Tag Archives: cloud computing

Business, Contributed

How Technology Changes Company Thinking And Company Performance

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This article is contributed by Varinderjit Singh, General Manager, Lenovo Malaysia

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While I think most of us would expect large organizations to include forward-thinking technology in their overall business strategies, we’re starting to see this with SMBs as well, including relatively small companies, to different degrees around the world.

Not only do customers expect customized on-demand services, so do employees.

Businesses therefore seek to leverage technology to drive faster results and adapt to new market trends. At the heart of this strategic thinking is understanding the new roles emerging technology has around taking on the tasks of time-consuming day-to-day activities so that high-value and skilled executives and employees can focus on driving growth engines.

In a way, we are back to where computing first started, which was to automate processes and make them simpler and faster. What is different today of course is that technologies are so much more advanced, and are continually improving and increasingly embedded into strategy development – very different from the older business model where technology was a cost assigned to operations.

This is therefore about taking teams to the next level in our increasingly AI and digitally-driven world, requiring businesses to find a balance between implementing emerging technology and providing personalized experiences for their customers.

In assessing which technologies perhaps play the biggest parts, I suggest the following.

Hi-speed network infrastructure

Connectivity is clearly essential to any distributed workforce. Without it, device technology is expensive and inefficient, collaboration breaks down, productivity drops, and customers and employees go somewhere else. Wireless technologies like Wi-Fi 6E and 5G will be instrumental in delivering high bandwidth, ultra-low latency connectivity, and power to devices all over the world and will expand the landscape of solutions for businesses that want to grow.

Design and engineering teams must also offer new possibilities for thinner and more flexible designs for mobile employees working in hybrid workspaces. Companies like Lenovo are designing unique laptops with a built-in secondary e-Ink screen in the top cover or foldable displays that extend versatility and mobility. An example is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold operating on Windows 11 Pro. Use Windows 11 Pro for Workstations to blaze through workloads with lag-free multitasking across your most demanding applications.

The key here is technology equipped with always-on, always-connected capability.

Personal AI transformation

In the near future, PCs that currently provide AI-enabled enhanced video, audio, and security capabilities will transform into full AI PC devices. They will not only have the power to provide a personalized digital assistant experience but also learn over time, adapt and predict tasks, and offer solutions for improving workload management using intuitive natural language interaction.

Personal AI technology is expected to be instrumental in helping workers maintain high levels of productivity while also promoting healthy and sustainable work habits. By assisting with task prioritization and workload management, Personal AI can offer more predictive and insightful answers to questions or tasks.

While Cloud LLMs and Personal AI may differ in functionalities, they can offer diverse and complementary benefits to different users. Used together, they can provide a more comprehensive and personalized smart assistant experience that will accelerate speed and efficiency at every stage of workflow, ultimately helping businesses gain a significant competitive edge.

AI-enabled services and products

The last six months have seen the world wake up to the opportunities of AI-enabled services. For example, some workplaces have incorporated AI chatbots to provide employees with resources around the clock, adding convenience for those seeking answers to common questions about employee benefits, scheduling, insurance, vacation availability, and sick time. By allowing some HR processes to be accomplished without human intervention, chatbots offer a better allocation of HR staff members’ time toward addressing more complex employee inquiries. The use of such AI chatbots however has raised concern in some areas. Since most are public cloud-based resources, the issues of data integrity, security, and privacy are crucial considerations. AI services can help assess and guide the appropriate solutions and areas of investment in regard to Cloud, Private, or Personal AI models.

And we are already seeing that companies that smartly adapt to incorporating AI-enabled services and products have a competitive advantage. AI and machine learning can enable targeted data analysis, so employees can focus on creative and social tasks that AI simply cannot.

To take organizations to the next level, businesses must strategically implement technology such as infrastructure, cloud, and AI tools that will help them scale. Businesses need the ability to integrate new technologies and workloads efficiently and seamlessly, often within resource, budget, and capital restrictions.

That in turn requires new strategic thinking around the impact and opportunities that emerging technology enables.

Business, Contributed

What Might the Next Decade Bring for Computing?

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New technologies can take many forms. Often, they come from generally straightforward, incremental product advances over the course of years; think the Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) process shrinks that underpinned many of the advances in computing over the past decades. Not easy, but relatively predictable from a high-level enough view.

Other shifts are less straightforward to predict. Even if a technology is not completely novel, it may require the right conditions and advances to come together so it can flourish in the mainstream. Both server virtualization and containerization fall into this category.

What’s next? Someone once said that predictions are hard, especially about the future. But here are some areas that Red Hat has been keeping an eye on and that you should likely have on your radar as well. This is hardly a comprehensive list and it may include some surprises, but, it is a combination of both early stage and more fleshed-out developments on the horizon. The first few are macro trends that pervade many different aspects of computing. Others are more specific to hardware and software computing infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)

On the one hand, AI/ML belongs on any list about where computing is headed. Whether coding tools, self-tuning infrastructure, or improved observability of systems, AI/ML is clearly a critical part of the computing landscape going forward.

What’s harder to predict is exactly what forms and applications of AI will deliver compelling business value, many of which will be interesting in narrow domains, and will likely turn out to be almost good enough over a lengthy time horizon.

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Much of the success of AI to date has rested on training deep neural networks (NNs) of increasing size (as measured by the number of weights and parameters) on increasingly large datasets using backpropagation, and supported by the right sort of fast hardware optimized for linear algebra operations—graphics processing units (GPUs) in particular. Large Language Models (LLMs) are one prominent, relatively recent example.

There have been many clear wins, but AI has struggled with more generalized systems that interface with an unconstrained physical world—as in the case of autonomous driving, for example. There are also regulatory and legal concerns relating to explainability, bias and even overall economic impact. Some experts also wonder if broad gaps in our collective understanding of the many areas covered by cognitive science that lay outside the direct focus of machine learning may (or may not) be needed for AI to handle many types of applications.

What’s certain is that we will be surprised.

Automation

In a sense, automation is a class of application to which AI brings more sophisticated capabilities. For example, Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed with IBM watsonx Code Assistant is one recent example of a generative AI service designed by and for Ansible automators, operators and developers.

Automation is increasingly necessary because hardware and software stacks are getting more complex. What’s less obvious is how improved observability tooling and AI-powered automation tools that make use of that more granular data plays out in detail.

At the least, it will lead us to think about questions such as: Where are the big wins in dynamic automated system tuning that will most improve IT infrastructure efficiency? What’s the scope of the automated environment? How much autonomy will we be prepared to give to the automation, and what circuit breakers and fallbacks will be considered best practice?

Over time, we’ve reduced manual human intervention in processes such as CI/CD pipelines. But we’ve done so in the context of evolving best practices in concert with the increased automation.

Security

Security is a broad and deep topic (and one of deep concern across the industry). It encompasses zero trust, software supply chains, digital sovereignty and yes, AI—both as a defensive tool and an offensive weapon. But one particular topic is worth highlighting here.

Confidential computing is a security technology that protects data in use, meaning that it is protected while it is being processed. This is in contrast to traditional encryption technologies, which protect data at rest (when it is stored) and data in transit (when it is being transmitted over a network).

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Confidential computing works by using a variety of techniques to isolate data within a protected environment, such as a trusted execution environment (TEE) or a secure enclave. It’s of particular interest when running sensitive workloads in an environment over which you don’t have full control, such as a public cloud. It’s relatively new technology but is consistent with an overall trend towards more security controls, not fewer.

RISC-V

While there are examples of open hardware designs, such as the Open Compute Project, it would be hard to make the case for there having been a successful open processor relevant to server hardware.

However, major silicon vendors and cloud providers are exploring and adopting the RISC-V free-to-license and open processor instruction set architecture (ISA). It follows a different approach from past open processor efforts. For one thing, it was open source from the beginning and is not tied to any single vendor. For another, it was designed to be extensible and implementation-agnostic. It allows for the development of new embedded technologies implemented upon FPGAs as well as the manufacture of microcontrollers, microprocessors and specialized data processing units (DPUs).

Its impact is more nascent in the server space, but it has been gaining momentum. The architecture has also seen considerable standardization work to balance the flexibility of extensions with the fragmentation they can bring. RISC-V profiles are a set of standardized subsets of the RISC-V ISA. They are designed to make sure that hardware implementers and software developers can intersect with an interface built around a set of extensions with a bounded amount of flexibility designed to support well-defined categories of systems and applications.

Platform software

Perhaps one of the most intriguing questions is what happens at the lower levels of the server infrastructure software stack—roughly the operating system on a single shared memory server and the software that orchestrates workloads across many of these servers connected over a network.

It is probably easiest to start with what is unlikely to change in fundamental ways over the next decade. Linux has been around for more than 30 years; Unix more than 50, with many basic concepts dating to Multics about ten years prior.

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That is a long time in the computer business. But it also argues for the overall soundness and adaptability of the basic approach taken by most modern operating systems—and the ability to evolve Linux when changes have been needed. That adaptation will continue by taking advantage of reducing overheads by selectively offloading workloads to FPGAs and other devices such as edge servers. There are also opportunities to reduce transition overheads for performance-critical applications; the Unikernel Linux project—a joint effort involving professors, PhD students and engineers at the Boston University-based Red Hat Collaboratory—demonstrates one direction such optimizations could take.

More speculative is the form that collections of computing resources might take and how they will be managed. Over the past few decades, these resources primarily took the form of masses of x86 servers. Some specialized hardware is used for networking, storage and other functions, but CMOS process shrinks meant that for the most part, it was easier, cheaper and faster to just wait for the next x86 generation than to buy some unproven specialized design.

However, with performance gains associated with general-purpose process shrinks decelerating—and maybe even petering out at some point—specialized hardware that more efficiently meets the needs of specific workload types starts to look more attractive. The use of GPUs for ML workloads is probably the most obvious example, but is not the only one.

The challenge is that developers are mostly not increasing in number or skill. Better development tools can help to some degree, but it will also become more important to abstract away the complexity of more specialized and more diverse hardware.

What might this look like? A new abstraction/virtualization layer? An evolution of Kubernetes to better understand hardware and cloud differences, the relationship between components and how to intelligently match relatively generic code to the most appropriate hardware or cloud? Or will we see something else that introduces completely new concepts?

Wrap up

What we can say about these predictions is that they’re probably a mixed bag. Some promising technologies may fizzle a bit. Others will bring major and generally unexpected changes in their wake, and something may pop onto the field at a time and from a place where we least expect it.

Business, Feature

Businesses Need to Go Back to Basics and Focus Customer Experiences as Generative AI Tools Become Mainstream

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Where it was once heavily reliant on customers’ experience through physical interactions, it is now primarily dominated by digital experiences where bots dominate these interactions. From a customer interaction model where nearly every experience the consumer goes through is positive or unique, it is now one where AI and Bots guide consumers coldly through touchpoints. Oftentimes, this paradigm and approach leave customers dissatisfied and irate.

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This is where Infobip is now looking to change things by looking at the emerging behavioural trends of consumers. Today’s consumers want things to be faster, more efficient and personalised all while being online. The company is placing their focus on adapting Generative AI into its systems with the intent of providing customers with a more personalized experience shopping online akin to the experience they’ve become accustomed to offline.

Back to Basics – Interactions & Experiences Matter

“…It goes all back to the basics.” That is the overarching theme of the solutions that Infobip is developing. Miguel Turnbull, the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Infobip explains a fundamental shift in the paradigm of customer interactions, “The goal is to bring back personalization and the uniqueness of these interactions to a digital experience. So still, in the comfort of your phone, being able to have the same experience you would have if you physically went to a shop.”

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Infobip’s Executives at the recent panel discussion.

This could not be more true with the shift of consumers from buying offline to buying online. A phenomenon that was put into overdrive over the course of the recent pandemic. In fact, the business landscape has changed so drastically we’re seeing the re-emergence of experience-centric behaviours rather than choice and brand-driven ones.

George Ni, Regional Director of Partnerships and Alliances for APAC at Infobip explains, “It is about experiences as Miguel said, but it is also about timely responses meaning that I want it tomorrow, I want it now and how do I quickly get into a particular experience platform? It has evolved that it is no longer a single point-to-point service provision but a single point-to-multi-point or multi-point to multi-point service provision and this is what we call the ecosystem. Meaning that a vendor who must survive in this business today will be required to survive in this greater ecosystem.”

An Omnichannel Solution for a Multifaceted Problem

Infobip is developing solutions that will help businesses leverage business insights and interconnectivity. The mainstay of their offering – the Infobip exchange marketplace – empowers businesses to stay on the ball by democratising the marketplace and allowing businesses to more readily monetize their intellectual properties. Of course, with an open forum like the Infobip marketplace, businesses are also able to collaborate and develop solutions that can then be provisioned.

Infobip’s solution in assisting future partners or businesses in this era of change is by providing an Omnichannel Platform; A platform provides a range of services across channels seamlessly. Together with this, they have also created user-friendly stack automation tools known as SaaS (Software as a service) layers consisting of diverse building blocks or APIs that partners can easily incorporate into their platform.

Conversational Cloud with Generative AI in Forging Lasting Business-Customer Relationships

In leveraging these tools, brands and businesses will be able to leverage their insights to forge lasting relationships – albeit digitally – with their customers. In fact, according to Velid Begovic, Infobip’s Vice President of Revenue in APAC, the cornerstone of this lasting relationship is smoother, more thoughtful and efficient communication between brands and their audiences. This can be achieved by using an emerging technology called the conversational cloud.

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Velid Begovic, Infobip’s Vice President of Revenue in APAC, expounded his views on the shift in paradigm and the emergence of the conversational cloud.

He explains, “The rise of conversational cloud, a set of cloud-based solutions facilitating business-customer interactions, is driven by the shift to mobile-first online experiences. Brands are moving beyond reactive social media use to adopt a proactive conversational strategy. WhatsApp for business is gaining traction, especially in regions like Malaysia. Brands are integrating Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to extend conversations across various channels, including in-app, popular OTT platforms, and traditional communication channels. This shift reflects a broader transformation of transactions into conversations, emphasizing the importance of immediate and responsive communication. Brands embracing a conversational-first approach aim to provide a personalized and outstanding customer experience, setting the stage for success.”

We’re seeing an increase in the importance of these interactions. Platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram now rate pages and businesses on their responsiveness. While we can use chatbots, Generative AI and conversational cloud are the natural next steps in developing solutions that will allow businesses of any size to forge lasting relationships with their customers.

A Delicate Balance Between Customer Experience (CX) and Customer Service (CS)

It has become more apparent that customer service and customer experience go hand in hand. However, there needs to be a delicate balance between the two; one that is unique to each business but makes all the difference in a world where CX and CS go hand-in-hand. According to a recent McKinsey report, 71% of customers expect relevant and personalized attention from brands and are frustrated by not getting quality responses, especially through online engagements.

Infobip is looking to drive a shift in paradigm to alleviate and turn around the outcomes from these customer interactions. According to Turnbull, “The McKinsey report is unique, as we also have reports from our groups stating that 75% of people are tired of talking to robotised machines.”. He further explains, “In a world of abundant choices and rapid technological advancements, consumers’ impatience is fueled by the vast information and options available. Brands must adapt by promptly delivering information and responding to customer needs, the increasing pace of technological development, using the example of ChatGPT as a trend that gained widespread attention. This technology, integrated into their platform in collaboration with Microsoft, aims to provide a humanized experience through chatbots its why Infobip was the first to integrate their platform ChatGPT technology. By infusing personality into these automated solutions, brands can enhance the consumer-brand relationship. This personalized approach is crucial as brands compete fiercely for customer attention and loyalty.”

At The Edge of A Paradigm Shift, Poised to Lead

It comes as no surprise then that businesses will need to inevitably invest in technologies that will enhance and improve their CX. It would then be prudent for businesses to look at solutions that will not only provide short-term advantages but also long-term outcomes.

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Source: Infobip

The Malaysian business landscape has already, albeit defiantly, tapped into this strategy. However, the nation still remains an early adopter of technologies which empower this strategy. This can be seen in both individual and large-scale aspects like governments and businesses. In fact, Malaysia’s speed in moving from a nation depending on cash to a cashless one demonstrates the nation’s willingness to adopt and adapt to technologies in day-to-day business systems.

While Infobip continues to deliver solutions in the form of data centres, SaaS stacks and even advisory, it falls to the businesses themselves to develop policies and approaches that will minimize exposure and keep potential threats at bay. With growing concern among businesses and the general public about data privacy, it would be prudent that businesses then make strides to deploy these technologies tactfully.

Business, Contributed

Embracing the Golden Digital Era: Elevating Malaysia’s Potential with Cloud Adoption & Skilling

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This article is contributed by Azhar Abdullah, Head of Enterprise at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

As Malaysia pushes towards becoming a regional leader in the digital economy under the Malaysia Madani vision of achieving a highly-skilled, prosperous, and sustainable economy, organizations must now take steps to adopt a digital-first mindset to innovate and transform their businesses.

The digital economy is one of the key economic pillars contributing to 23.2%[1] of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP), which is set to increase to 25.5% by 2025. However, 77%[2] of small and medium enterprises, which contribute almost 40%[3] of Malaysia’s GDP, are still early in their digitalization journey. This represents a huge opportunity for Malaysian businesses to accelerate the pace of digital adoption for tech transformations across the board.

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As new technologies emerge, businesses need to invest in both solutions and training to enhance efficiency and productivity in day-to-day work and position themselves for growth. Digital upskilling is a key component of Malaysia’s digital transformation, which includes ensuring employees are equipped with capabilities to deploy cloud-enabled solutions, individuals are empowered for future digital careers, and the digital inclusion of citizens is advanced.

Keeping Pace in an Evolving Landscape

To keep pace with industry disruptions and evolving customer needs, it is essential for business leaders to embrace cloud technology as a strategic priority. Doing so will allow them to benefit from the cost-efficiency, reliability, flexibility, scalability, and security of the cloud.

One such example is the well-loved homegrown curry powder and spice brand, Baba’s Products[4], which adopted AWS cloud to efficiently scale, optimize costs, and implement disaster recovery strategies. With AWS, Baba’s Products has achieved faster time-to-value, reducing the order-to-cash cycle by 40%, and supporting its expanding regional presence with products sold across nearly all retail grocery stores in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.

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Malaysian businesses should move forward on their digitization efforts, to reduce the risk of falling behind as the country moves towards achieving its digital economy goals. Without integrating digital tools and strategies into operations, businesses may face several challenges such as inefficiencies in their productivity levels, resulting in slower delivery of customer products or services. Additionally, with data playing a critical role in decision-making, they might miss out on valuable insights, hindering their ability to make informed choices and strategic decisions.

As part of its strategy, Maxis, Malaysia’s leading converged solutions company and AWS Advanced Tier Partner, taps into resources from the global community AWS Partner Network[5] to drive innovation, modernization, and deliver enhanced personalized experiences for its end customers. Maxis leverages more than 400 AWS-accredited employees to date that provide solutions to local businesses to accelerate cloud adoption.

Building Malaysia’s digital workforce with the right talent

As technology continues to shape the world, education, skilling, and talent play a pivotal role in driving innovation, economic growth, as well as societal progress. In June 2023, Human Resource Minister V. Sivakumar highlighted that based on 2020 World Economic Forum predictions, 4.5 million Malaysians are likely to lose their jobs by 2030 if they do not improve their skills with the emergence of AI[6]. 

AWS has committed to training 29 million[7] people globally in cloud computing through free training programs by 2025 and has helped 13 million globally access cloud skills training to date. Since 2017, AWS has trained more than 1 million individuals across ASEAN and more than 50,000 individuals in Malaysia.

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Training programs like AWS re/Start prepare the workforce for a digital economy, as well as transforming lives in Malaysia. One example is Malaysia’s own re/Start alumni, Ganesan Mahesan, who was faced with the challenge of finding a professional job when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “During the pandemic, I struggled to find employment in my field. I came across the AWS re/Start program, and it was an excellent introduction to core cloud concepts. I was excited to learn new skills.” Through the program, Ganesan secured a job with the chemical company Evonik as an IT Support Engineer.

Investment in skilling is equally beneficial to both individuals in the workforce and employers. According to a Gallup study,[8] organizations that employ digitally advanced workers, digital technology, and cloud technology reap higher business growth and innovation. In a similar vein, Malaysian workers with advanced digital skills can earn salaries 106% higher, and 74% of respondents express higher job satisfaction.

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To stay ahead of the evolving job landscape and skills demands, Bank Islam, Malaysia’s first listed Islamic financial services institution, launched a broad staff upskilling program to give more than 4,000 Bank Islam employees access to foundational cloud skills. This was achieved through a combination of on-demand digital training, live instructor-led training, and group interaction sessions, as part of a skills roadmap to establish the Bank Islam Digital Academy, a permanent learning centre that will drive and grow digital skills across the organization.

Long-term commitment to enable Malaysia’s Digital Era

It is inspiring to see the potential of how cloud technology can enable SMEs, enterprises, government agencies, and citizens. In the public sector, government agencies can tap into the Cloud Framework Agreement with the Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), which grants Malaysia’s government agencies and departments access to power IT modernizations and improve citizen services.

Earlier in March, AWS announced its plans to launch an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia, which will give government, developers, businesses of all sizes, and non-profit organizations across the country the access to greater choices – from compute and storage, to artificial intelligence and machine learning, and more, to foster innovation and growth. As part of its commitment to the region, AWS is planning to invest $6 billion (approx. MYR 25.5 billion) in Malaysia by 2037. We look forward to seeing how this investment will spur job creation, cultivate skills training, and provide growth opportunities to the communities surrounding our data centres, helping Malaysia reach its potential as a digital leader in the region.

[1]Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal, Ministry of Economy
[2] SME Corp, Post-pandemic growth: Address barriers to business digital transformation
[3] Contribution of SMEs in Malaysia and China, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Newsroom
[4] AWS, Baba’s Keeps Its Spices Fresh with Real-Time Data from SAP on AWS
[5] AWS, Join the AWS Partner Network
[6] HR minister: Malaysia needs to retrain 50% of workforce amid AI rise
[7] Amazon, Our Upskilling Commitments
[8] AWS, Study by Gallup and AWS shows digital skills drive economic growth across APAC

Business, News

AWS Malaysia Region to Go Live in 2024

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is preparing to go live with its Malaysia AWS Region. The eagerly awaited AWS Region in Malaysia is now confirmed to go live in 2024. This is part of AWS’s RM25.5 billion (USD$5.39 billion) investment pledge, which aimed to construct a brand-new AWS Region in Malaysia by 2037. This monumental step will provide a slew of benefits for developers, startups, enterprises, educational institutions, and various organizations.

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The forthcoming AWS Region is set to play a crucial role in driving Malaysia’s digitization efforts and meeting the surging demand for cloud services. It will also be a hub for innovation in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. An array of cutting-edge technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things will be at the fingertips of startups, small to mid-sized businesses, enterprises, and public sector organizations. The announcement also aligns with the Malaysian government’s recent strategic Madani Economy Framework, which strives to enhance the well-being of all Malaysians by 2030.

The new AWS Region also brings a significant advantage for customers with data residency preferences, enabling secure data storage within Malaysia, faster response times, and catering to the escalating demand for cloud services in the region.

In-Person Support for Local Visionaries & AWS Partners

To further support Malaysia’s digital transformation, AWS opened a new office in Kuala Lumpur on June 1, 2023. This state-of-the-art facility spans over 32,000 square feet, designed to encourage agile work, lifelong learning, and collaboration. It is primed to serve as an innovation hub, deepening relationships with customers and partners.

The Malaysian team is diverse and features experts from different fields who are able to support the company’s Malaysian clientele remotely and in person. Their focus is on empowering customers and AWS Partners of all sizes. Some prominent names include Al Rajhi Bank, Bank Islam, Cancer Research Malaysia, the Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education (DPCCE), the Department of Statistics Malaysia, Maxis, and PETRONAS.

Having a diverse team, AWS has been able to help its clientele and partners drive innovation and transformation in their respective fields. For instance, Pos Malaysia Berhad (Pos Malaysia), the nation’s postal and courier service provider, has embraced AWS as part of its ambitious transformation plan. This includes migrating its IT infrastructure to AWS, which has streamlined operations, reduced IT costs by 50%, and introduced new, customer-centric solutions.

The partnership between PETRONAS, Gentari Sdn Bhd (Gentari), Amazon, and AWS is set to accelerate sustainability and decarbonization efforts. Their plan includes the construction of a state-of-the-art facility incorporating advanced technology, robotics, and automation, similar to what’s used in Amazon’s facilities. PETRONAS will continue leveraging AWS technologies to improve and expand existing solutions like SETEL and STEAR.

Generative AI, with its ability to create new content and ideas, is making significant inroads in Malaysia. One of AWS’s partners, 123RF, a major digital image stock agency, has introduced an AI image generation service in collaboration with AWS. This service allows users to create custom images from text prompts and has led to a 20% increase in licensing rates for AI-generated content.

Creating a More Diversely Accessible Launchpad for Malaysia’s Digital Ambitions

The launch of the AWS Malaysia Region in 2024 is set to become a catalyst in Malaysia’s journey toward becoming a regional leader in digital technology. AWS’s commitment, stretching back to 2016, underscores its dedication to supporting Malaysia’s digital transformation, fostering innovation, and building a brighter future for Malaysians.

The company has also been instrumental in the upskilling of Malaysians. They have trained over 50,000 individuals in cloud skills since 2017. Through initiatives like the AWS re/Start program and AWS Academy, they offer free cloud computing skills development and job training. This equips learners for essential roles in the cloud computing industry, connecting them with employment opportunities.

Business, News

Nutanix & ST Engineering Form Partnership to Transform Singapore’s Cloud Computing Landscape

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Nutanix ST Engineering MoU Photo 2a

In efforts to advance hybrid cloud capabilities and empower Singapore’s workforce with essential tech skills, Nutanix and ST Engineering have joined forces through a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Hybrid cloud technology is a way of using both public and private cloud services together. It allows organisations to store some data in a public cloud while keeping other sensitive data in a private cloud.

Nutanix, a multi-cloud computing company, and ST Engineering, a technology and engineering group, have outlined their commitment to several key areas. Among these areas are:

Develop cutting-edge hybrid cloud technologies

Firstly, the partnership aims to develop cutting-edge hybrid cloud technologies tailored to the specific operational needs of organisations.

This collaborative effort combines public and private clouds to store data and manage multiple cloud services. It does this while prioritising strong security measures for data protection.

Additionally, the partnership aims to create a user-friendly cloud management portal. This portal will simplify multi-cloud management for businesses and enhance their control over cloud resources.

Cultivate a future-ready workforce through a curated training curriculum 

Secondly, ST Engineering and Nutanix plan to cultivate a future-ready workforce through a curated training curriculum focused on hybrid cloud technology. This educational initiative will target higher learning institutions, equipping students with the skills necessary to excel in cloud-centric environments.

The training curriculum will include various cloud-related domains, aligning with government-wide efforts to build deep tech skills, particularly in cloud computing.

In conclusion, this collaboration between Nutanix and ST Engineering represents an important step towards enhancing Singapore’s hybrid cloud capabilities. It should also ensure that the workforce is well-prepared to navigate the evolving technology landscape.

Business, News

[VMware Explore 2023] VMware Brings Data-Driven AI Automation to the Workspace Experience

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The landscape of work is evolving rapidly, and technology is at the forefront of this transformation. To navigate the complexities of hybrid work, VMware has unveiled a series of innovative AI integrations within its Anywhere Workspace platform, an integral part of the VMware Cross-Cloud services portfolio. These integrations leverage the power of data, intelligence, and automation to enhance employee experience, bolster vulnerability management, and streamline application lifecycle management. In essence, VMware Anywhere Workspace is designed to provide a seamless and secure workspace accessible from any device or location.

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A Holistic Approach to Enhancing Employee Experience

VMware is a pioneer in harnessing data and automation to elevate the employee and IT experience. The latest enhancements include Insights and Playbooks that utilize expanded data sources and advanced machine learning algorithms to enhance the Digital Employee Experience (DEX). This broader access to data strengthens VMware Insights and enables more effective issue remediation.

One noteworthy addition is app performance scores, supplementing the existing experience scores for mobile devices, desktops, and virtual environments. This means that if a SaaS app experiences downtime, IT is immediately alerted, and employees are automatically informed, eliminating the need for cumbersome support tickets.

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But it’s not just about providing more data to IT; it’s about empowering them to work smarter. VMware’s AI-driven Insights now incorporate anomaly detection, identifying potential experience issues for frontline devices and VDI environments, in addition to mobile and desktop setups. This latest announcement introduces Playbooks, enabling IT to create step-by-step remediation workflows for efficient incident resolution. Success rate analytics automate the resolution process over time.

George March, Manager of Digital Workspace and Development at USA Health, praised Workspace ONE intelligence for streamlining lifecycle management and enhancing security. Their roadmap includes implementing the ITSM connector, and with the addition of remediation playbooks, they anticipate further streamlining their help desk support teams’ workflows.

Partnering for Security and Manageability

End-to-end manageability and security for distributed workforces are paramount. VMware recognizes the importance of collaboration with best-of-breed partners to achieve these goals. To this end, VMware has expanded its partnership with Intel to create a cloud-native integration of Workspace ONE with Intel vPro®. This integration enables secure and remote device management directly from the cloud, eliminating the need for additional on-premises infrastructure and management software.

With this integration, IT teams gain below-the-OS vulnerability insights for vPro-powered devices, enhancing security. It also provides centralized visibility into these devices, accelerating patch remediation cycles for devices beyond office perimeters, even when they are powered off. This results in improved security and compliance, with higher patch saturation and minimal disruption to employee productivity.

Simplifying Virtual Environments with Modern App Management

Managing and delivering applications across various virtual environments has grown increasingly complex. Silos of legacy tools have compounded inefficiencies. VMware has introduced Apps on Demand, powered by VMware App Volumes, to address this challenge. It unifies app management and intelligently deploys apps to published app hosts or non-persistent desktop environments based on real-time app usage.

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Moreover, VMware is expanding App Volumes support to deliver apps on demand to persistent virtual desktops. This automation of app delivery streamlines processes with remarkable compatibility and cost savings. VMware App Volumes is the only solution capable of delivering and managing apps across multiple virtual desktop and app deployments.

Boeing’s Remarkable Hybrid Work Transformation

Boeing, a global leader in aerospace, leverages VMware Workspace ONE to support its extensive global workforce. Comprising 140,000 employees across the globe, Boeing’s workforce plays a crucial role in developing, manufacturing, and servicing aerospace and defence products.

Recognized as a ‘Hybrid Workforce Innovator,’ Boeing has utilized VMware Anywhere Workspace to enable its employees to work from anywhere globally. This transformation has not only improved the user experience but has also fortified security for devices and applications.

Kristina Ross, Boeing Workplace Solutions Director for Research & Technology, emphasized that Workspace ONE has streamlined their transition to modern management, enhanced scalability, and shifted their focus from infrastructure to business-facing solutions.

Business, Contributed

Tech Solutions Executives Must Consider Levelling Up Their Team

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This article is contributed by Varinderjit Singh, General Manager, Lenovo Malaysia

Today, integrating forward-thinking technology is not an option, but a key business strategy that touches nearly every part of a growing business. Not only do customers expect customized on-demand services, but employees do too.

According to recent research, nearly half (48.6%) of workers think using the right tech increases their productivity, and 35.8% say being equipped with appropriate technology helps make their job more flexible. Businesses small and large that want to take team creativity and productivity to the next level must leverage technology that can drive faster results and adapt to new trends in the market. It is imperative that enterprises harness modern technology such as mobile apps, AI-enabled services, and cloud automation as tools for their teams to help simplify or automate time-consuming day-to-day activities so they can focus on more challenging work.

Taking your team to the next level in our increasingly digitally driven world will require businesses to find a balance between implementing emerging tech for tasks that can be automated, and training their employees on how to provide personalized experiences for their clientele.

Here are the top three emerging technologies all business owners should have on their radar to scale their business efficiently.

Hi-speed Network Infrastructure

Slow and unstable connectivity is a major obstacle for a distributed workforce that is reliant on their PCs’ efficient technology to lead collaborative brainstorms, listen and engage during monthly planning meetings, and/or connect with team members during 1:1 meetings. Wifi 6E offers an advanced band connection needed for optimized work-from-home, online learning, live streaming, and faster speed for all your connected devices.  Emerging technologies like Wifi 6E will be instrumental in delivering high bandwidth, ultra-low latency connectivity and power to devices all over the world and will expand the landscape of solutions for businesses that want to grow.

ThinkPad X1

While devices must be faster and more functional, it is imperative that design and engineering teams also offer new possibilities of thinner and more flexible designs for employees on the go. For example, global PC manufacturers are designing unique laptops with extended battery life that allows you to work through the day uninterrupted—even with versatile usage modes on the go. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon operating on Windows 11 Pro is a great laptop for employees, especially in the hybrid working world. Windows 11 is the most secure Windows ever. Businesses report a 58% drop in security incidents with Windows 11 Pro devices.1 Forward-thinking technology equipped with always-on always-connected capability will be key for business continuity.

Cloud Automation

Cloud automation is an easy entry point for many businesses that are looking to expedite their processes through tech-enabled automation. As data, apps and workloads shift to the cloud, it can improve day-to-day operations and workflow, helping small-to-medium business (SMB) owners in particular automate tasks such as scheduling appointments, content marketing management and tracking business expenses in one place. By freeing up some time with the help of automation solutions, leaders can help their team build skills to become more productive through various training programs or employee enrichment opportunities.  These are a few examples of how digital transformation can be harnessed to enable businesses of all sizes to achieve efficiency, productivity and smart collaboration.

By automating certain tasks, business owners will provide employees with more time to deliver thoughtful and creative work. However, the prospect of automation can create uncertainty, both regarding job security and changes to day-to-day tasks. To reduce these fears, it is essential to communicate with employees throughout the entire process. The main message to reinforce is, “Automation technology is being used to support staff, not replace their roles.” Through open communication and continuous learning, employees will be given plenty of enrichment opportunities and stay loyal and engaged in their work and their companies long-term success.

AI-Enabled Services and Products

AI-enabled services are now in our homes, cars and personal computing technology, and they can also play a role in helping businesses address common challenges such as staffing, security monitoring, finance management, personalization of services, and more.

Some workplaces have incorporated AI chatbots to provide employees with resources around the clock, adding convenience for those seeking answers to common questions about employee benefits, scheduling, insurance, vacation availability and sick time. In turn, by allowing some HR processes to be accomplished without human intervention, chatbots offer a better allocation of HR staff members’ time toward addressing more complex employee concerns.

In fact, companies that smartly adapt to incorporating AI-enabled services and products have a competitive advantage. AI and machine learning can enable targeted data analysis, so employees can do creative and social tasks that AI simply cannot. Not only can companies save money by using AI to do repetitive work, but teams are able to focus their skills on more innovative assignments and, therefore, be more productive.

Uplevel your business by being adaptable and strategic

To take your team and company to the next level, businesses must strategically implement the proper infrastructure, cloud automation and AI tools that will help their business scale. Today, businesses of all sizes require client and data center infrastructure that enables growth rather than restricts it. As technology rapidly evolves, businesses need the ability to integrate new technologies and workloads efficiently and seamlessly, often within resource, budget and capital restrictions. The best way to ensure your plan is suited for growth is to routinely check in with your team, evaluate your structure and ensure it is adaptable for the unforeseeable obstacles that come with running a successful business.

Business, Computers, Contributed

How To Balance Business Innovation and Operational Excellence

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This article is contributed by Varinderjit Singh, General Manager, Lenovo Malaysia

IT decision-makers have officially earned their seats at the table — nearly three-quarters of CIOs say their roles have been elevated by the visibility they received during the pandemic. [1] Now they have to figure out what to serve first.

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The Lenovo ThinkPad® X1 Nano Gen 3 is powered by 13th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-1340P processor takes multitasking—and manageability—to the next level and is built for what IT needs and users want.

Digital strategy and transformation took the lead last year for 67% of CIOs, but the number fell to 60% in 2022 as IT decision-makers focused on the fundamentals of optimizing and managing technology.1 Priority whiplash has left more than 76% of CIOs struggling to balance two critical goals: business innovation and operational excellence.1

With the right technology partner, IT decision-makers don’t have to choose. Smarter digital workplace solutions raise the bar on productivity, business agility, and infrastructure integrity, freeing them to focus on strategic organizational change. In fact, that’s how they would prefer to spend their time — 83% of IT decision-makers are actively seeking digital transformation opportunities that will help their companies contribute good to the world.[2]

What should you look for in a technology partner?

An end-to-end solution provider will have your back, optimizing operations in three essential ways.

01. Productivity and collaboration

Exceptional technology is the baseline for productivity and collaboration, supporting hybrid workplaces, connecting employees, and securing data and devices from anywhere. When it works, technology enables peak performance and improves user experience. On average, three-quarters of employees credit their business technology with making them feel more productive and empowered.2 And 60% of IT decision-makers see their employee experience (EX) scores rise by focusing on improving users’ experience with technology.[3]

When technology doesn’t work, IT decision-makers put innovation on the back burner while they scramble to field help desk requests, respond to security emergencies, push out patches, and source new products to meet evolving business needs.

Look for technology that is optimized to work together, promises exceptional reliability, and leverages the most current innovations for data and employee security.

Lenovo delivers a portfolio of premium solutions — hardware, software, services, and accessories — ranging from PCs and smartphones to smart collaboration to augmented and virtual reality technology (AR/VR). Plus, remote management and automation technology innovations can cut time spent on manual processes by as much as 50%.[4] Hardware- and software-based security and manageability tools elevate productivity on modern devices like the ThinkPad® X1 Carbon Gen 11, powered by 13th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-1335U processor, built for what IT needs and users want.4

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About half of CIOs right now are spending significant time on operational IT improvements, and 26% are busy reacting to IT crises.1

What would you be doing if your technology could manage and secure itself?

02. Agility and optimization

Business transformation often depends on the ability to scale, requiring immediate access to mission-critical technology. Quick access to technology has proven elusive for some organizations, which results in IT teams spending significant time managing older equipment.

That’s an easy ask if they’re partnered with a technology provider that offers as-a-service solutions. With Lenovo TruScale, devices, infrastructure, services, and support can all be scaled easily to meet evolving business needs. Everything from the pocket to the cloud is available on demand, from a single point of contact, in a cost-efficient OpEx model. End-of-life recycling is also an important part of the package — streamlining the process for IT decision-makers, eliminating security risks associated with asset disposal, and helping to meet organizational sustainability goals.

When it comes to freeing up time for innovation, few decisions are as impactful as choosing an as-a-service partner. When everything from infrastructure to end-user devices is optimized, updated, and ready to be deployed anywhere in the world, operational excellence takes care of itself.

03. Intelligent infrastructure

Businesses need an infrastructure that delivers faster time to insights, improved application performance, enhanced security, and better manageability.

Cloud computing is an important part of the equation. As of 2022, 60% of corporate data worldwide is now stored in the cloud,[5] and that makes achieving operational excellence significantly easier.

Within just a few months after migrating to the cloud, 80% of businesses report operational improvement[6] thanks to the continuity, resilience, and efficiencies achieved with hybrid cloud computing.

The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors in Lenovo’s ThinkAgile appliances optimize workloads and improve efficiency, providing significant improvement in data processing capacity. Along with flexible cloud storage, IT decision-makers also have access to remote management services and support analytics through one customer portal. With increased visibility across the entire fleet and the capability to manage technology remotely, they can significantly reduce organization-crushing downtime — and make time for transformation.

Smarter IT decision-makers don’t go it alone. 92% of CIOs believe technology vendors play a valuable role in their company’s overall success.[7]

[1] CIO.com, “State of the CIO, 2022: Focus turns to IT fundamentals,” March 2022
[2] Reach3 Insights and Lenovo, “Human-centered insights to fuel IT’s vision,” July 2022
[3] Lenovo, Intel, and Forrester, “Invest in Employee Experience, Drive Your Bottom-Line Growth,” October 2020
[4] Salesforce.com and Pulse, “Global IT Survey 2020,” accessed August 2022
[5] Statista.com, “Share of corporate data stored in the cloud in organizations worldwide from 2015 to 2022,” accessed August 2022
[6] Zippia, “25 amazing cloud adoption statistics,” May 2022
[7] IDG, “2022 Executive Summary State of the CIO,” 2022

Business, News

VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA Looks To Enable Entreprises to Embrace Generative AI

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VMware Inc. and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) are expanding their strategic partnership. Their mission? To ready the multitude of enterprises dependent on VMware’s cloud infrastructure for the imminent generative AI era.

Generative AI, the driving force behind intelligent chatbots, assistants, search engines, and summarization tools, is revolutionizing industries. VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA is designed to democratize this transformation. It offers an integrated solution, seamlessly combining generative AI software with NVIDIA’s advanced accelerated computing, all within VMware Cloud Foundation, optimized for AI applications.

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The synergy between generative AI and multi-cloud environments is profound. Enterprise data resides in various locations, including data centres, edge devices, and diverse cloud platforms. VMware and NVIDIA aim to empower enterprises to harness generative AI while preserving data privacy, ensuring security, and retaining control.

Enterprises are in a race to implement generative AI, with the potential to contribute up to a staggering $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy. VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA is stepping in to empower them to expedite this journey. It enables enterprises to customize large language models (LLMs), construct secure and private models for internal use, offer generative AI as a service, and scale inference workloads securely.

With emerging concerns surrounding data privacy and security with deploying Generative AI tools like ChatGPT at an organisational level, VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA empowers organizations to use the full capabilities of Generative AI without the worry of data leaks. Enterprises can deploy AI services close to their data, safeguarding data privacy and ensuring secure access.

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It also provides them with diverse options for constructing and running models, including leading OEM hardware configurations without ruling out the potential integration with public clouds. This choice doesn’t come at the expense of performance with NVIDIA’s accelerated infrastructure. It promises performance equal to or even surpassing bare-metal solutions.

When enterprises are ready to scale, they can do so seamlessly and without much hassle. GPU scaling optimizations in virtualized environments facilitate the efficient scaling of AI workloads across multiple nodes. Scaling and implementation costs can also be minimized through VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA. This is thanks to resource optimization and a shared resource environment fostered by the platform. In fact, the platform is built with fast prototyping capabilities with pre-installed frameworks and libraries allowing enterprises to fail quickly and achieve development milestones at an accelerated rate.

Aside from this, the platform will be deployed on performance-optimized NVMe storage and GPUDirect® storage over RDMA for seamless data transfer. Networking performance is also sustained and accelerated with deep integration between vSphere and NVIDIA NVSwitch™ technology ensuring efficient multi-GPU execution.

The platform integrates NVIDIA NeMo, a cloud-native framework simplifying the creation, customization, and deployment of generative AI models. NeMo offers customization frameworks, guardrail toolkits, data curation tools, and pre-trained models. It provides enterprises with an efficient, cost-effective, and expeditious path to adopting generative AI. For production deployment, NeMo leverages TensorRT for Large Language Models (TRT-LLM), optimizing inference performance on the latest LLMs on NVIDIA GPUs.

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VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA receives robust support from Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Lenovo. These partners will offer systems equipped with NVIDIA L40S GPUs, NVIDIA BlueField®-3 DPUs, and NVIDIA ConnectX®-7 SmartNICs. These components will supercharge enterprise LLM customization and inference workloads.

VMware aims to release VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA in early 2024, marking the continuation of a decade-long partnership that has optimized VMware’s cloud infrastructure to run NVIDIA AI Enterprise with the performance of bare metal.