Category Archives: Cloud Computing

QINGDAO, China, Nov. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS) (the "Company" or "SOS") reported the status of Phase I construction of its supercomputing and hostingcenter in North America. The center is located in Marinette county Wisconsin, a state with rich natural resources and renewable energy.

SOS has been actively expanding its global footprint during the past year or so. The total power at the Wisconsin center isexpected to be 50MW, fueled by renewable power and grid power. The Wisconsin facility is projected to have a total BTC hash power of 1,000 PH once in full capacity of operation. Phase I of the center is projected to use up to 20MW 17 units of mobile smart data center are equipped for this purpose. At present, 6 units of mobile smart data center have arrived in Wisconsin. Another 11 units mobile smart data center are in transits and are expected to arrive around December 2021.

Mr. Yandai Wang, CEO and Chairman of SOS, commented, "the supercomputing and hosting center in Wisconsin is an important part of SOS's efforts to create its own blockchain technology based ecosystem. We look forward to launching our Super-Computing and Hosting service business in Wisconsin in the first quarter of 2022.

About SOS Limited

SOS is an emerging blockchain-based and big data-driven marketing solution provider, with a nationwide membership base of approximately 20 million inChina. SOS is also engaged in blockchain and supercomputing operations, and may expand into.cryptocurrency security and insurance in the future. SinceApril 2021, SOS launched commodity trading via our subsidiary SOS International Trading Co. Ltd. The core infrastructure of SOS' marketing data, technology and solutions to insurance and emergency rescue services is built on big data, blockchain-based technology, cloud computing, AI, satellite, and 5G network, etc. SOS has created a cloud "software as a service (SaaS)" platform for emergency rescue services, with three major product categories: basic cloud, cooperative cloud, and information cloud. This system provides innovative marketing solutions to clients such as insurance companies, financial institutions, medical institutions, healthcare providers, auto manufacturers, security providers, senior living assistance providers, and other service providers in the emergency rescue services industry. For more information, please visit:http://www.sosyun.com/

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including, but not limited to, our expectations for future financial performance, business strategies or expectations for our business. These statements constitute projections, forecasts and forward-looking statements, and are not guarantees of performance. SOS cautions that forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Words such as "may," "can," "should," "will," "estimate," "plan," "project," "forecast," "intend," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "seek," "target," "look" or similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements. Specifically, forward-looking statements may include statements relating to the Company's:

These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release and our management's current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

These risks and uncertainties include, but not are limited to, the risk factors described by SOS in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). These risk factors and those identified elsewhere in this press release, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from historical performance and include, but are not limited to:

Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in deciding whether to invest in our securities. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

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SOS Reports Progress on the Construction of Its North American Super-Computing and Hosting Center - PRNewswire

Inspur Information meets growing enterprise needs for AI and high-performance computing for complex workloads including real-time analytics, data consolidation and more

SAN JOSE, Calif., November 09, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Inspur Electronic Information Industry Co., Ltd. (Inspur Information), a leading provider of data center infrastructure, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, is championing the "Open Possibilities" theme of the 2021 OCP Global Summit, by empowering small- and medium-sized enterprises through hyperscale-type technologies, originally designed only for the largest data centers, and providing a path to open compute infrastructure.

Alan Chang, Vice President of Technical Operations for Inspur Information, will discuss the rapidly increasing enterprise-level adoption of high-performance computing and AI solutions driven by automation of complex business processes. With energy consumption soaring, he will also share how the latest innovations in computing power can help reduce a companys carbon footprint during his "General Enterprise Server Growing OCP Adoption" presentation on Tuesday, November 9 at 1:50pm-2:05pm PT at the OCP Global Summit being held at the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California.

During the two-day event, Inspur Information will showcase its groundbreaking NF5180M6 and NF5280M6 General Purpose Enterprise Servers, powered by 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, to meet the needs of businesses in all industries for open standards at-scale servers in an enterprise level 1U/2U box. The flexible, high-performance and energy efficient servers are being deployed for virtualization, driving large business applications, running transactional databases and more.

Inspur Informations new 1OU OCP design will also be demonstrated at the event, which combines the best of ODCC and OCP building blocks to create a reliable mainstream design that can be offered as an alternative to the Facebook design. Inspur Information has been involved in the three major open computing organization OCP, Open Data Center Committee (ODCC) and Open 19 demonstrating the companys commitment to taking the lead in advancing the commercialization of open technology.

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Collaborating with OCP community partners is important to accelerate open compute adoption. Inspur Information is proud to launch, jointly with Samsung, the Poseidon V2 E3.x reference system which adopted composable architecture to maximize the benefits of EDSFF E3.x form factor. Poseidon V2 system can accommodate not only the PCIe Gen5 SSDs but also various devices like AI/ML accelerators or CXL Memory Expanders. Data center users can configure the system according to application's needs.

In addition, Inspur Information continues to invest in the leading AI and HPC use case by OAI design, working with a major cloud service provider to provide input on the architecture. The OAI specificationled by Facebook and Intel in the OCP communityunifies the technical specifications of the accelerator module and simplifies the design complexity of the AI accelerator system, thereby shortening time to market for the hardware system.

"More customers are starting to adopt some form of OCP from a NIC card to a fully integrated rack solution and everything in between," said Chang. "We are breaking down barriers to entry for enterprises. Our focus is a higher adoption rate. By working together as a community, businesses will benefit from this standardized approach that delivers the very best OCP solutions to meet their needs, and having a choice of vendors to buy from."

As an OCP Platinum Member and OCP Solution Provider, Inspur Information leverages decades of experience in hardware design to deliver new open architectures. To commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Open Compute Project earlier this year, Inspur joined forces with Omdia, a world-renowned market research organization, to release the Open Computing White Paper. According to the paper, open compute is a brand-new industrial collaboration mode that is most often deployed through three major open compute organizations OCP, ODCC and Open19 where participants can share products, specifications and the intellectual property of IT infrastructure, to speed the adoption of innovative data center technologies.

Already, telecommunications, financial services, gaming, e-commerce, medical, automotive, manufacturing and other industries are looking to deploy IT infrastructure in line with open compute standards. As Omdia predicts, non-internet industries will make up 21.9% of the market by 2025, compared with 10.5% in 2020.

The 2021 OCP Global Summit is on now through November 10. Learn more here: https://www.opencompute.org/summit/global-summit.

Visit Inspur Information during OCP Global Summit at booth # B23.

About Inspur Information

Inspur Information is a leading provider of data center infrastructure, cloud computing, and AI solutions. It is the worlds 2nd largest server manufacturer. Through engineering and innovation, Inspur Information delivers cutting-edge computing hardware design and extensive product offerings to address important technology arenas like open computing, cloud data center, AI, and deep learning. Performance-optimized and purpose-built, Inspur Informations world-class solutions empower customers to tackle specific workloads and real-world challenges. To learn more, please go to https://www.inspursystems.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211109005818/en/

Contacts

Press: Fiona LiuInspur Informationliuxuan01@inspur.com

Vivian KellyInterprose for Inspur Informationviviankelly@interprosepr.com

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Inspur Information Presents How it is Accelerating Enterprise Adoption of Fully-integrated Open Computing Platforms and AI Innovations at the 2021 OCP...

Emaar, Emirates Post Group choose new Oracle Cloud Abu Dhabi Region for strategic business operations

Oracle now has 34 cloud regions worldwide, one of the fastest expansions by any major cloud provider

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle today announced the opening of its second cloud region in the United Arab Emirates to continue supporting UAE organizations with enterprise cloud services. The Oracle Cloud Abu Dhabi Region and the Oracle Cloud Dubai Region will provide customers with stronger business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. The opening of the Abu Dhabi Region also directly supports the UAE's Fourth Industrial Revolution Strategy which focuses on advancing the national economy by driving innovation with the latest technologies.

Oracle Logo (PRNewsfoto/Oracle)

"The rapid adoption of cloud-based technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning is vital for building a thriving digital economy and is a key priority for the UAE. With the Dubai and Abu Dhabi Regions, we have the required cloud infrastructure for organizations across public and private sectors, including SMBs, to accelerate their digital transformation," said Richard Smith, executive vice president, Technology, EMEA, Oracle.

Both Oracle Cloud regions in the UAE are built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which enables customers to easily migrate existing workloads and data platforms or build new cloud native applications that benefit from superior performance, lower cost, and built-in security capabilities. Customers will also have access to the full suite of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, as well as Oracle Autonomous Database, giving them the opportunity and choice to create the architecture that best suits their business needs.

Importance of Oracle's Two Cloud Regions for Driving Foreign Investment in the UAEHis Excellency Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade said: "Oracle's decision to open a second cloud region in the UAE is a clear reflection of our nation's embrace of digital transformation, advanced technologies and the applications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which have become central to our economic and investment strategy for the next 50 years. We are committed to developing an innovative- and knowledge-based economy that encourages the development and deployment of the technologies of the future, and attracting human, financial and technological capital to the nation is central to these ambitions. Oracle's continued investment into the UAE will only accelerate this process, providing critical infrastructure, expertise and insights to further elevate the UAE's standing as a place where the boldest ideas and biggest projects can come to life."

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Boosting UAE's Cyber Security PreparednessHis Excellency Dr. Mohamed Hamad Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government said: "The UAE Government has rapidly transitioned from being a conventional set up to a 'smart government' entity, and now with the increasing pace of digital transformation across the country's public and private sector, we are progressing towards being an AI enabled government. This progress is in line with the digital economy goals of our country, but we must also ensure that the 'cyber resilience' of the UAE is maintained to mitigate cybercrime and increase international collaboration. Oracle's two cloud regions in the UAE are important investments towards providing cyber resilience and secure digital infrastructure for organizations to enjoy the full benefits of cloud computing."

Leading UAE Organizations Choose Oracle CloudEmaar Properties is one of the world's most valuable and admired real estate development companies. With proven competencies in properties, shopping malls, retail and hospitality and leisure, Emaar shapes new lifestyles with a focus on design excellence, build quality and timely delivery.

"With fast-growing business operations that span different countries, at Emaar, we are focused on creating a future-ready digital infrastructure that supports growth, helps increase revenue, lowers costs and allows us to constantly innovate. Oracle's new cloud region in the UAE will help us accelerate our digital initiatives with latest emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning," said the Emaar Technology spokesperson.

Emirates Post Group is the official postal operator for the United Arab Emirates, which owns several subsidiaries including Wall Street Exchange, a regional currency exchange provider; Electronic Documents Centre, a major digital printing business; and Emirates Post, the official postal services provider in the country.

Abdulla Mohammed Alashram, Group CEO of Emirates Post Group, said: "The world's digital transformation is now unstoppable, and organizations have to adapt to the changes to remain relevant and competitive. In the UAE, we have seen increased implementation and integration of next-generation tools. In our industry, technologies play a big role to enable companies to meet the demand for speed in deliveries and cross-border services while enhancing operational efficiency and productivity. We are excited by Oracle's next-generation cloud, knowing that its launch will lead to more improved services in the UAE and the region. It will also be instrumental in our efforts to fully digitalize our services by the end of 2021, which will significantly increase our capabilities in today's digital age."

Analyst CommentaryJyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey & Africa, IDC said: "Public cloud services adoption is accelerating at CAGR of 28% year on year between 2020 and 2025 in the UAE and IDC projects that the growth momentum will continue. Cloud's role in enabling innovation is underscored by the priority organizations have given to cloud in their digital transformation initiatives. Cloud-based technologies have helped organizations weather the covid-19 crisis and cloud is now helping them build a resilient organization that can withstand uncertainties."

"Our survey of the CIOs in the UAE highlights that an in-country data center is an important factor for 78% organizations that are planning to adopt cloud over the next 12-18 months. Oracle's two cloud regions in the UAE will boost local cloud infrastructure availability. IDC believes that cloud has become an inseparable element of an organization's digital transformation and innovation roadmap," added Jyoti.

Preparing UAE's Next Generation for the Digital EconomyOracle has been working toward creating a strong local IT talent pool in the UAE. Under the recently completed skills development initiatives with the UAE's Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and its commercial arm, the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research & Training (CERT), Oracle has upskilled 1,098 students in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and blockchain.

High Availability, Disaster Protection, and Dual Region Cloud StrategyOCI's next-generation architecture provides a high-performing, resilient foundation for cloud services, while its physical and virtual network design maximizes performance and security. For example, each Oracle Cloud region contains at least three fault domains, which are groupings of hardware that form logical data centers for high availability and resilience to hardware and network failures.

For business continuity and compliance requirements, Oracle's unique dual-region cloud strategy enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple geographically separated locations within the UAE. To help customers plan data center deployments to meet application requirements and optimize their cloud infrastructure, OCI's provides a no cost inter-region latency dashboard that provides insights into real-time and historical latency for Oracle Cloud regions around the globe.

SustainabilityOracle is committed to sustainability and has pledged to power all Oracle Cloud regions worldwide with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. Several Oracle Cloud regions in North America, South America, and Europe are already powered by 100 percent renewable energy, and all Oracle Cloud regions use state-of-the-art energy management and cooling technologies to minimize their impact on the environment. As part of its renewable energy clean Cloud initiative, Oracle reused or recycled 99.6 percent of its retired hardware in FY21 while strictly adhering to Oracle's data privacy and security practices.

Cloud Regions Deliver All Cloud Services and MulticloudOracle Cloud regions support every Oracle service and feature and are available to customers anywhere in the world. This includes Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, Oracle Cloud VMware solution, and Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications.

OCI's extensive network of more than 70 FastConnect global and regional partners offer customers dedicated connectivity to Oracle Cloud regions and OCI services providing customers with the best options anywhere in the world. FastConnect provides an easy, elastic, and economical way to create a dedicated and private network connection with higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more consistent performance versus public Internet-based connections.

In addition, OCI and Microsoft Azure have a strategic partnership that enables joint customers to run workloads across the two clouds. This partnership provides a low latency, cross-cloud interconnect between OCI and Azure in eight regions (Ashburn, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, San Jose, Vinhedo and Frankfurt) federated identity for joint customers to deploy applications across both clouds, and a collaborative support model. Customers can run full stack applications in a multi-cloud configuration, while maintaining high-performance connectivity without requiring re-architecture. They can also migrate existing applications or develop cloud native applications that use a mix of OCI and Azure services.

Oracle Cloud's Expanding Global FootprintOracle has announced plans to expand its cloud region footprint to support strong customer demand for Oracle Cloud services worldwide. Over the next year, Oracle will open 10 additional cloud regions with new locations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

Upcoming cloud regions include Milan (Italy), Stockholm (Sweden), Spain, Johannesburg (South Africa), Mexico, and Colombia. Additional second regions will open in Saudi Arabia, France, Israel and Chile. Oracle plans to have at least 44 cloud regions by the end of 2022, continuing one of the fastest expansions of any major cloud provider.

Currently available Oracle Cloud regions:

Asia Pacific: Tokyo (Japan), Osaka (Japan), Seoul (South Korea), Chuncheon (South Korea), Mumbai (India), Hyderabad (India), Sydney (Australia), Melbourne (Australia), Singapore (Singapore)

Americas: San Jose (United States), Phoenix (United States), Ashburn (United States), Toronto (Canada), Montreal (Canada), So Paolo (Brazil), Vinhedo (Brazil), Santiago (Chile)

Europe: Frankfurt (Germany), London (United Kingdom), Newport, Wales (United Kingdom), Zrich (Switzerland), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Marseille (France)

Middle East: Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi and Dubai (U.A.E), Jerusalem (Israel)

Government: Two general U.S. Government regions, and U.S. National Security regions, three U.S. Department of Defense specific Government regions, two in the United Kingdom (London and Newport, Wales)

Additional Resources

About OracleOracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at http://www.oracle.com.

TrademarksOracle, Java, and MySQL are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.

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Oracle Reaffirms Commitment to the United Arab Emirates with Second Cloud Region - Yahoo Finance

Its a question that the digerati finds itself asking more these days: will edge computing, so rapidly growing, eventually devour the cloud, which has become so foundational?

I give this question a definitive no. One could run down a game of semantic parsing, attempting to determine exactly what is meant by edge and cloud. But I think at this point we can broadly group the elements of interconnected nodes into endpoints, edge devices, and cloud components with wavy borders between them.

That having been said, of what will the burgeoning edge consist? The best recent example I can think of is the edge video processor for home and commercial security, pet detection, facial recognition, retail analytics, fitness, and smart conferencing. This device, a discrete, stand-alone accelerator for inferencing applications is not an endpoint. It hosts endpoints, in particular cameras.

In the case of video processing, the smarts are needed to determine whats in the image. So, surveillance cams dont burp at everything, just the image types they care about, like, say, people. The cams could do this work, but shipping images to a nearby node with more storage, greater processing power, and larger artificial intelligence (AI) models allows one edge node to manage the input of 24 high-definition cameras.

Then, when the rare image that warrants closer attention is picked out by the edge image processor, it can be passed along to a centralized cloud component that has input from multiple sites, even more powerful models, and the ability to pass intelligence back to the edge nodes.

Thus, the role of the edge node is just beginning to evolve now. This space has been hotly contested by the main players in the silicon industry. Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Intel all want a piece of this market.

And theyre not the only ones, but the nature of this contest is related to these companies initial positions in the game. Through its mobile phone processor business, Qualcomm has been strong in endpoints.

Intel, which mostly owns PCs (which are traditionally endpoints, but can serve as edge devices), achieved its position in the cloud as the king of servers. Nvidia, traditionally in the graphics business, has added a substantial new cloud business selling banks of graphics processors to cloud customers for specialized workloads.

If you ask the question of where the intelligence should be, you can answer it easily: everywhere. We can assume all nodes will get smarter. That means the cameras themselves, the edge gatherer, and the cloud component. All will get smarter.

For years already, cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Netflix have moved information to the edge of their clouds to make popular content more accessible. When Casablanca, the classic movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is suddenly popular again because someone famous wrote or tweeted about it, Amazon can move more copies from its core cloud to edge servers close to geographic markets where this sudden popularity is arising.

There is a principle that guides where to execute an analysis model. Essentially, processing should take place as close to the data source as possible for three good reasons: privacy, latency, and efficient use of network resources.

Cameras that decide what is a human and what is a pet generate images. If those images, which may be too big to be processed on the cam, are analyzed in a home edge device, the potentially sensitive pictures never have to leave the home.

Such analysis can be time-critical. If someone monitoring a house remotely from a security app needs to know whether a caller at the door is a delivery person or a burglar, there may not be time to send the image to the cloud for analysis. And then theres the cost of moving large data files all over the place. Best if that path is as short as possible.

In the AI world, the two big tasks are training and inference. In training, the model is taught what is a human and what is a pet through a massive ingestion of correctly tagged images. After a certain amount of training, the model can pick out the one from the other; that is, a trained model can make correct inferences. Training takes a ton of resources and it most appropriately done in the cloud, which is far less resource-constrained than endpoints and even most edge devices.

But inferencing must be done on either endpoints or edge devices. On-device inferencing can be used for things like voice activation, text recognition, face detection, voice recognition, computational photography, and object classification.

But since AI models need to continuously evolve and improve to eliminate both false positives and false negatives, a corrective cycle must necessarily involve all levels of computing. In a federated learning model, the cloud-based aggregated model takes input from all downstream devices, improves its ability to correctly identify the object in question, and updates all the downstream inferencing models. Thus, the model is improved globally from more diverse data.

And edge devices and endpoints can do local improvement based on the specific data set at that location, which may differ from the global set that was used for the original training.

AI is just one domain that illustrates the way all levels of computing endpoint, edge, and cloud need to cooperate for the best outcome. There are many more where the division of labor among computing elements makes broad sense: intensive and large-scale computing in the cloud, the offloading of local tasks or positioning of cloud copies at the edge, and fast, efficient computing on the endpoint.

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Will Edge Computing Devour the Cloud? | eWEEK - eWeek

The financial services landscape is constantly evolving. Amidst the mass change and disruption wrought by the pandemic, in tandem with meteoric rise of the crypto market, regulators around the world are introducing new waves of rules and regulation to keep up with the rate of change.

In October 2021, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued a new report on Cloud Computing in the Securities Industry, providing advice and regulatory considerations for the US securities industry. In response to this, NCC Group shared further recommendations, based on its expertize and work with businesses in the global financial industry.

What are the key takeaways from the report?

To mitigate the cybersecurity and lock-in risks associated with outsourcing cloud services to third-party vendors, and ultimately take advantage of advancements in cloud computing, FINRA encourages its member firms to:

How else can organizations take advantage of cloud computing?

The adoption of cloud, software and technology escrow solutions, using Resilience by Design principles, can help organizations to meet the financial systems increasing demand for risk management, business continuity and ongoing operational resilience. By focusing on resilience from the start, organizations will be well placed to meet evolving rules and regulation.

To identify supplier risk exhaustively, organizations face increasing costs, barriers to innovation, and potentially reduced access to financial services. For this reason, cloud, software and technology escrow solutions offer legal, technical and proportional assurance to organizations.

Under this approach, cloud supplier failure would be assumed by default, regardless of a third-partys risk profile. Cloud, software and technology escrow agreements, together with dry-run verification services, will help to mitigate against supplier failure and offers a minimum level of resilience that ensures continuity of services while alternative options are being implemented.

Firms should also perform a comprehensive assessment of threats, vulnerabilities, impact and likelihood of cybersecurity incident on at least an annual basis to maintain a current view of overall technology risk, including cloud solutions. While the standard disciplines for assessing, managing and mitigating risk related to services provided using cloud resources are the same as for traditional IT deployment models, the risks are not, and each organization should prioritize understanding their new unique risk profile.

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Spotlight on FINRA's latest report on cloud computing in the US securities industry - Lexology

Over the last decade or so, businesses have migrated more and more workloads away from on-premise servers and to the cloud, in an effort to capitalize on the flexibility and cost savings on offer.

As a result, the global cloud computing market is set to be worth upwards of $250 billion this year, a large proportion of which will fall into the pockets of hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

However, various signs suggest the tide is beginning to shift in a different direction, with a larger proportion of computing taking place outside centralized datacenters once again.

According to Mike Vildibill, VP & GM of Cloud Edge AI at semiconductor company Qualcomm, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will combine with a number of other factors to push computing back towards the edge of the network, where latency is just as important as raw performance.

The next mega-trend is now underway, he told TechRadar Pro. Previously, we saw a lot of computation moving to the cloud, but a yo-yo effect is creating a need for computation closer to the edge, where both the data and consumers of the data reside.

Theres still a need for a centralized cloud, but even the hyperscalers recognize that the cloud is coming to the edge. Instead of residing in some far-flung datacenter, it might be in the trunk of your car, at an intersection, or bolted to the side of a building. Thats the future.

Although Qualcomm made its name in the mobile computing space with its Snapdragon line of chips, which continue to compete at the top of the market, the company recently launched a new line of business that is quickly gaining momentum.

The focus is on building high-performance server chips specifically designed to accelerate AI inference, both in the cloud and at the edge. Manufactured on a 7nm process, the companys latest Cloud AI 100 accelerators lead the market in both performance density and energy efficiency, per MLPerf benchmarks.

For example, Qualcomms Cloud AI 100 Edge Development Kit (AEDK) was found to achieve 240 inferences per second per watt (inf/sec/watt) for ResNet-50, a neural network commonly used to benchmark inference performance. For comparison, the AGX Xavier from Nvidia managed 60 inf/sec/watt, four times fewer.

While the company is working with customers to accelerate inference in a datacenter setting with its Cloud AI 100 platform, Vildibill is most enthusiastic about new opportunities at the edge.

The poster-child use case for edge computing, he explained, is autonomous driving, whereby a car performs inference on the data pulled from various cameras and sensors to plot a route without the input of a driver.

If an obstruction suddenly appears on the road (say, a child walks out from behind a parked car), a course correction needs to be calculated almost instantaneously, in such a way that only edge computing makes possible.

The laws of physics dictate that data cannot move quickly enough between the car and a cloud datacenter and back again in sufficient time for disaster to be averted, said Vildibill. You need to do the processing closer to where the data resides.

And this is just one of many examples; Qualcomm says its customers are finding various new use cases for inference at the edge, from monitoring shelf stock in a retail store environment to checking factory workers are wearing the necessary protective gear. In conjunction with 5G, edge computing is also enabling a new breed of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications that wouldnt otherwise be feasible.

The new emphasis on AI accelerators means Qualcomm has found itself dealing with a brand new class of customer, which include not only the hyperscalers but any organization interested in deploying AI at the edge. And this strategy appears to be paying off.

According to the companys latest earnings figures, the IoT segment (which houses the Cloud AI 100 platform) took in $5.1 billion in fiscal 2021, up 67% on the previous year. And Vildibill told us Qualcomms efforts in the server chip space are only going to continue ramping up.

Its not just the shift towards the edge that Qualcomm is interested in, however. Its the intersection of this new trend and another: the drive towards sustainable computing. With many companies now committing to ever more ambitious carbon pledges, the ability to run workloads in a sustainable manner has become a top priority.

A very important element of the puzzle is that its not computing at any cost; youve got to be able to do this processing efficiently, in a sustainable way, explained Vildibill.

What Qualcomm is trying to do is drive more effective, powerful and power efficient means of processing at the edge, which will save not just on the energy bill, but on the carbon footprint too.

As Qualcomm continues to explore opportunities in the server chip market, the firm is aiming to develop an extensive roadmap of products with power-efficiency at their heart, Vildibill says. And the company will also continue to enhance its software too, in a bid to draw even greater energy efficiency from its current Cloud AI 100 product line.

If Qualcomm is able to unseat Nvidia, the historic leader in AI acceleration, with this focus on maximizing performance per watt, the economic opportunity could be massive. And despite the companys relative inexperience in the space, Vildibill is confident about its prospects.

An increased focus on sustainability, the explosion of AI and the shift towards edge computing have come together to create the perfect storm. And we believe were in a perfect position, at the perfect time, to address the market, he said.

Also check out our lists of the best bare metal hosting, best dedicated server hosting providers and best VPS providers.

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In the AI era, the edge is the new cloud - TechRadar

Global X ETFs has expanded its product line-up in Europe with the launch of three thematic equity strategies on the London Stock Exchange.

Luis Berruga, CEO of Global X.

The ETFs, which are part of Global Xs Thematic Growth family, offer exposure to US infrastructure, genomics and biotechnology, and cloud computing.

They are the Global X US Infrastructure Development UCITS ETF (PAVE LN), the Global X Genomics & Biotechnology UCITS ETF (GNOM LN), and the Global X Cloud Computing (CLO LN).

The US infrastructure and cloud computing ETFs are linked to indices provided by Indxx while the genomics and biotechnology ETF is based on a Solactive index.

Global X has established itself as a leader in thematic investing, with 32 products in the thematic space in the US market, representing more than $21 billion in assets under management. Including other strategies, the New York-headquartered firm has approximately $40bn in ETF AUM.

It made its debut in the European market in December 2020.

Of the three new UCITS funds, the US infrastructure play, PAVE, is perhaps the most exciting at least from a product perspective. Global X offers this strategy in the US, which it unveiled in the early part of 2017. In the first three years of its existence, the fund underperformed the broader market and failed to generate any notable degree of investor interest. In the past 18 months or so, it is a very different story. The fund has outperformed the market and grown from a little over $100 million in assets to $5bn on the back of heightening expectations of increased federal infrastructure spending in the US.

There is no other ETF listed in Europe offering the same kind of targeted exposure to mainstream US infrastructure companies.

Commenting on the rollout of the three funds, Luis Berruga, CEO of Global X, said: With these latest launches, were continuing to expand our industry-leading thematic offerings to include three additional emerging and powerful themes: an increase in infrastructure activity in the United States, further advances in the field of genomic science, and increased adoption of cloud computing technology.

He added: Our focus has always been on bringing products to market that offer investors access to untapped market segments, and these three funds represent a continuation of this goal. In keeping with that sentiment, PAVE and GNOM both represent first-of-their-kind products in the European market and were thrilled to be bringing these strategies to investors across Europe and around the world.

The funds

The Global X US Infrastructure Development UCITS ETF tracks the Indxx US Infrastructure Development v2 Index. It invests in companies that potentially stand to benefit from an increase in infrastructure investment in the US including those involved in the production of raw materials, heavy equipment, engineering, and construction. The passage of a long-awaited US infrastructure spending bill would mark the start of a structural transformation of US infrastructure to meet changing societal and demographic demands, achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 as well as upgrade digital infrastructure.

PAVE has an expense ratio of 0.47%.

The Global X Genomics & Biotechnology ETF follows the Solactive Genomics v2 Index. It focuses on companies listed globally that potentially stand to benefit from further advances in the field of genomic science. Such advancements involve companies specialised in gene editing, genomic sequencing, genetic medicine/therapy, computational genomics, and biotechnology. Waves of private and public investment and R&D have poured into the space to further understand and treat various genetic disorders, complex diseases and medical conditions. Personalised treatments based on an individuals unique genetic sequence would represent a monumental leap in health care, enabling people to live longer and healthier.

GNOM has an expense ratio of 0.50%.

Global X Cloud Computing UCITS ETF tracks the Indxx Global Cloud Computing v2 Index. It invests in companies listed globally that are positioned to benefit from the increased adoption of cloud computing technology, including companies whose principal business is in offering computing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), managed server storage space and data centre real estate investment trusts, and/or cloud and edge computing infrastructure and hardware. In todays world where robust digital infrastructure and remote work arrangements are vital, the importance of the cloud the virtual space where software applications run, data reside, and computing occurs cannot be overstated.

CLO has an expense ratio of 0.55%.

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Global X expands thematic line-up in Europe with ETFs on US infrastructure, genomics and biotech, and cloud computing - ETF Strategy

Thousands of small and medium-sized businesses could save countless hours of work and billions of dollars in productivity if they digitally transformed more of their manual processes, new research has said.

A report from Dropbox and Enterprise Nation based on a poll of 900 UK SMB leaders found SMBs could save up to 150 hours each year, equating to $11 billion in saved time.

Many business owners (77%) already use plenty of digital tools, but thats far from what they could be using, the report argues. To get there, they will need more expert advice, more information, and higher budgets. In fact, cloud computing, video conferencing, e-signatures, project management tools, and various other productivity tools - are all technologies that could be adopted by a much wider percentage of SMBs in the country.

One of the key steps to achieving these goals is access to information. Only a third (34%) of businesses with 1-10 employees say they are very active when it comes to keeping up with technology trends, compared to 66% of businesses with 50-250 employees.

With 5.7 million businesses in the SMB category, this makes up 96% of all UK businesses, and present an enormous untapped potential, the report concluded.

The government also has a role to play, with the likes of the Help to Grow. Digital program providing an opportunity to expand success and help thousands more businesses across the country improve their digital performance.

UK small businesses have been held back by lack of information about products and services, entry-level deals and free tier products, as well as new tools and services that can help them push their business to the next level," said Andy Wilson, Director, Dropbox UK.

"As time-poor small business owners, we cannot expect them to navigate this complex landscape without guidance, which is why we partnered with Enterprise Nation to research this issue and present a set of recommendations, for industry, the government, and business owners themselves."

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New tech tools could save SMBs billions of dollars in wasted productivity - TechRadar

The 2019 Federal Cloud Computing Strategy Cloud Smart is a long-term, high-level strategy to drive cloud adoption in Federal agencies. This is the first cloud policy update in seven years, offering a path forward for agencies to migrate to a safe and secure cloud infrastructure. This new strategy will support agencies to achieve additional savings, security, and will deliver faster services.

"To keep up with the countrys current pace of innovation, President Trump has placed a significant emphasis on modernizing the Federal government. By updating an outdated policy, Cloud Smart embraces best practices from both the federal government and the private sector, ensuring agencies have capability to leverage leading solutions to better serve agency mission, drive improved citizen services and increase cyber security." Suzette Kent, Federal Chief Information Officer

The case for using cloud capabilities in government has been clearly proven to drive savings, to improve security, and to deliver mission-serving solutions faster.

Cloud Smart is about equipping agencies with the tools, knowledge, and flexibilities they need to move to cloud according to their mission needs.

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Home | Federal Cloud Computing Strategy - CIO

This article was excerpted from OPEN Insight: Running Your Business in the Cloud.Download the complete guide.

Cloud computing has created a technology revolution for small businesses, offering access to a range of capabilities that typically only larger companies can afford. Using an Internet connection and a Web browser, small companies can tap into software and services as they need them and pay for what they use on a monthly basis, like utility services. Your business can join the Cloud to access everything from data backup to customer relationship management systems.

Consider the following six benefits to see how your company might use the Cloud.

Cloud-based programs can be used at any time on almost any device with an Internet connection, a benefit that leads to greater collaboration, particularly for businesses with remote employees. A growing percentage of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) consider the ability to be productive remotely as critical to their operations: 66 percent said they need to allow employees to work anywhere at any time, according to a 2010 survey by Microsoft.1

Using Cloud-based software, teams in different locations can collaborate on documents without needing toe-mail attachments and share calendars and task lists from wherever they are. Participants just sign up for the service and access the program over the Internet, without downloading or installing program software.

Employees also can connect through instant messaging and even hold impromptu meetings with robust audio, video and Web conferencing capabilities. Some Cloud-based services even make it possible to include customers and vendors in these meetings. This improved sharing of information has the potential to enable your company to react more quickly to business opportunities.

Cloud resources are scalable, or elastic, so you can tap resources or increase capacity to support growth and handle busy periods. One of the most challenging aspects of running a small company is predicting what resources your business will needenough to scale and take advantage of opportunities, but not so much that you overspend. With Cloud resources, rather than having to predict your needs, you can react to needs as they arise and use just what is required to manage your growth and enhance your efficiency. For example, if customer and project demands require increased collaboration, you can access collaboration tools quickly and without advanced planning. Your flexibility as an organization rises when you work in the Cloud because your ability to react is greatly improved.

Cloud-based services can help you save money on many fronts, including server maintenance, power and cooling costs, and software licensing and upgrade expenses. Just under half49 percentof SMBs use Cloud computing to lower costs, according to the Microsoft survey.1Rather than spending money to maintain hardware that often goes unused, subscribing to software and services for a low monthly fee can help small businesses stretch their budgets further. Along with the ability to scale up to meet increased demand, the Cloud also allows you to scale down during slower periods (e.g., remove users or use less storage space), saving your business money.

If you dont have the time or resources to implement a backup strategyor if you keep your backed-up data on-sitethe Cloud can help ensure you are able to retrieve the latest versions of your data in case of an on-site system failure or a disaster, such as fire or flood. You can choose a Cloud-based service to back up your data frequently or automatically to a safe online location, so that if the unexpected happens, you can be back up and running within minutes. Many providers offer geo-redundant backup, meaning your data is saved in multiple centers across multiple locations, to improve security.

Cloud-based services often can be more reliable than services delivered on-premise, particularly if servers or other hardware are aging. Cloud service providers have a dedicated, experienced IT staffmeaning they can likely resolve problems faster than a small business with only limited IT resources.

With servers located off-site and their management left to an experienced provider, Cloud computing allows you to focus on what you do bestrunning your business. Because resources in the Cloud can be accessed as needed, the time it takes to get started with these services shrinks from days to minutes. For small businesses wanting to stretch their resources and be more competitive, working in the Cloud is becoming a must.

This article was excerpted from OPEN Insight: Running Your Business in the Cloud.Download the complete guide.

1Microsoft U.S. SMB Cloud Computing Research Summary, Fall 2010

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6 Ways Cloud Computing Helps Businesses ... - American Express