Artificial Intelligence has risen from a plain technical challenge to become the leading geopolitical issue in 2025. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast, recorded in advance of AI Field Day, features Dr. Bob Sutor, Mitch Ashley, and Jim Czuprynski discussing the balkanization of AI globally.

We spoke last week about the executive order issued by former President Biden around AI export controls. There has been some more information released about the reasoning behind the controls. One of those was that, as mentioned, third party actors are shipping restricted hardware to countries that were already banned from receiving it. Still others were able to access those systems through cloud computing in countries such as Malaysia and Brazil. The AI Diffusion Framework names 18 “friendly” countries with no restrictions and designates 23 countries under embargo with restrictions and caps on certain AI chips. The remaining nations of the world are categorized into a kind of limbo. The restrictions are based on a Total Processing Performance (TPP) metric that restricts exports based on the power of the chip. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown.

The public cloud is real; are private clouds real? Will […]

The big story this week is the continued fallout from Salt Typhoon. The US government is feeling the heat from the expsoure of so many telecom companies and they want answers. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced a proposed set of rules that would require companies that participate in the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to have a yearly requirement to certify their cybersecurity risk management plans to prevent hackers from getting in. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has gone even further and proposed a draft bill to secure telecom networks with the FCC implementing specific requirements instead of simple certifications.