Google Cloud unveils AI-optimised infrastructure enhancements

Google Cloud has announced significant advancements in its AI-optimised infrastructure, including fifth-generation TPUs and A3 VMs based on NVIDIA H100 GPUs.

Traditional approaches to designing and constructing computing systems are proving inadequate for the surging demands of workloads like generative AI and large language models (LLMs). Over the last five years, the parameters in LLMs have surged tenfold annually, prompting the need for both cost-effective and scalable...

29 August 2023 | Digital Transformation

Microsoft buys stake in London Stock Exchange Group in twist on digital transformation deals 

Microsoft has announced a 10-year strategic partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) to put the financial markets providers’ infrastructure and data analytics onto the Microsoft cloud – and has acquired a 4% stake in the group in the process. 

Seasoned cloud industry watchers will know how these sorts of strategic partnerships play out. The client comes on board for an undisclosed amount, the right noises are made around improving customer and end-user...

15 December 2022 | Banking & Finance

Why it’s time to ‘embrace the discomfort’ with cloud vendor lock-in

Vendor lock-in, alongside security, are issues that have pervaded IT and software procurement, whether computing has been centralized or not. In the era of the cloud, with benefits ranging from scalability to speed, the hoped-for panacea has turned out to be less than expected.

For a while, the vendors and analysts thought they’d cracked it with the gloss of multi-cloud. At the start of 2018, Cloud Academy issued a whitepaper that looked to separate multi-cloud strategy from the...

4 October 2022 | Cloud Computing

Equinix Cloud Transformation Conference 2022: The key takeaways

This year’s Cloud Transformation Conference, powered by Equinix and TechForge, saw industry leaders gather to discuss the importance of a “digital-first” strategy.

For this roundup, CloudTech caught up with some of the world-class speakers at the event to get their thoughts on the key topics discussed during the conference.

Here’s a list of the speakers featured in this article:

Dax Grant, CEO of Global Transform, Forbes Technology CouncilErik Thorwirth,...

25 August 2022 | Digital Transformation

IDC predicts cloud infrastructure spending this year will hit $90.2B

IDC forecasts that cloud infrastructure spending will exceed $90 billion in 2022.

In Q1 2022, IDC found that spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments – including dedicated and shared environments – increased 17.2 percent year-over-year to $18.3 billion.

The firm’s analysts note the strong growth is despite “tight supply of some system components and disruptions in transportation networks.”

Dedicated cloud...

4 July 2022 | Enterprise

Alibaba launches ‘Data-as-a-Service’ firm Lingyang

Alibaba has spun out a “Data-as-a-Service” (DaaS) business called Lingyang Intelligent Service Company.

Lingyang will offer solutions to enterprises that were initially developed for Alibaba.

“The launch of the new firm is an important step taken by Alibaba after long-term consideration,” said Daniel Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba.

The team behind Lingyang has vast experience supporting Alibaba’s Double 11 Data Big Screen and 88VIP initiatives....

30 June 2022 | Alibaba Cloud

Greg Day, Palo Alto Networks: On protecting our way of life in the digital age

Security threats have evolved considerably over the years and Palo Alto Networks knows more than most that “protecting our way of life” also requires a digital approach in the modern world.

Historically, nations would protect their way of life by having the sharpest swords, the biggest guns, the sturdiest tanks, or the fastest planes. Nowadays, it’s as much – if not more – about who has the most secure networks and systems.

CloudTech spoke with Greg Day, VP...

3 September 2021 | Security

UK government advises firms to use cloud to reduce carbon emissions

CO2 Pollution

UK businesses are being told to accelerate cloud adoption in an upscaled effort to tackle climate change, the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has advised.

The recommendation is part of a series of steps that businesses are being told to consider to help curb their carbon emissions by making changes to their technological habits.

This in turn is part of a wider push by the government to encourage businesses to get behind...

17 August 2021 | Cloud Migration

Building trust will be “deciding factor in cloud service provider competition” in 2021

A cloud computing graphic.

Spend on cloud infrastructure services by US-based companies grew 29% in Q1 2021 to a record $18.6 billion (£13.10bn), after global cloud spend consolidated in 2020.

Total cloud expenditure in the US increased $4.2bn (£2.96bn) in the past year and $621 million (£437m) in the first quarter of the year, according to the latest Canalys data. Dollar for dollar, annual expansion was the highest in two years, indicating robust demand for cloud services. 

The trend of...

21 May 2021 | AWS

Oxford University partners with Oracle to ID COVID-19 variants

Graphic art depicting the coranavirus.

Oxford University has selected Oracle to help speed up the identification of COVID-19 variants.

A specialist platform developed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will help with global genomic sequencing and examination, thereby mitigating the impact of potentially dangerous strains.

The emergence of more infectious variants of the COVID-19 virus is threatening to slow the global recovery and potentially thwart current vaccine immunity, according to Oxford University. To...

19 May 2021 | Cloud Computing