Insights

 

On May 1, 2026, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre, published joint guidance on the “Careful Adoption of Agentic AI Services” (Guidance).

On March 19, 2026, President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met at the White House and announced a series of initiatives to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. Among the defense cooperation announcements, the White House fact sheet noted that “[t]he United States welcomed Japan’s commitment to develop a secure and sovereign cloud platform for government data to enhance bilateral information sharing, planning, and coordination.”[1] While it is a single sentence in a wide-ranging Summit document, the commitment represents a step in the growing architecture of allied sovereign cloud infrastructure. If this is operationalized, it will have important implications for defense, intelligence, and cloud services markets. This announcement follows the October 2025 Trump-Takaichi Summit in Tokyo, where the two governments agreed to launch a bilateral working group to deepen mutual understanding on cloud security technical standards and requirements—explicitly including U.S. experience with secure and sovereign cloud development—and to invite Japanese and American firms to participate.[2]

The states of the Persian Gulf are moving rapidly to establish themselves as global centers of investment and innovation in artificial intelligence (AI). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the State of Qatar are making substantial outlays in technology and infrastructure as they seek to diversify their economies away from oil. As important, their governments are implementing digital regulations and AI strategies in a bid to attract foreign investment and develop technology companies that can go toe-to-toe with American and European competitors. 

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region witnessed a rapid digital transformation in 2024, powered by its connectivity and technological innovations. However, these advancements have introduced new vulnerabilities into the region’s digital ecosystem, which more sophisticated and nuanced cyber threats are already exploiting. In Q2 2024 alone, the APAC region experienced an average of 2,510 weekly cyberattacks per organization, marking a 23 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023.