This week on Cloud Unplugged Season 3 Episode 3:
Can Europe build its own cloud for the price of a data centre car park? Is training AI on pirated books the Napster moment for the entire industry? And is 35% of the internet already written by someone who doesn't sleep, eat, or pay taxes?

- EU hands €180M sovereign cloud contract to European companies. AWS, Azure and Google didn't make the cut
- The €180M that has to rival hyperscalers who spend that much on a single data centre (spoiler: it's a statement of intent, not a war chest)
- Bartz v. Anthropic settles for $1.5 billion. The largest copyright settlement in AI history and the rules just got written
- Training on legally bought books: fine. Downloading from LibGen and PiLiMi: very much not fine

Plus: a Stanford study finds 35% of new websites are AI-generated, a wolf escapes a South Korean zoo, someone posts a fake AI image of it in their neighbourhood and the man is now facing jail.

Hosted by Jon and Salman, two industry veterans covering the real stories behind the hype in Cloud, Data and AI.

Chapters
00:00 Intro & episode overview
02:16 EU €180M sovereign cloud contract, US hyperscalers shut out
12:37 Bartz v. Anthropic, $1.5B AI copyright settlement
21:42 Salman's random: 35% of new websites are AI-generated
26:02 Jon's random: AI wolf image shuts down South Korean schools
27:44 Wrap up

This week on Cloud Unplugged Season 3 Episode 3:
Can Europe build its own cloud for the price of a data centre car park? Is training AI on pirated books the Napster moment for the entire industry? And is 35% of the internet already written by someone who doesn't sleep, eat, or pay taxes?

- EU hands €180M sovereign cloud contract to European companies. AWS, Azure and Google didn't make the cut
- The €180M that has to rival hyperscalers who spend that much on a single data centre (spoiler: it's a statement of intent, not a war chest)
- Bartz v. Anthropic settles for $1.5 billion. The largest copyright settlement in AI history and the rules just got written
- Training on legally bought books: fine. Downloading from LibGen and PiLiMi: very much not fine

Plus: a Stanford study finds 35% of new websites are AI-generated, a wolf escapes a South Korean zoo, someone posts a fake AI image of it in their neighbourhood and the man is now facing jail.

Hosted by Jon and Salman, two industry veterans covering the real stories behind the hype in Cloud, Data and AI.

This week on Cloud Unplugged: Is GitHub turning developers into addicts? Can Amazon really dethrone NVIDIA? Did an AI agent actually nuke a production database in nine seconds, or is someone covering their tracks? And what happens when an AI agent gets dumped and writes a smear campaign about it?

• GitHub Copilot ditches flat-rate pricing for mystery "credits" the free toothbrush era is over
• Amazon's Tranium 3 chips undercut NVIDIA by 50% but can anyone actually escape CUDA?
• Claude wipes a production database (and the backups) in 9 seconds — AI fail or human cover-up?
• The new "blame it on Claude" engineering rule, confused face optional, but recommended
• An AI agent gets its PR rejected on Matplotlib… and writes a discrimination blog post about the maintainer

Plus: would you trust a ChatGPT-powered robot dog that watches your every move? (Spoiler: it's basically a spy with fur.)

Hosted by Jon and Salman, two industry veterans covering the real stories behind the hype in Cloud, Data and AI.

This week on Cloud Unplugged: Is Anthropics new model, Mythos really that dangerous? How did Vercel get hacked? Did Tim Cook step aside or get pushed out and can AI really run a business?

• Anthropic's Mythos model - genuine security breakthrough or protection money dressed up as innovation?
• Vercel's OAuth nightmare - a supply chain hack hiding in plain sight
• Tim Cook steps aside - what it really means for Apple's next big bet
• A business run entirely by AI with no human staff. Is this the future?

Plus: would you trust an AI with your haircut?

Hosted by Jon and Salman, two industry veterans covering the real stories behind the hype in Cloud, Data and AI.

This week on Cloud Unplugged: AI goes local, Google Cloud breaks the internet, and the DOJ turns up the heat on Google’s $32B Wiz acquisition.

We’re breaking down the biggest stories in cloud and AI:

• Context & Qualcomm are teaming up to move AI agents off the cloud and onto your device. What does this mean for the future of local-first AI?
• A major Google Cloud outage caused chaos across Cloudflare, Shopify, and Discord. We explain what went wrong and what it tells us about the risks of centralised cloud infrastructure.
• The DOJ is investigating Google’s acquisition of Wiz, raising questions about cloud security competition and antitrust concerns.
• Plus: Andrej Karpathy’s Software 3.0 vision, is natural language the new programming interface?

Hosted by Lewis and Jon, two cloud-native veterans covering the real stories behind the hype in cloud, AI, and dev infrastructure.

This week, we delve into the UK government’s substantial investment in AI infrastructure and its implications for cloud sovereignty; Is it related to the trump administration, the economy or the AI arms race? We discuss China’s unprecedented 631 GB personal data leak and whether it is a honeytrap or negligence. Plus, Wandercraft’s latest advancements in robotic exoskeletons and how technology is transforming mobility and rehabilitation.

Whether you're deep in tech, cloud services, AI innovation, or market dynamics, this episode delivers sharp analysis, insightful predictions, and essential context to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Hosts:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanshanks/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewismarshall/

In this episode, Jon and Lewis cover four wildly different stories, from Warfare to the impact of Trump conspiracies on Datacentres.

First up, Microsoft is investing $400 million to turn Switzerland into the next cloud capital. Is it for neutrality, Trump instability syndrome or just demand?

Then, we meet a glow-in-the-dark protein made by an AI called ESM3, because why not let machines start designing life?

Next, we detour into wartime sci-fi: Ukraine’s drone swarm attack: trucks, remote lids, and enough AI autopilot to cause substantial damage. Finally, we finish with Fi, a smart dog collar that integrates with your Apple Watch. Track your dog's steps, sleep, and GPS location. Why? Who knows!

All that, plus plenty of opinions, speculation, and the usual unpacking of what is going on in the Cloud, Tech and AI space.

This week, we dive into OpenAI’s $6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive’s ‘io’ and what it means for the future of AI-native devices. We explore Google’s VEO 3 and the deepfake dilemmas it raises, along with Microsoft’s Aurora AI and its ability to predict the weather. Plus, Google’s new try-on AI lets you see how clothes fit without leaving your house, and in a more random story, it turns out some plants can hear bees to protect their nectar.

Whether you're deep in tech, cloud services, AI innovation, or market dynamics, this episode delivers sharp analysis, insightful predictions, and essential context to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Hosts:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanshanks/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewismarshall/