Month: March 2024

The White House Warns US Governors of Serious Threats to Critical Water Infrastructure

Monday.com
by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure
Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• US government officials are advising state governors that drinking water and wastewater systems are under threat.

• Recent attacks carried out by bad actors working on behalf of the Iranian and Chinese governments used different techniques to breach critical infrastructure; the government expects more to come. A letter from the White House included a link to guidance on what security controls water systems should have in place.

Concerns about attacks on critical infrastructure are nothing new, but recent events have shown that bad actors are becoming more brazen. A survey conducted by Mitre and the Harris Corporation in February 2024 found that 81% of 2,046 Americans reported concern about critical infrastructure safety and security. Drinking water and wastewater systems are particularly attractive targets to attackers because they are essential to the population and typically under-secured.

Continue reading “The White House Warns US Governors of Serious Threats to Critical Water Infrastructure” →

Mobile Operators Announce Few New Private Network Services but Note Diverse Trials and Customers

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
Kathryn Weldon – Research Director, Business Network and IT Services – Americas

Summary Bullets:

• Since October 2023, there have been few public announcements of new private wireless services or enhanced capabilities of existing services from key mobile operators in the US and Europe.

• However, operators have announced interesting new trials or commercial launches of private 5G, expanding use cases in verticals that ranged from automotive to retail, heavy industry, event venues, universities, ports, and utilities.

Recent PCN Announcements

Continue reading “Mobile Operators Announce Few New Private Network Services but Note Diverse Trials and Customers” →

European Commission Agrees Data Center Emissions Reporting Act

by Rob Pritchard, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Communicate, IT Leader
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• The European Commission (EC) continues to set the benchmark for sustainability reporting in technology as part of the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EEED).

• Signs of ongoing innovation to mitigate climate damage from data centers and use scarce resources as efficiently as possible as demand continues to grow.

The European Union’s climate goals aim to “enhance present and future energy security and affordability.” With the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as a focus for sustainability, the EC notes that in 2018, the energy consumption of data centers in the EU was 76.8 TWh. This is expected to rise by 28% to 98.5 TWh by 2030, with data centers accounting for 3.2% of energy demand by 2030 (2018: 2.7%). It notes that “these projections are expected to be revised upwards considering the strong growth of emerging services and technologies such as streaming, cloud gaming, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality.”

Continue reading “European Commission Agrees Data Center Emissions Reporting Act” →

AI is Hot, but Data Center is Hotter  

by siowmeng, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, IT Leader
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• While both generative AI (GenAI) is having widespread interests, and more use cases are emerging, companies need to ensure the infrastructure does not become a bottleneck.

• GenAI will need new approaches from the processors to data centers and cooling systems to ensure the development can be efficient and sustainable.

AI continues to be a hot topic moving into 2024. The technology has evolved from predictive AI to GenAI and multi-modal GenAI, over a relatively short period of time. This technology is creating endless possibilities, and various use cases have started to emerge. For example, GenAI/AI have been applied for disease diagnosis, application development (assisted code development), marketing content creation, and demand forecasting for retail businesses. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise to see many forecasters expecting a rapid growth of revenue related to GenAI. However, amid the excitement, there have been concerns, particularly the need to address ethical issues and responsible AI. One area that AI technology providers have not been highlighting is the infrastructure, including the physical facility required to host the hardware for AI workloads.

Continue reading “AI is Hot, but Data Center is Hotter  “ →

Proposed TikTok Ban is a Symptom of the Need for Strong Privacy Laws

by Steven J. Schuchart Jr., posted in Big Data

S. Schuchart

The news has been abuzz for the last few days about the US federal government banning TikTok in the country unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells the company. Federal lawmakers contend that TikTok is beholden to the Chinese government and that ByteDance would be compelled to share TikTok data on Americans if asked, constituting a national security threat.

Continue reading “Proposed TikTok Ban is a Symptom of the Need for Strong Privacy Laws” →

Calling All MNCs: The EU AI Act Has Passed – It’s Time to Expand Corporate Ethical AI Strategies

by Rena Bhattacharyya, posted in IT Leader

R. Bhattacharyya

Summary Bullets:
• With the passage of the EU AI Act, staying on top of issues related to AI and ethics is going to become increasingly important to multinational organizations.
• The need for individuals that can help organizations adapt business processes to meet evolving ethical AI requirements will become increasingly urgent.

The EU AI Act is groundbreaking legislation that strives to hold organizations more accountable for their use of artificial intelligence. It categorizes use cases by risk, stipulates greater oversight of riskier AI use cases, bans certain use cases outright, and requires increased transparency over the use the technology, in addition to many other requirements. While these new obligations provide much-needed consumer protections, they create increased complexity for enterprises already struggling to scale their use of AI. To meet the requirements outlined by the EU AI Act, organizations operating in Europe must start devising a strategy to enhance documentation and oversight of AI technology.

Continue reading “Calling All MNCs: The EU AI Act Has Passed – It’s Time to Expand Corporate Ethical AI Strategies” →

OSS Projects to Help Spur GenAI Adoption

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable

C. Dunlap
Research Director

Summary Bullets:
• Developers naturally flock to familiar forums to collaborate and learn about new technologies
• Early open-source software (OSS) projects leading the industry include OpenLLaMA, PyTorch, Nvidia Triton, and Ray/KubeRay

Never before have enterprise developers needed more access to emerging and unfamiliar technologies then during this era of app modernization and generative AI (GenAI). The sea change that GenAI has imposed on the industry has prompted a resurgence in the importance of having OSS alternatives available to developers.
Continue reading “OSS Projects to Help Spur GenAI Adoption” →

Why-Fi? Wireless in the Enterprise

by Steven J. Schuchart Jr., posted in IT Leader, Network

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:
• Wi-Fi 7 is getting attention and old, false arguments about 5G vs Wi-Fi are resurfacing
• Wireless in the enterprise should be based on business use case

In 2024, there will be a deluge of new Wi-Fi 7 products, starting at the access point (AP) for enterprises and consumers, followed later in the year and into 2025 by Wi-Fi 7 client devices. Still, enterprises today are largely installing Wi-Fi 6/6E, a trend that is likely to continue through 2024 – most of these decisions and installations were planned and budgeted before Wi-Fi 7 Aps were even available. That, combined with the lack of client devices that use Wi-Fi 7 in 2024, means the benefits of being a first mover into Wi-Fi 7 are largely down the road.

Continue reading “Why-Fi? Wireless in the Enterprise” →