China uses DeepSeek AI for surveillance and information attacks on US

The United States may become the second country after Australia to ban China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence on government devices.

U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood introduced a bipartisan bill proposing the ban.

In their letter to 47 U.S. governors and the mayor of Washington, the congressmen warned that DeepSeek could pose security risks to sensitive government data and cybersecurity and Americans’ privacy, NBC News reported on March 3.

China denies the allegations. However, concerns highlighted by the U.S. lawmakers and state officials are not without merit, experts say.

The Chinese government has reportedly also used AI models like DeepSeek for mass surveillance, including the collection of biometric data and social media listening models that report to China’s security services and the military, as well as for information attacks on U.S. and Chinese dissidents abroad.

At least three leading Chinese surveillance and security companies — TopSec, QAX and NetEase — announced the integration of DeepSeek to enhance their services. 

All three companies provide services to the Chinese government, and some made it clear that DeepSeek will improve their cyber censorship and surveillance capabilities. This includes AI-driven biometric data capturing, face recognition and surveillance technologies such as “smart cities,” the Skynet Project, and the Xueliang Project, which can monitor all aspects of an individual’s public life, Wenhao Ma of VOA’s China Division reported.

In January, Canadian cybersecurity firm Feroot Security uncovered a code imbedded in DeepSeek’s login processes that shares user information with Chinese state-owned communication company China Mobile, AP reported.

The Associated Press described the code as a “heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile.”

The U.S. banned China Mobile in 2019 following intelligence reports that it serves as the Chinese military’s spy arm.

China-based actors have been using ChatGPT along with DeepSeek models to generate phishing email and disinformation attacks on the U.S. “on behalf of unspecified clients in China,” OpenAI said in its February report.

OpenAI identified and blocked a cluster of China-originated accounts involved in malicious activities, such as Qianyue Overseas Public Opinion AI Assistant, reportedly designed to ingest and analyze posts and comments related to Chinese politics and human rights from platforms such as X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and Reddit.

The purpose of the operation was reportedly “to feed the resulting insights to the Chinese authorities” such as “Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom,” OpenAI said.

A set of ChatGPT accounts that OpenAI banned in February had been involved in Chinese influence operations focused on generating short comments in English and long-form Spanish-language articles critical of the United States published in local and national media outlets across Latin America and Spain.

One of the Chinese companies planting the articles in the Spanish-language outlets was Jilin Yousen Culture Communication Co., a subsidiary of the government-tied Beijing United Publishing House.

VOA reviewed nine of the Chinese AI-generated articles published in Spanish-language media between October and November 2024 as identified by OpenAI.

Two — in Mexico’s El Universal and Peru’s El Popular — criticized the United States’ use of sanctions targeting foreign governments and individuals.

The El Universal op-ed described the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry for Tehran’s backing of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as exposing the U.S.’ “impotence” in dealing with global politics and the “rapid decline” of its “moral standing.”

Similarly, El Popular painted U.S. sanctions on a Hamas affiliate as “insane” and an “attack on the rights of Palestinian people.”

An article in Peru’s La Republica presented the U.S. as the biggest beneficiary of the Russian war in Ukraine, replicating the Kremlin’s key narrative. It criticized the U.S. for providing military aid to Kyiv, framing the American support as an escalation of the war.

China, however, has been a key provider of military technologies and weapons to Russia, which Moscow uses in daily attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Another China-planted piece in La Republica described U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy as “undermining U.S. global leadership position.”

Three pieces in Peru’s Wapa, El Popular and El Plural exploited the issues of homelessness, child nutrition and crime in the U.S. — all presented as extremely acute and dangerous.

For example, the child nutrition piece claimed that most children in the U.S. “go hungry on weekends and holidays” due to the government’s neglect of children’s food security.

While the topics of these articles vary from human rights and social issues in the U.S. to foreign and domestic politics, they all paint a picture of a dysfunctional state with failing moral values and declining international influence, matching Beijing’s standard narrative.

Trump, Taiwanese chipmaker announce new $100 billion plan to build five new US factories

WASHINGTON — Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced on Monday plans to make an additional $100 billion investment in the United States and build five additional chips factories in the coming years.

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei announced the plan in a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump.

“We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said. “It’s a matter of national security for us.”

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is a leading supplier to major U.S. hardware manufacturers.

The $100 billion outlay, which would boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia, is in addition to a major prior investment announcement. TSMC agreed in April to expand its planned U.S. investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona factory by 2030.

With his Nov. 5 election victory largely driven by voters’ economic concerns, Trump has stepped up efforts to bolster investments in domestic industries to create jobs.

The TSMC announcement is the latest in a string of such developments. In February, Apple said it would invest $500 billion in the next four years. Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani and SoftBank also have promised multibillion-dollar investments in the U.S.

TSMC said on Monday it looks “forward to discussing our shared vision for innovation and growth in the semiconductor industry, as well as exploring ways to bolster the technology sector along with our customers.”

The U.S. Commerce Department under then President Joe Biden finalized a $6.6 billion government subsidy in November for TSMC’s U.S. unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act legislation in 2022 to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for American semiconductor production and research.

Taiwan’s dominant position as a maker of chips used in technology from cellphones and cars to fighter jets has sparked concerns of over-reliance on the island, especially as China ramps up pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

China claims Taiwan as its territory, but the democratically elected government in Taipei rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.

Under Biden, the Commerce Department convinced all five leading-edge semiconductor firms to locate factories in the U.S. as part of the program to address national security risks from imported chips.

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was “an excellent down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he has declined to commit grants that have already been approved by the department, saying he wanted to “read them and analyze them and understand them.”

A TSMC spokesperson said last month the company had received $1.5 billion in CHIPS Act money before the new administration came in as per the milestone terms of its agreement.

TSMC last year agreed to produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona factory expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona.

TSMC has already begun producing advanced 4-nanometer chips for U.S. customers in Arizona.

The TSMC award included up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.

 

2 lunar landings in a week for NASA’s private moon fleet

WASHINGTON — More than 50 years passed between the last Apollo mission and the United States’ return to the lunar surface, when the first private lander touched down last February 2024.

Now, starting Sunday, two more missions are set to follow within a single week, marking a bold push by NASA and its industry partners to make moon landings a routine part of space exploration.

First up is Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

After launching in January on a 45-day journey, it is targeting touchdown near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the moon’s northeastern near side, at 3:34 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. Along the way, it captured stunning footage of the moon, coming as close as 100 kilometers above the surface.

The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, carries 10 instruments, including one to analyze lunar soil, another to test radiation-tolerant computing and a GPS-based navigation system.

Designed to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), Blue Ghost is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14, when Earth blocks the Sun from the Moon’s horizon.

On March 16, it will record a lunar sunset, offering insights into how dust levitates above the surface under solar influence — creating the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Hopping drone

Blue Ghost’s arrival will be followed on March 6 by Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission, featuring its lander, Athena.

Last year, Intuitive Machines made history as the first private company to achieve a soft landing on the moon, although the moment was tempered by a mishap.

Coming down too fast, one of the lander’s feet caught on the lunar surface, tipping it over and causing it to rest sideways — limiting its ability to generate solar power and cutting the mission short.

This time, the company says it has made key improvements to the hexagonal-shaped lander, which has a taller, slimmer profile than Blue Ghost and is around the height of an adult giraffe.

Athena launched Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket, taking a more direct route toward Mons Mouton — the southernmost lunar landing site ever attempted.

It carries an ambitious set of payloads, including a unique hopping drone designed to explore the moon’s underground passages carved by ancient lava flows, a drill capable of digging 3 feet beneath the surface in search of ice and three rovers.

The largest, about the size of a beagle, will connect to the lander and hopper using a Nokia cellular network in a first-of-its-kind demonstration.

But “Grace,” the hopping drone — named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper — could well steal the show if it succeeds in showing it can navigate the moon’s treacherous terrain in ways no rover can.

NASA’s private moon fleet

Landing on the moon presents unique challenges due to the absence of an atmosphere, making parachutes ineffective. Instead, spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burns to slow their descent while navigating hazardous terrain.

Until Intuitive Machines’ first successful mission, only five national space agencies had accomplished this feat: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan, in that order.

Now, the United States is working to make private lunar missions routine through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, a public-private initiative designed to deliver hardware to the surface at a fraction of traditional mission costs.

These missions come at a pivotal moment for NASA amid speculation that it may scale back or even cancel its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration — a key goal of President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Private company’s craft rockets toward moon in latest rush of lunar landing attempts

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon’s south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a black crater where the sun never shines. 

Intuitive Machines’ lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s taking a fast track to the moon, with a landing on March 6. The company hopes to avoid the fate of Athena’s predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown. 

Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon’s surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward the moon. The lander from the U.S. company, Firefly Aerospace of Texas, should get there first this weekend. 

The two U.S. landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon. 

“It’s an amazing time. There’s so much energy,” NASA science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch. 

Last year, Texas-based Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that gauges distance did not work, and the lander came down too hard and broke a leg, tipping onto its side. 

Intuitive Machines said it has fixed that issue and dozens of others. A sideways landing like last time would prevent a drone and a pair of rovers from moving out. A NASA drill that’s aboard also needs an upright landing to be able to pierce the lunar surface and gather soil samples for analysis. 

“Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time. But you never know what could happen,” said Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems. 

It’s an extraordinarily elite club. Only five countries have pulled off a lunar landing over the decades: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with wreckage from many past failures. 

The 4.7-meter (15-foot) Athena will target a landing 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the lunar south pole. Just 400 meters (a quarter mile) away is a permanently shadowed crater — the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace. 

Named after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, the 1-meter (3-foot) drone will make three increasingly higher and longer test hops across the lunar surface using hydrazine-fueled thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation. 

If those excursions go well, it will hop into the nearby pitch-black crater, an estimated 20 meters (65 feet) deep. Science instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom while hunting for frozen water. 

It will be the first up-close peek inside one of the many shadowed craters dotting both the north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are packed with tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel. 

NASA is paying $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its drill and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space on the lander to others. It also opened up the Falcon rocket to ride-sharing. 

Tagalongs included NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite, which will fly separately to the moon over the next several months before entering lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. Also catching a ride was a private spacecraft that will chase after an asteroid for a flyby, a precursor to asteroid mining.

Musicians release silent album to protest UK’s AI copyright changes

LONDON — More than 1,000 musicians including Kate Bush and Cat Stevens on Tuesday released a silent album to protest proposed changes to Britain’s copyright laws which could allow tech firms to train artificial intelligence models using their work.

Creative industries globally are grappling with the legal and ethical implications of AI models that can produce their own output after being trained on popular works without necessarily paying the creators of the original content.

Britain, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to become an AI superpower, has proposed relaxing laws that currently give creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works the right to control the ways their material may be used.

The proposed changes would allow AI developers to train their models on any material to which they have lawful access, and would require creators to proactively opt out to stop their work being used.

The changes have been heavily criticized by many artists, who say it would reverse the principle of copyright law, which grants exclusive control to creators for their work.

“In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?” said Bush, whose 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” enjoyed a resurgence in 2022 thanks to Netflix show “Stranger Things.”

The co-written album titled “Is This What We Want?” features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces to represent what organizers say is the potential impact on artists’ livelihoods should the changes go ahead.

A public consultation on the legal changes closes later on Tuesday.

Responding to the album, a government spokesperson said the current copyright and AI regime was holding back the creative industries, media and AI sector from “realizing their full potential.”

“We have engaged extensively with these sectors throughout and will continue to do so. No decisions have been taken,” the spokesperson said, adding that the government’s proposals will be set out in due course.

Annie Lennox, Billy Ocean, Hans Zimmer, Tori Amos and The Clash are among the musicians urging the government to review its plans.

“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” said organizer Ed Newton-Rex, the founder of Fairly Trained, a non-profit that certifies generative AI companies for fairer training data practices.

“The UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus.”

Apple to build 23,200-square meter facility in Texas

U.S. tech giant Apple has announced plans to create some 20,000 jobs and invest $500 billion over the next four years in the United States. 

Apple says it will expand teams and facilities in nine states across the country and that it aims to open a 23,200-square-meter server manufacturing facility in Texas in 2026. 

The announcement comes just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook met with U.S. President Donald Trump. 

“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Cook said on the investment. 

“From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation,” he added in a company statement. 

Trump thanked Cook and Apple for the investment on Monday morning on the social media platform Truth Social. 

“Apple has just announced a record $500 billion investment in the United States of America. The reason, faith in what we are doing, without which, they wouldn’t be investing 10 cents,” Trump said. 

Most of Apple’s consumer goods are currently assembled and produced overseas. Many of them, assembled in China, are liable to 10% tariffs imposed by Trump earlier in February. 

To reduce its reliance on international supply chains, Apple announced in January that it had begun mass producing its own chips at an Arizona factory owned by TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. 

The TSMC Arizona factory, along with legislation aimed at increasing U.S. semiconductor production, were two of Trump’s largest industrial policy moves during his first term. 

In a release on its website, Apple said the $500 billion commitment includes the company’s work with thousands of suppliers across all 50 states, direct employment, Apple Intelligence infrastructure and data centers, corporate facilities, and Apple TV+ production in 20 states.  

Apple said it is also set to open a manufacturing academy in Michigan, offering training led by engineers and local university staff to support mid-sized manufacturing firms in areas like project management and manufacturing processes.

 

Australia fines Telegram for delay in answering child abuse, terror questions

Sydney — Australia’s online safety regulator fined messaging platform Telegram about $640,000 on Monday for its delay in answering questions about measures the app took to prevent the spread of child abuse and violent extremist material.

The eSafety Commission in March 2024 sought responses from social media platforms YouTube, X and Facebook to Telegram and Reddit, and blamed them for not doing enough to stop extremists from using live-streaming features, algorithms and recommendation systems to recruit users.

Telegram and Reddit were asked about the steps they were taking to combat child sexual abuse material on their services. They had to respond by May, but Telegram submitted its response in October.

“Timely transparency is not a voluntary requirement in Australia and this action reinforces the importance of all companies complying with Australian law,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.

Telegram’s delay in providing information obstructed eSafety from implementing its online safety measures, Grant said.

Telegram said it had fully responded to all eSafety’s questions last year, with no outstanding issues.

“The unfair and disproportionate penalty concerns only the response time frame, and we intend to appeal,” the company said in an email.

Australia’s spy agency in December said one in five priority counterterrorism cases investigated involved youths.

The messaging platform has been under growing scrutiny around the world since its founder Pavel Durov was placed under formal investigation in France in August in connection with alleged use of the app for illegal activities.

Durov, who is out on bail, has denied the allegations.

Grant said Big Tech must be transparent and put in place measures to prevent their services from being misused as the threat posed by online extremist materials poses a growing risk.

“If we want accountability from the tech industry we need much greater transparency. These powers give us a look under the hood at just how these platforms are dealing, or not dealing, with a range of serious and egregious online harms which affect Australians,” Grant said.

If Telegram chooses to ignore the penalty notice, eSafety would seek a civil penalty in court, Grant said. 

Rich in cash, Japan automaker Toyota builds city to test futuristic mobility

SUSONO — Woven City near Mount Fuji is where Japanese automaker Toyota plans to test everyday living with robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous zero-emissions transportation.

Daisuke Toyoda, an executive in charge of the project from the automaker’s founding family, stressed it’s not “a smart city.”

“We’re making a test course for mobility so that’s a little bit different. We’re not a real estate developer,” he said Saturday during a tour of the facility, where the first phase of construction was completed.

The Associated Press was the first foreign media to get a preview of the $10 billion Woven City.

The first phase spans 47,000 square meters (506,000 square feet), roughly the size of about five baseball fields. When completed, it will be 294,000 square meters (3.1 million square feet).

Built on the grounds of a shuttered Toyota Motor Corp. auto plant, it’s meant to be a place where researchers and startups come together to share ideas, according to Toyoda.

Ambitious plans for futuristic cities have sputtered or are unfinished, including one proposed by Google’s parent company Alphabet in Toronto; “Neom” in Saudi Arabia; a project near San Francisco, spearheaded by a former Goldman Sachs trader, and Masdar City next to Abu Dhabi’s airport.

Woven City’s construction began in 2021. All the buildings are connected by underground passageways, where autonomous vehicles will scuttle around collecting garbage and making deliveries.

No one is living there yet. The first residents will total just 100 people.

Called “weavers,” they’re workers at Toyota and partner companies, including instant noodle maker Nissin and Daikin, which manufactures air-conditioners. Coffee maker UCC was serving hot drinks from an autonomous-drive bus, parked in a square surrounded by still-empty apartment complexes.

The city’s name honors Toyota’s beginnings as a maker of automatic textile looms. Sakichi Toyoda, Daisuke Toyoda’s great-great-grandfather, just wanted to make life easier for his mother, who toiled on a manual loom.

There was little talk of using electric vehicles, an area where Toyota has lagged. While Tesla and Byd emerged as big EV players, Toyota has been pushing hydrogen, the energy of choice in Woven City.

Toyota officials acknowledged it doesn’t expect to make money from Woven City, at least not for years.

Keisuke Konishi, auto analyst at Quick Corporate Valuation Research Center, believes Toyota wants to work on robotic rides to rival Google’s Waymo — even if it means building an entire complex.

“Toyota has the money to do all that,” he said.

VOA Mandarin: How will China help developing countries promote AI?

After China’s DeepSeek gained global recognition, some argue that the U.S.-China rivalry in AI may be upended. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party is actively offering to help developing countries strengthen their AI capacity building. Observers said that China is selling its AI software to targeted regions, which can challenge U.S. AI and serve as a strategy for Chinese companies to get more business overseas.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin. 

EU approves $960 million in German aid for Infineon chips plant

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said Thursday it had approved 920 million-euro of German state aid, or $960 million, to Infineon Technologies for the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The measure will allow Infineon to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project, which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of computer chips, the Commission said.

Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The European Commission has earmarked 15 billion euros for public and private semiconductor projects by 2030.

“This new manufacturing plant will bring flexible production capacity to the EU and thereby strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and technological autonomy in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act,” the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission said the plant — which is slated to reach full capacity in 2031 — will be a front-end facility, covering wafer processing, testing and separation, adding that its chips will be used in industrial, automotive and consumer applications.

The aid will take the form of a direct grant of up to 920 million euros to Infineon to support its overall investment, amounting to 3.5 billion euros. Infineon, Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, which was spun off from Siemens 25 years ago, has said the plant will be the largest single investment in its history.

Infineon has agreed with the EU to ensure the project will bring wider positive effects to the EU semiconductor value chain and invest in the research and development of the next generation of chips in Europe, the Commission said.

It will also contribute to crisis preparedness by committing to implement priority-rated orders in the case of a supply shortage, in line with the European Chips Act. 

Solar refrigerators in Kenya reduce food waste

NAIROBI, KENYA — Milk and egg vendor Caroline Mukundi has lost a lot of her stock in her years of selling fresh food at a Nairobi market.

Mukundi said she had no way to keep food fresh, and the cost of refrigerating was out of reach.

“The food would go bad,” she said, and she would have to throw it away. “It was a big challenge for me.”

Mukundi said her situation turned around when she acquired a solar-powered refrigerator.

The refrigerators, named Koolboks and manufactured in Kenya, are fitted with ice compartments that can chill food even without a source of power. The devices can keep food cool for up to four days without electricity, even with limited sunlight.

Customers can buy the refrigerators on a customized payment model, said Natalie Casey, chief business officer at the Koolboks startup company.

“They can be between 1,500 and 3,000 US dollars, because it includes not only the appliances but also the solar panels and battery storage to enable the continuous cooling,” she said. “We’ve decided what might be more accessible to them is to first pay a down payment between 20 and 35% of the total, and the customer can pay in installments of up to 24 months.”

Koolboks has sold about 7,000 solar-powered refrigerators.

Conventional refrigerators for businesses can cost anywhere from $11,000 to $100,000 or more, said Dorothy Otieno, program manager at the Center for Environmental Justice and Development.

“Some businesses, especially small businesses, are not able to afford it,” she said.

“We are looking at, for example, how businesses can be supported to get access to [the Koolboks refrigerators], especially for communities that are not able to afford,” she said.

The refrigerator was among dozens of innovations showcased at the recent Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi. The conference’s founder, Andrew Fassnidge, told VOA that such creations are crucial to solving local problems on the continent.

“What’s interesting with … Koolboks refrigeration is, if we look at the Covid vaccine, one of the biggest issues at the time was refrigeration, and it’s still an issue in most markets,” he said.

Koolboks markets a refrigerator specifically for vaccines.

The refrigerators could have an impact on climate change, too.

A 2024 survey by the U.N. Environmental Program showed Kenya has a high level of food waste, with annual waste ranging from 40 to 100 kilograms per person.

Environmentalists say high levels of organic waste worsen climate change, so preventing food waste can have an impact.