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Thailand's economic strategy to become a regional hub for electric vehicles (EVs) and data centres requires a rapid transition to clean energy to attract foreign investment and meet international low-carbon standards. The energy sector, which accounted for 69% of total emissions in 2019, is central to Thailand's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30-40% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Projections indicate that EVs could account for 20% of total electricity demand by 2037, while data centre demand is expected to grow at an 8% CAGR from 2025 to 2027, potentially adding 10 TWh by 2037. To support this, the Thai government has introduced a direct power purchase agreement (DPPA) pilot project specifically for data centres of at least 50 MW, allowing them to bypass the single-buyer system and purchase renewable energy directly.

The Philippines is pursuing digital transformation to drive economic growth, with its digital economy contributing 8.5% to GDP in 2024. However, the country lags behind ASEAN peers in infrastructure and digital literacy. This gap has been filled largely by Chinese investments via the Digital Silk Road, with companies like Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent dominating sectors such as telecommunications, cloud computing, and fintech. While these investments provide essential capacity, they create security risks and sovereignty concerns, exacerbated by territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The paper recommends that the Philippines update its regulatory frameworks, adopt ASEAN-centric ICT norms, and pursue 'friendshoring' with allies like the US and Japan to reduce dependence on Chinese technology.

The paper analyzes e-government in Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles, and Tunisia, arguing that a modular approach focusing on user experience can bypass the slow progress of traditional 'whole-of-government' strategies.

The Philippines is pursuing an ambitious digitalisation agenda under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., but this effort is complicated by the pervasive influence of China's Digital Silk Road (DSR). While Chinese technology provides cheap alternatives in 5G, cloud computing, and fintech, it introduces significant risks regarding data privacy, national security, and the potential spread of digital authoritarianism. These challenges are exacerbated by an outdated legal framework that fails to address modern technological breakthroughs. The authors argue that the Philippines must update its legislation and diversify foreign investment to build internal resilience and safeguard its digital sovereignty.

The report examines how Indonesia navigates the rivalry between US-led market-driven digital norms and China's government-centric approach. While Indonesia relies heavily on foreign hardware and cloud services, it leverages its democratic values, the Pancasila ideology, and an independent foreign policy to maintain agency. The study identifies a 'digital norms cycle' in Indonesia, moving from the emergence of norms via foreign 'norm entrepreneurs' to internalization through national frameworks, though it notes significant challenges in digital literacy, budget, and infrastructure.

The IAI Directorate reported progress in integrating gender and equity into scientific projects, enhancing the science-policy interface through the Science Diplomacy Center (SDC) and STeP fellowships, and implementing regional climate and health initiatives. Key achievements include the launch of a climate and health responder course for Latin America, the publication of a compendium on climate impacts in the LAC region, and the development of a drought information system for Southern South America. The Directorate also expanded its collaborative research actions with the Belmont Forum and established partnerships with organizations like the WMO and PAHO to improve climate risk assessments and early warning systems.

The IAI Executive Direction reports progress across science, capacity building, and strategic implementation between 2022 and 2023. Key achievements include the establishment of a Gender, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) committee, the launch of the Science Diplomacy Center (SDC), and the expansion of the Science, Technology, and Policy (STeP) Fellowship program to 64 fellows from 13 countries. The IAI also advanced regional initiatives on the climate-health nexus, drought information systems in South America, and collaborative research through the Belmont Forum. Strategic partnerships were strengthened with organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to enhance climate risk assessment and science-policy interfaces in the Americas.

The Just Net Coalition's manifesto argues that the 'intelligencification' of society has led to unprecedented economic and political control by a few global 'intelligence corporations' that monopolize data and cloud computing techno-structures. The document calls for a fundamental shift in power, asserting that data subjects must own their data individually and collectively and that key digital infrastructures should be governed as public utilities. It proposes 16 principles to achieve digital justice, including the decentralization of techno-structures, the breaking of global digital monopolies, and the establishment of public-interest bodies to develop digital standards. The manifesto emphasizes a 'local-to-global' governance architecture where national polities remain the anchors of self-determination and data is processed close to its point of origin.

The document examines the impact of AI in Africa, highlighting risks such as predatory data use in South Africa, surveillance in Uganda, and the exploitation of 'click work' in Kenyan refugee camps. It reviews national AI strategies in Egypt, Mauritius, and Rwanda, and the SMARTAfrica Blueprint, while cautioning against the uncritical transfer of EU regulatory models like the GDPR. The author recommends that African governments focus on building sustainable local AI ecosystems, enhancing digital skills for women, and establishing regional cooperation to regulate multinational tech monopolies.

The document argues that the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'—characterized by AI, cloud computing, and IoT—is providing the tools necessary to overcome legacy modeling and accelerate decarbonization. It identifies data and transparency as one of six key market catalysts and provides examples of how corporations (Tesla), cities (Shenzhen), and financial instruments (Sustainability Linked Loans) are leveraging data to reduce emissions and capture economic value. The brief concludes with recommendations for policymakers, corporations, and financial institutions to integrate climate-relevant data into their strategic decision-making to mitigate risk and seize a projected $26 trillion economic opportunity by 2030.

The Digital Justice Manifesto, launched by the Just Net Coalition, calls for the reclamation of digital power from 'intelligence corporations'. It proposes 16 principles centered on the individual and collective ownership of data, the treatment of key digital infrastructures as public utilities, and the democratic governance of datafication from a local-to-global perspective.

Salesforce has achieved net-zero greenhouse gas emissions since financial year 2018 and aims for 100% renewable electricity for global operations by 2022. The company is implementing net-zero carbon building standards by 2030 and requires 50% of its suppliers by emissions to set reduction targets by 2025.

The document examines the global landscape of data flow restrictions, specifically comparing the regimes of BRICS nations. It argues that data localisation—requiring data to be stored or processed within a specific jurisdiction—imposes significant costs on productivity, innovation, and GDP. For South Africa, the author recommends maintaining its current conditional flow regime while pursuing further liberalisation at a regional level to become a data processing hub, rather than adopting the strict localisation policies seen in China and Russia.

The document discusses the potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to advance climate-resilient, low-carbon development in developing countries, specifically in relation to the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

The report examines how ICTs impact sustainability across first, second, and third-order effects. It criticizes the Rio+20 summit for failing to systematically address the information society and calls for a new, multistakeholder approach to bridge the paradigm gap between the ICT and sustainable development communities.

The report evaluates three scenarios for reducing the carbon footprint of university data centres: relocation to zero-carbon facilities, relocation to low-emission urban grids with waste heat recovery, and modifying existing centres for waste heat capture. Analysis of three universities showed that only the University of Alberta's waste heat capture scenario yielded a positive net present value (NPV) from carbon credit sales. The combined annual carbon footprint for the studied centres was 11,305 tonnes of CO2e. The study concludes that while individual university projects are generally not economically attractive via carbon credits, a green community cloud operated by CANARIE offers a more viable economic and leadership opportunity.

The study examines three scenarios for greening data centres at Dalhousie University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Alberta. It finds that relocating to remote renewable sites (Scenario 1) or urban low-emission grids (Scenario 2) is economically unviable due to high capital costs. Only on-site waste heat recovery (Scenario 3) showed a positive net present value for one institution. The report suggests a 'green community cloud' managed by CANARIE as a more viable alternative to individual university efforts.

The report describes the transition of Global Forest Watch from GFW 1.0, which relied on laborious manual data collection and paper maps in pilot countries, to GFW 2.0, a transformative online platform launched in 2014. Developed through a partnership between the World Resources Institute, Google, and the University of Maryland, GFW 2.0 utilizes satellite data and cloud computing to provide near real-time deforestation alerts. The platform is used by corporations like Nestlé and Unilever to clean supply chains, by indigenous communities to protect ancestral lands, and by civil society to fight illegal logging. Notably, the document highlights that communities in Peru using GFW have reduced deforestation rates by at least 58%.