Cyber-savvy Estonia has taken yet another step forward in global technology, as the Baltic state is set to open the world’s first data embassy in Luxembourg early next year.
The heavily protected server room will contain important Estonian e-government data, so that the NATO and eurozone members can access it even when systems are down at home.
“Data security and cyber security are generally crucial from the perspective of both people’s confidence and the functioning of services,” Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas said last month. “It is also an important part of so-called daily digital hygiene in increasingly digitizing societies.”
Ratas released the statement after signing an agreement with Luxembourgian Prime Minister Xavier Bettel on housing Estonian data there.
“This is the first data embassy in the world,” said Ratas, whose country of just 1.3 million people has been dubbed E-stonia for being a trailblazer in technology.
After five decades of Soviet rule ended in 1991, Estonia opted to go high-tech as fast as possible and still outstrips other members of the EU, which it joined in 2004.
One of the most connected countries in the world, the Baltic state has made most public services accessible at a special state portal and even pioneered e-voting in 2005.
The capital, Tallinn, is home to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, where data experts from across Europe and the US work to protect the information networks of the alliance’s 29 member states.
Estonia has bitter experience in the field: A politically charged dispute with its Soviet-era master Moscow in 2007 was marked by a blistering cyberattack blamed on Russian hackers — though the Kremlin denied any involvement.
The attack lasted two weeks and took scores of Web sites offline, including those of the parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters. One year later, the Tallinn-based NATO cyberdefense center was up and running.
Work on using international cloud services to back up Estonia’s e-government data began in 2014, when the country joined forces with Microsoft to try storing a state gazette on the cloud. The data embassy in Luxembourg will notably back up information regarding taxes, land, businesses, identity documents, pensions, legislation and the census.
“The virtual data embassy’s main goal is to guarantee the country’s digital continuity: the capacity to start the systems when necessary and retrieve data from externally stored versions,” Estonian Ministry of Economics and Communication spokeswoman Emilie Toomela said.
“For this, Estonia needs additional server resources that should be completely controlled by Estonia — this means that they should be subject to the same clauses as Estonia’s physical embassies — for instance, immunity — but should be situated outside Estonia,” she said.
Although there is a consulate in Luxembourg, Estonia’s ambassador to Luxembourg and Belgium lives in Brussels.
Toomela said the data embassy is to have no direct link to the embassy in Brussels, nor will it have any people working there.
“Luxembourg was chosen for its state-owned, high-security, Tier 4 certified data centers, the likes of which Estonia does not have and also because Luxembourg is ready to guarantee diplomatic privileges to Estonian data and infosystems,” she added.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six