Abraham first reported that Microsoft had deepened its ties to Israel alongside other major tech firms. Since then, the Guardian has published an award-winning series of investigations – in partnership with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call – that has
  • ‘Move fast, break stuff’: how tech bros became Hollywood’s go-to baddie in 2025

    From Stanley Tucci’s imperious tech titan to Lex Luthor’s distractingly hot CEO and Elon Musk-esque blowhards, films this year took us inside the billionaire mindsetBetween the slash-and-burn US government reboot led by a dank meme fan and the relentless pushing of AI by venture capital-backed blowhards, 2025 has felt like peak obnoxious tech bro. Fittingly, jargon-spouting, self-regarding digital visionaries also became Hollywood’s go-to baddies this year in everything from bl
  • Tuesday briefing: A surreal year in news gives our cartoonists endless material

    In today’s newsletter: Covering everything from Donald Trump to AI, and Gaza to Ukraine, award-winning cartoonist and illustrator Ben Jennings shares his favourite caricatures of 2025, and we share ours too.Good morning. It’s been one of those years where the news cycle felt almost too surreal to caricature. From Jeff Bezos commandeering Venice for his lavish wedding at a time of a growing backlash over inequality, to the spectacle of Donald Trump returning to office for a second ter