BT is ramping up its deployment of advanced mobile telecoms technology at its EE mobile unit to gain a leap in a competitive marketplace, deploying a new generation of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) units with antenna integrated radios that are claimed to deliver maximum network experience and up to four times greater uplink capacity.

The MIMO units come from Ericsson, specifically the AIR 3284, said to be the world’s first 5G triple-band FDD massive MIMO radio used in a European-first deployment. And to make the usage of the technology clearer for customers, BT will in future use the term 5G+ rather than 5GSA.

EE first introduced its 5G standalone (SA) network in September 2004, launching in 15 cities across the UK, including Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield.

At launch, EE said its 5G SA network will set a new standard for connectivity, bringing benefits to customers from day one, and being the first of its kind in the UK to offer near-uninterrupted outdoor coverage in every city it launches.

The operator said 5G SA would offer a smoother, more reliable and more secure mobile connection built for better live streaming, video calling and mobile gaming. In addition, it was attributed with supporting enhanced voice calls in more places, with faster setup times that reduce the delay between dialling a number and the phone starting to ring via voice over 5G (Vo5G) standalone.

Two of the Ericsson units are live in the city of Leeds, with hundreds more said to follow by the end of the decade, and in addition to deploying the technology, BT noted that its ambition was to deliver 99% 5G+ population coverage by 2030, what it said was four years ahead of any other UK MNOs’ current projections.

The deployment is being supported by what are called a series of technology firsts and ongoing network densification efforts. In addition to massive MIMO, BT is also scaling its small cell programme, which now exceeds 1,500 nationwide after 500 units were added in the past 12 months alone. This includes its very first small cell deployments in towns and cities such as Belfast, Bristol, Oxford, Middlesbrough, Preston and Bolton.

Only weeks ago, EE deployed Ericsson advanced radio access network coordination (ARC) technology, which is designed to give 5G users across the UK a significant boost to their connectivity.

Fundamentally, ARC technology is designed to allow nearby mobile sites to remotely pair up and share capacity, with the result of “dramatically” boosting network performance – especially in busy areas at peak times – without the need for additional masts.

BT Group chief security and networks officer Howard Watson said that it was building for the future with smarter technology, backing ambition and growth with bold policy.

“From airports to Wembley Stadium, growing demand at major hotspots highlights why reliable connectivity isn’t just nice to have – it’s essential,” he said. “Connectivity doesn’t just enrich lives; it powers the economy.

“Our recent report with Assembly found that continuous improvements to mobile network quality could unlock up to £230bn in economic growth for the UK,” said Watson.

“Government support is essential if we are to transform our ambition for nationwide 5G+ coverage – and the significant economic opportunity it brings for the UK – into reality,” he added. “At BT, our mission is clear: to be the UK’s most trusted connector, now and in the future. By expanding our 5G+ coverage, rolling out smarter technologies, and leading the way in network innovation, we’re building the foundations for a more connected, more prosperous UK.”

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Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has announced the successful switch-on of a first-of-its-kind Giga Site utilising newly acquired spectrum, marking a step forward in delivering faster and more reliable mobile connectivity across the UK.

The site, in Paddington, London, is based on Nokia dual-band massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO) technology that VMO2 says will bring customers an enhanced and more reliable mobile experience.

The Giga Site combines low, mid and high-band spectrum with Nokia’s massive MIMO technology, said to use a large number of antennas to significantly improve 5G network performance by boosting capacity, spectral efficiency, data rates and coverage.

The site is said to be able to deliver more than 10Gbps of throughput, which VMO2 noted was more than the entire O2 UK network carried at the peak of the London 2012 Olympics, and is enough to support 2,000 simultaneous 5Mbps HD video streams.

By bringing together different spectrum bands on one mast, the operator says it can offer strong, reliable signal to a large area. The single site is using a combination of low-band spectrum to provide broad coverage, mid-band to offer additional capacity, and high-band to give customers very fast speeds.

The spectrum used includes that obtained as part of VMO2’s recent deal with Vodafone UK to acquire 78.8 MHz of spectrum, bringing the operator’s total spectrum holding to approximately 30% in the UK.

Following what it observed was many months of detailed technical planning, signal at the site was put to use just one minute after it was transferred. VMO2 says it will continue to deploy this spectrum over the medium term. In addition, the operator plans to install 1,000 of these cutting-edge sites across the country next year, boosting mobile connectivity and capacity in the UK.

Robert Joyce, director of mobile access engineering at O2, said: “The switch-on of our first Giga Site here in central London is a really important demonstration of how we are investing and innovating to continue improving our mobile network and customer experience. These new sites will deliver faster speeds, greater capacity and more reliable connections for our customers. As we carry out upgrades and roll out hundreds more Giga Sites across the country, we’ll put our new spectrum to work, helping us keep improving mobile connectivity nationwide.”

Mark Atkinson, head of radio access networks at Nokia, added: “Our partnership with Virgin Media O2 to implement Giga Sites reflects our commitment to helping our customers differentiate with superior performance.

“This is one of Europe’s first dual-band massive MIMO deployments combined with our TDD carrier aggregation solution, which showcases how our latest high-performance radios and versatile carrier aggregation solutions allow operators to fully harness the power of their spectrum, enabling the next wave of 5G services.”

The upgrades are part of Virgin Media O2’s mobile transformation plan, which will see the operator invest approximately £700m in 2025 to bolster its mobile network. The plan is focused on expanding 4G and 5G coverage, a dedicated small cells roll-out to boost capacity in dense urban areas, and solutions to address persistent network pain points including along railway lines, at airports, on motorways, and in stadiums and arenas.

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Verizon is apparently turning to AI to try to lure customers away from its competitors. A new promo, which claims customers can “bring your bill from AT&T or T-Mobile and we’ll give you a better deal” has appeared online and in stores around the nation. The promo involves Verizon looking at your current bill and seeing what it can do to match your carrier’s offerings with a deal of its own. But it won’t be a human going over your bill line by line.

Instead, the trick, some Verizon employees revealed in a Reddit post, is that the promo is managed by AI. By that, we mean that the Verizon employees take a copy of your bill from AT&T or T-Mobile and feed it to an AI service, which then looks for discounts and other ways that Verizon can price match your current carrier’s offering to potentially pry you away.

It isn’t a guarantee, many note, despite the marketing. But it could be a good way to lower your monthly bill, especially if you’re rocking a newer phone like the iPhone 17, which is already having issues with all three carriers.

How to take advantage of Verizon’s deal

Images By Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images

Verizon looking for new ways to engage with customers and pull them away from AT&T and T-Mobile isn’t exactly surprising. Many have long lamented about the price difference between the three carriers, with all of them often marketing themselves as the most affordable service. With this new promotion, you just might be able to get yourself a better deal on your phone line. Based on comments made by people claiming to be Verizon employees, you just need to print out your bill, take it to Verizon, and let them feed it to the AI so they can find the discounts that apply.

There does appear to be some red tape, with one commentor noting that Verizon can’t offer below a certain threshold on discounts. However, the only way to know for sure is to take your bill in and let Verizon look it over. Of course, this might raise some privacy concerns, especially since Verizon plans to feed your bill into an AI tool. Unfortunately, there’s no real information about what the tool is, who built it, or whether or not it was even developed in-house by Verizon’s team. So, that’s a choice you’ll have to make on your own.

Verizon says that whatever price it matches will be locked in for 36 months — though that lock-in won’t include potential changes to taxes and fees. It’s also worth knowing what you’re getting into if you ever plan to upgrade your phone with Verizon.

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A survey by Coleman Parkes for Harness has found that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development is on the rise, but there are gaps, which implies that more AI and automation could be deployed.

The survey results, published in Harness’s State of AI in software engineering 2025 report, show that the majority of software development teams believe software delivery will be dominated by AI agents working alongside human engineers within five years.

Almost two-thirds of respondents said they are using AI for code generation, 60% have used AI for documentation, and 57% are using AI for quality assurance and testing. Other areas of software development currently supported by AI were found to include error remediation (55%), security compliance (54%), and performance and cost optimisation (53%).

Areas where the software developers polled are seeing improvements from using AI include the speed of code creation (51%), faster testing and quality assurance (45%), and developer onboarding time (43%).

The survey found that, on average, organisations use eight to 10 distinct AI tools for software development. Some are using far larger numbers of tools, which suggests there is a risk of AI tool sprawl, introducing complexity that could lengthen the time it takes to get new members of the software development engineering team fully onboard.

Harness noted that tool sprawl and vibe coding can amplify operational risk. It warned that fragmented toolchains and inexperienced developers utilising AI assistants are creating governance challenges, increasing incidents and incurring hidden costs. It recommended that IT leaders consolidate tools into a unified platform and establish AI-powered guardrails to reduce complexity and keep teams focused on innovation.

According to the Harness study, organisations have high AI use for coding, but immature testing, deployment and governance. Harness recommended that IT leaders pair AI coding assistants with automated testing, deployment verification and security checks to prevent risk, cost overruns and manual toil.

The poll suggests that automation maturity is the main barrier, limiting the speed with which software engineering teams can deliver software. The biggest performance gap is not in code creation, but in delivery. According to the Harness survey, continuous delivery (CD) and governance remain under-automated.

The speed boost from AI-assisted coding is creating a pressure wave that is crashing against a wall of under-automated, legacy downstream processes. While developers are writing code faster than ever, the systems meant to test, secure and deploy that code are struggling to keep up. Only 6% of the IT professionals surveyed said their organisation’s CD processes are fully automated. This has led to the emergence of what Harness calls an AI velocity paradox.

For organisations with less than a quarter of their CD workflows automated, only 26% have seen an increase in the frequency at which code is shipped to production from their use of AI coding tools. This jumps to 57% in those that have between one and three-quarters of CD processes automated. According to Harness, moving from low to moderate automation in CD, therefore, more than doubles the likelihood that organisations will see a velocity gain from AI coding tools.

Harness recommends that IT leaders invest in downstream automation to translate AI-driven code velocity into business velocity.

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Sacha Vaughan, chief supply chain officer at houseware manufacturer Joseph Joseph, is in a fortunate position – her board recognises the critical role of the supply chain in a digital age, which she suggests isn’t always the case.

“Many brands see the supply chain as simply moving boxes from one place to another,” she says. “The consensus is often that, ‘It’s not that difficult.’ However, we’ve had some pain in the past. The board realises that the supply chain is more than just moving boxes from A to B, and it’s a huge lever for cost control. Therefore, they treat the supply chain strategically.”

Vaughan says this recognition of the importance of product fulfilment isn’t just a result of internal cost pressures. She suggests supply chain chiefs have had an interesting decade, characterised by a series of disruptions, including the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit and the implementation of new tariffs following the change in US administration.

“We’ve been fortunate and unfortunate at the same time,” she says. “The world has been particularly volatile from a supply chain perspective. However, the impact of these disruptions has helped to elevate the supply chain from the basement into the boardroom.”

Embracing supply chain transformation

Vaughan joined Joseph Joseph in February 2025. Having fulfilled senior operations roles with Forma, Charlotte Tilbury and Shiseido, her previous position was as global operations and manufacturing director at Dyson. She was approached about the opportunity to become chief supply chain officer at Joseph Joseph and was impressed after a discussion with the firm’s co-founder, co-owner and CEO, Richard Joseph.

“I was sold the moment I met him,” she says. “He’s super smart and a great businessman who’s really clear on what he wants. He was someone I knew I could work for, and I bought into his vision. I absolutely love the product, and the founders – both Richard and Anthony – are delightful to work with.”

Vaughan recognises there are similarities between her current and former employers, as both are design-led businesses where the founders remain heavily involved. However, climbing higher up the career ladder at Dyson required a move to Singapore. She says joining Joseph Joseph allowed her to achieve her career aspirations in the UK at an organisation she admired.

“Chief supply chain officer was definitely my trajectory – it was the role I wanted,” she says. “And they were offering that opportunity at an exciting time. They were looking for someone to completely transform their supply chain, not do more of the same. I really believed in that vision. And seven months later, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Vaughan says the supply chain she inherited was a bit underdeveloped. She describes the existing supply chain as sedentary and traditional – she was given the remit to drive changes and create a modern, technology-enabled approach. Vaughan is focusing on transformation with the aim of developing an award-winning supply chain.

“That’s the motivation,” she says. “We’re not there now, but we will be. The talent within Joseph Joseph is quite phenomenal. I have a team of 50 people. We’re not a huge company, and yet we’re taking the supply chain seriously. And within that team, I have some smart individuals that I’m just grateful to work with every day.”

Making the most of digital and data

Vaughan reports to Richard Joseph and is a member of the executive board. She manages the end-to-end supply chain and the strategic sourcing of the firm’s products, which draws on the specialist procurement team under her wing.

“So, the beautiful designs that we come up with in London, we go and find somebody who can manufacture that product to our high standards,” she says. “It’s about ensuring we can do that task at the right price and time.” Other areas of responsibility include demand and supply planning, customer service and order management.

Digital and data play a crucial role in modern supply chain operations at Joseph Joseph. “Technology becomes more critical every month as things move on,” she says. “Ultimately, the world is too complex these days for us to have someone handing around pieces of paper. We need to be systemically controlled.”

“Technology becomes more critical every month as things move on. Ultimately, the world is too complex these days for us to have someone handing around pieces of paper. We need to be systemically controlled”

Sacha Vaughan, Joseph Joseph

The company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system runs on SAP. While this platform is critical for day-to-day operations, Vaughan says other areas of IT supporting the supply chain need work. However, dealing with that situation carefully is part of her long-term plan to transform the company’s operational activities.

“I’ve purposely kept us a little bit undeveloped this year because I want to work out how we want to run things here. I think some organisations jump into picking the new shiny technology and then try to bend their processes around what that technology can do, and you end up with suboptimal supply chains,” she says.

“What I want to do is be super clear on aims. Then we’ll go shopping for the right systems that meet those requirements, as opposed to buying a demand planning system that doesn’t deliver what the business needs. I want end-to-end integrations with systems that all work in the same direction and talk to each other seamlessly.”

Vaughan says that making those decisions will rely on working out how to integrate with customers and suppliers, allied to a careful consideration of how suppliers can help the business manage its inventory in the future: “We are looking at everything as an area of opportunity while we work out how we do things around here.”

Working with trusted partners

When it comes to the general direction of travel for supply chain technology at Joseph Joseph, Vaughan says application programming interfaces (APIs) are already the standard way of communicating with partner organisations. She’s interested in exploring the potential of emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), at the right time for the business.

“We have some elements of AI in our demand planning area, where we make predictions about what our customers are going to buy and when they’re going to buy it,” she says. “I think that’s a basic way of using AI, but there are more possibilities that we can leverage. However, they’re not firmly on our roadmap at the moment.”

Vaughan says any decision to use emerging technology is made in concert with the company’s IT director. Her team works closely with the technology department. While the IT department might like to move faster, Vaughan says it’s important to temper expectations as she sets her supply chain strategy in stone.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, Sacha, this is all the great technology out there that we could use.’ And I’m saying, ‘Yeah, that looks good. However, just let me get my house in order.’ I don’t want to put sticky plasters over things and have a problem recur in six months. [I want to] take a step back and fix our business challenges with technology forever,” she says.

I don’t want to put sticky plasters over things and have a problem recur in six months. [I want to] take a step back and fix our business challenges with technology forever Sacha Vaughan, Joseph Joseph

One of Vaughan’s most important moves was to establish a new partnership for third-party distribution centres in the UK. Her team ran a major procurement exercise after she joined in February. In July, Joseph Joseph’s end-to-end supply chain partnership with XPO Logistics became operational, and technology plays a key role in the approach.

“Everything’s got to be well controlled,” she says. “I was looking for a third-party partner who could ensure that we’re properly, systemically controlled. The data interface between us and XPO is seamless, with the right data in the right place at the right time, and interfaces that support our business, rather than a scrambled approach.”

Focusing on core activities

Joseph Joseph ships its stock to XPO’s third-party distribution centre in Rugby, where the logistics firm manages omnichannel fulfilment, warehousing, pre-retailing and distribution services for customers – both major retailers and individual consumers. Vaughan says the partnership allows her team to focus on growing the business rather than firefighting.

“You’ve got to know where your business is and what is core to you and where you want to focus,” she says. “I firmly believe that if you get the right partner, then logistics becomes a quiet part of the business. Because it’s the end of the chain, it can be super noisy. However, when fulfilment goes well, nobody talks about it, it’s super quiet, and you can get on with the stuff that’s going to control your costs and grow your business.”

Vaughan recognises that some companies choose to take control of fulfilment internally. In many cases, particularly for large firms, she says that’s a misguided approach. Successful digital transformation is a tricky process, and using the knowledge of an expert like XPO Logistics means her team can help Joseph Joseph deliver better customer experiences.

“Warehouse management systems are expensive – they take a lot of development, and a lot of technology is required to make things seamless,” she says. “It’s a lot of work running the distribution centres, and it’s a distraction from your core business. Giving this responsibility to people who are experts, and who can do it in a sustainable, repeatable, scalable way, is much more efficient, especially for a growing business.”

Vaughan reflects on the changes she’s seen during her time on the operational front line and is positive about the role of supply chain officers in the digital age. As more boards wake up to the opportunity to use high-quality fulfilment as a strategic lever for growth, she says the opportunities for her peers are significant, so long as they recognise the important role of digital transformation.

She says: “We need to think about key questions, such as, ‘How can you start with the customer and work back to make things frictionless?’ That’s where technology and supply chain should be focused. More and more, that’s the direction of travel, and supply chain leaders who are successful will be the ones who are really focused on the customer.”

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Backup provider Nakivo has moved to version 11.1 of its Backup & Replication software. Key additions include expanded capabilities in the Proxmox virtualisation environment – an emerging VMware alternative – that include disaster recovery (DR) orchestration. It also adds a much simplified connection to the customer infrastructure for managed service providers (MSPs).

Nakivo also responded to questions about a security vulnerability discovered earlier this year by a third-party security company (see box below).

Nakivo offers backup for virtual machines (VMs) and physical machines, and can protect sources that range from datacentres to edge devices, as well as cloud files and applications. It offers replication and disaster recovery for some environments, with automated failover. All of this is admin-able from a single-pane-of-glass user interface.

According to vice-president for product management Sergei Serdyuk, Nakivo offers data protection at “roughly half the price of competitors” in the backup space.

The company claims 16,000 customers, which include Coca-Cola, Cisco, Siemens, Honda and Radisson, where they are deployed in at least some departments, if not the whole customer environment, according to Serdyuk.

Core among the additions in v11.1 is MSP Direct Connect, which allows service providers to connect to customer environments without the need for open ports and network configuration on the customer side. According to Nakivo, this will allow backup for VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox VMs and physical machines, as well as working with Nakivo’s site recovery feature.

“Providers can install our solution at the customer site. It can connect to the solution installed at the MSP, and basically off they go. This is to simplify and speed up deployments for MSP customers,” said Serdyuk.

Meanwhile, the new version sees expanded Proxmox capabilities. These include the ability to create VM replicas, boot VMs from Nakivo backups, verify backup integrity and recovery readiness, and restore from tape.

“With the new version, we can create Proxmox VM replicas in the same or different locations,” said Serdyuk. “So, customers can, in case of a disaster, just switch to a replica VM instead of spending time on restore from backup.”

Additionally, Nakivo claims to be the only backup provider that offers disaster recovery for Proxmox environments.

According to Serdyuk, that translates to having in place a site-level workflow that is dependent on replication.

Further additions to the latest version of Nakivo include real-time replication for VMware, which was in beta but is now generally available.  

There is also the addition of granular physical backups for Windows and Linux physical machines. This allows for backup of specific files and folders without full backups, and storage of backups in any location, including as copies to comply with 3-2-1 backup plans.

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A new AI device could be key to unlocking easier computer usage for individuals in busy environments or those who have lost access to audible speech. The new device, which is designed by Boston-based AlterEgo, is a neural interface that the company claims is less invasive than traditional brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), as it isn’t a BCI itself.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of AlterEgo, though. The idea for the device debuted in a 2018 MIT paper from one of the company’s co-founders, Arnav Kapur. Since then, it seems Kapur has been trying to make the device a reality, recently highlighting it in a video shared on X.

Introducing Alterego: the world’s first near-telepathic wearable that enables silent communication at the speed of thought.

Alterego makes AI an extension of the human mind.

We’ve made several breakthroughs since our work started at MIT.

We’re announcing those today. pic.twitter.com/KX5mxUIBAk

— alterego (@alterego_io) September 8, 2025

The company claims that the device itself is a “near-telepathic wearable” and that it can detect the various signals that your brain sends to your body’s speech system. This, Kapur says, will let you “type at the speed of thought” while also not feeding the thoughts you don’t intend to speak to the device. We’ve seen similar thought-to-speech devices in the past, though many of those appear to be heavily based around helping individuals with ALS and other speech-impacting situations.

Not a brain-computer interface

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this device, though, is that it isn’t a BCI. Most BCIs are implanted in the brain, where they can interface directly with your brain and the various signals that it sends. That isn’t always the case, of course, as there are BCIs that don’t require invasive surgery, such as the Synchron Switch that allows paralyzed patients to type iPhone messages.

AlterEgo, on the other hand, is a surface-level device that could reportedly achieve 92% accuracy back in 2018 just by using surface electromyography (sEMG) to read the activation of muscles in your body. The muscles that the device reads are specifically related to your body’s speech system, and we use them for both audible speaking as well as something scientists call subvocalization — the internal speech you make when reading or mouthing different words.

The device’s system then maps those movements to a text output system, which allows it to translate your thoughts to text, in a way. And with the developments to make the device a real product, the accuracy could have improved even more since then.

Of course, there’s still a bit of debate about whether or not the device is as good as the founders of the company claim. Details are also still pretty sparse, though the company’s decision to market it as a “near-telepathic” device has raised some eyebrows about its legitimacy.

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The government wants the UK to lead the way in artificial intelligence (AI) capacity in Europe, and research from Barclays Corporate Banking shows that business leaders recognise the need to invest in AI and emerging technology.

This week, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI announced they are building out significant datacentre capacity in the UK. The increase in compute capacity offered by these datacentres is a fundamental part of Labour’s AI plan of action, providing AI accelerations to drive business opportunities and streamline digitally enabled public services.

To take advantage of this compute capacity, businesses will need to spend money on technology and invest in skills development. A poll of 1,000 businesses, conducted by Opinium Research on behalf of Barclays, found that on average, businesses are spending almost £236,000 on AI and emerging technologies.

The Barclays business prosperity index, which combines the poll with economic modelling produced in partnership with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), shows that large businesses with more than 250 employees are spending an average of £400,000 on AI and emerging technologies.

The figure for medium-sized businesses with between 50 and 249 employees is £225,500 on average, while small companies with between 10 and 49 employees are spending around £125,000.

“It’s encouraging to see an intent to invest from UK businesses, with many turning that into action,” said Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of Barclays UK Corporate Banking. “Against a backdrop of global uncertainty, there’s more to do to build confidence in the UK as a place for businesses to grow and scale.

“Our research suggests that AI is becoming a key tool to drive innovation, encourage investment and upskilling to lift productivity, and build confidence in the UK as a global business hub.”

According to Barclays, the results of the survey show that despite ongoing global economic challenges, UK firms are accelerating AI adoption and upskilling their workforce to drive innovation and growth.

The businesses polled are also planning to increase overall investment by 5.5% over the next 12 months, to provide staff training and development (42%), improved digital products (37%), and research and development (37%).

However, Barclays reported that 39% of the businesses surveyed say they face a digital and AI skills shortage.

With the government’s UK-US Tech Prosperity Deal committing billions of pounds into AI infrastructure investment, the tech industry is calling for greater support to develop AI and digital technology skills.

Melissa Di Donato, chair and CEO of software business Kyriba, who sits on the Department for Business and Trade’s SME Digital Adoption Taskforce, said: “UK firms need to rapidly upskill their workforces, build stronger digital leadership at board level, and take up proven technologies like cloud, AI and automation with the same urgency we see from global tech leaders.

“And as the recent SME Digital Adoption Taskforce report urges, government and industry should expand access to practical support and targeted incentives so that small and mid-sized businesses can invest and scale with confidence,” she said. “This is the time to seize the moment and convert big tech’s capital into the productivity gains our economy needs.”

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Apple made several bold claims about the durability and scratch resistance of the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. Thanks to the new Ceramic Shield 2 technology, all four new iPhones feature displays that can withstand everyday abuse without scratching or breaking. In addition, Apple executives were seen throwing the iPhone Air across the interview room and asking journalists to bend it, illustrating the company’s confidence in the build quality of even the ultra-thin iPhone Air.

With the iPhone 17 series now on sale, the internet is flooded with various tests of the new iPhones’ display and chassis. Even though some users have reported that the iPhone 17 Pro can pick up scratches easily, durability tests by renowned YouTubers suggest Apple has done a remarkable job of making the new iPhones resistant to bends and breakage. One of the latest bend and drop tests conducted by the insurance company Allstate confirms that the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro are as strong and durable as they appear.

Bendgate is no longer a concern

According to Allstate’s tests, the iPhone 17 Pro could be bent only after applying 200 lbs of pressure and was still fully functional after the test. The iPhone Air — on the other hand — bent after applying 190 lbs of pressure. Considering that the iPhone Air is much thinner than the Pro, it fared impressively well in the test. In the drop test, both the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air shattered after a face-down drop from 6 feet, even though they remained fully functional. As for the back — when dropped from the same height, the iPhone 17 Pro suffered cosmetic damage around the camera plateau, while the iPhone Air’s rear panel cracked.

Allstate’s robotic tests show that the new iPhone models can survive someone trying to bend them, but since they’re still made of glass, they can break when dropped. “Apple avoided another bendgate, but gravity still wins,” said Jason Siciliano, vice president of marketing at Allstate Protection Plans. “While the iPhone Air impressed, and the Ceramic Shield rear panels of both iPhone Air and 17 Pro are the most durable we’ve tested in years, both iPhones still shattered when dropped face-down. If you’re spending more than $1,000 on a phone, a case, screen protector, and protection plan are smart investments.”

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In this podcast, we ask Patrick Smith, EMEA chief technology officer at Pure Storage, about the increased drive towards ensuring data sovereignty.

Smith talks about drivers that include geopolitical trade and political uncertainty, new levels of sensitivity over data, and increased regulation and compliance requirements.

He also talks about the risks of not addressing the needs of data sovereignty, as well as the ways in which it is being addressed, such as customers focusing on holding data on-premise, careful construction of hybrid cloud setups and ensuring readiness for new regulations.

What is data sovereignty, and why is it a thing we’re paying attention to right now?

I think for a long time we thought of data sovereignty as the location where data sits. And that certainly is one aspect. But really, it’s the laws and governance structures around the country in which data is collected, processed and stored.

It’s also about who has the authority to dictate how data is managed, accessed and used. Those two dimensions define what makes up data sovereignty and how people think about it.

And why is it a thing that we’re paying attention to right now?

We’re seeing three factors coming together to increase the focus on data sovereignty.

The first of those factors is data sensitivity. As citizens, we’re becoming increasingly aware of the sensitivity of data around us, corporate data. A lot of this focus is the result of ransomware attacks and data leakage.

But we’re also seeing data sensitivity being highlighted in terms of copyright and intellectual property. And that’s being driven by the rise of AI [artificial intelligence]. So, as a society, data sensitivity is increasingly top of mind.

Therefore, corporations are having to really focus on protecting data and making sure data is managed correctly.

The second aspect is the rise of the public cloud.

Two decades ago, the public cloud was a novel way to host sandbox environments for IT. Now, 20 years later, it’s pretty much the de facto way to run technology services. And most organisations, certainly in the West, are almost entirely dependent on the three main US cloud providers.

That then plays interestingly into, in the cloud world, do you know where your data sits? Do you know who’s got access to it? It opens up a bit of a Pandora’s box on data sensitivity and data sovereignty.

And then the third aspect that is a catalyst for this heightened awareness on data sovereignty is the geopolitical climate we’re operating in.

We’ve seen commercial challenges at a national and international level in terms of tariffs. We are seeing increasing instability. We’ve seen supply chain constraints – politically instigated and commercially instigated – that are all playing to a sense of uncertainty.

And we’re seeing an increasingly competitive global landscape between the US, the European Union, and primarily China and Asia. All of those things are heightening awareness around data sovereignty.

What are the risks of not addressing data sovereignty? And are there any benefits for those that do address it? And I’m talking really here about customer organisations, as well as more widely the background political landscape, etc, states

If we look at what’s top of mind with organisations in terms of the risks, the first one is the potential for service disruption.

So, by having my data and business services hosted outside of my country, there is the potential for service disruption. And now that’s not disruption through equipment failure, but potentially disruption as part of a commercial negotiation, as part of a tariff dispute. That has certainly risen in the minds of organisations.

And that plays into the second aspect, which is the risk of foreign influence in terms of legitimate access to data, illegitimate access to data, legitimate access through legal frameworks, through court orders, illegitimate access through unauthorised or unlawful intrusion by external actors, both of which are enabled by the interconnected nature of technology services across borders. By adopting a sovereign approach, you can start to mitigate those risks.

The other aspect is an interesting one, if you overlay those concepts with the changing regulatory landscape. So, we’re familiar, and have been for quite some time, with GDPR in Europe. We’ve also seen DORA in Europe for financial services. We’ve seen increasing regulation of critical national infrastructure.

And they all put an interesting dynamic on service disruption and foreign influence, where suddenly you’re not in control of meeting your regulatory requirements because you’re dependent on a third party. 

And the last thing on regulation is there’s so much discussion, especially within the European Union, around regulation and data sovereignty that I expect there will be more regulation in this space as we roll forward over the next 12, 18 months.

How do you expect customers and the industry to respond?

What we expect organisations to do is really understand their environment – what are their true business-critical services? – and start with a risk assessment.

In a very similar way to when we saw financial services organisations with DORA looking at doing an overall risk assessment of critical business services.

[Here, they need to] understand:

• Which are my critical business services?
• What’s the data that supports them?
• What’s the underlying infrastructure that supports that?
• Where does it sit?
• How does that align with my risk tolerance and risk posture?
• What do I need to do in terms of my IT architecture to be able to mitigate that risk where the risk is heightened?
• Does that mean I need to adopt a hybrid multicloud environment to include sovereign service providers, be that sovereign cloud providers or simply an on-premise datacentre?

And then, the last thing that we absolutely think that organisations need to do is prepare for regulatory evolution. Because it’s not a case of “if”, it’s a case of “when”, in terms of that regulation coming for data sovereignty.

So, those are the four critical steps that we think organisations should take. 

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