The Scoop
UN agencies are putting a premium on diversifying where they source technology and computing power — away from solely American providers. Last year’s US sanctions on the International Criminal Court, and Anthropic’s Mythos model cutoff earlier this year, provided a “wake-up call” about relying on single — mostly American — companies, the chief information officer of the International Telecommunication Union said.
Some UN groups are exploring shared computing and data infrastructure, which could give them more control over their sensitive data, leaving them less dependent on US cloud and AI companies, Khuloud Odeh told Semafor. Agencies are also thinking about exit plans for tech agreements that could be upended. Odeh leads tech and AI strategy at the UN agency that sets international tech standards, giving her a unique vantage point into how the UN system is adopting AI.
One concern is that the Trump administration has shown a willingness to restrict access to chips and AI models as part of its foreign policy, potentially disrupting the UN agencies’ or non-US companies’ operations.
Countries around the world are increasingly discussing tech sovereignty — a broad term that generally means having control and choice over data and tech systems — but the UN is in a particularly precarious spot given Washington’s retreat from global bodies and disdain for some specific groups.
“We’re all being asked, what is our game plan if something like this happened? What would be an exit plan?” Odeh said. That doesn’t mean a “whole radical move” away from all US technology, she added, but rather making backup plans, creating more choices, and sorting systems by sensitivity.
“It’s something I think about with every choice I make now,” she said, adding that it’s a “core” consideration for CIOs across UN agencies, which each have their own tech budgets and vendor relationships.
At a meeting of the UN technology chiefs in Valencia in May, officials discussed “sanctions-driven service suspension” and “extraterritorial data access” as risks to the UN’s cloud arrangements, according to a report.
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Much focus, especially during this week’s UN General Assembly session, is on how the international community, including the UN, could set global rules around AI. The UN and its dozens of agencies, funds, and programs — which collectively employ some 120,000 people — aren’t often thought of as major enterprise users of AI.
A UN registry counts more than 1,000 AI use cases, including projects aimed at reducing hunger and getting more schools connected to the internet. Odeh said the conversation is shifting from experimentation to determining where to put more resources.
“It’s not really about a proof of concept. Now it needs to be a proof of value,” she said.
Some of the UN’s data is especially sensitive, like refugee records and health information, raising the stakes of where it is stored and processed.