Covering Scientific & Technical AI | Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Microsoft, Intel Unveil FPGA-driven ‘Real-Time AI’ in Azure
We know about the seeming light-speed processing power of FPGAs and the natural fit they pose for data-dense AI workloads. But we also know that FPGAs present usability and programmability problems that flummox IT shops. It's assumed that it would take the resource riches of a FANG (Facebook, Amazon/Azure (Microsoft), Netflix, Google) company to wrestle ... Full article
AMD Lines Up New China Datacenter Partners
As the server market stalls, processor makers continue to search for greener pastures. Among the most promising is the booming Chinese datacenter market, where processor maker Advanced Micro Devices announced expanded partnerships this week with a trio of hyperscale providers along with Lenovo, which has vowed to cultivate the Asian server market since acquiring IBM's ... Full article
Tight DRAM Supplies Jar Server Market
Tightening global supplies of DRAM chips are beginning to bite with reports surfacing this week about rising server memory prices as chipmakers struggle to meet growing demand. Among the first signs of tighter DRAM supplies and rising prices was a quarterly report by a memory market tracker issued on Aug. 14. DRAMeXchange reported that total ... Full article
Blockchain: Global Food Companies Use New IBM Platform for Detection of Contaminated Food
IBM today joined in the recent spate of blockchain news from Intel and Microsoft with two significant announcements: The adoption by major food companies of a global blockchain implementation aimed at quick detection of contaminated food,  a chronic problem that kills 400,000 people annually; The launch of the IBM Blockchain Platform, upon which the food ... Full article
Dell Strikes Reseller Deal with Atos; Supplants SGI
Dell EMC and Atos announced a reseller deal today in which Dell will offer Atos’ high-end 8- and 16-socket Bullion servers. Some move from Dell had been expected following Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s purchase of SGI late last year. Dell had a similar reseller deal with SGI (SGI UV 300H) dating back to July 2015. Data ... Full article
Attacks, Regs Driving Security Spending
Reflecting growing cyber security threats, global spending on information security products is expected to rise by 7 percent this year, according to a new forecast. Gartner Inc. pegs the global market for information security products and services at $86.4 billion this year, predicting it will rise in parallel with cyber threats to an estimated $93 ... Full article
4 Tech Giants Outline Battle Plans for High End Data Center Market of the 2020’s
Four companies engaged in a cage fight for leadership in the emerging “advanced data center” market of the 2020s are, despite deep differences in some areas, in violent agreement on at least one thing: the power consumption and latency penalties of data movement is Public Enemy No. 1. If we are to realize the promise ... Full article
As Datacenters Bulge, Switch Maker Claims Record
Cloud migrations, big data and mobility are reshaping the datacenter as more servers are linked and bandwidth capacity joins scaling as essential requirements. Those needs are creating opportunities for network gear vendors as datacenters make the jump to bigger IPv6 pipes. Among them is Chinese switch maker H3C Technologies, which is claiming a record for ... Full article
Docker Gets Upgrade as Container Market Heats Up
As concerns grow over the slow migration of application container technology beyond backend development, container leader Docker is rolling out the latest release of its enterprise container service for managing Linux and Windows applications. The release adds support for mainframe applications, with all three environments running on hybrid IT infrastructure. Docker asserts that its upgraded ... Full article
Overcoming SD-WAN FUD
 When a promising new technology emerges, the initial excitement is soon over-shadowed by anxiety about taking on something new. SD-WAN is one such technology that has many CIOs on the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) fence. Yet, viewed within Gartner Group’s “Hype Cycle,” SD-WAN is expected to reach the “Plateau of Productivity” in only a few ... Full article
Microsoft Bolsters Azure With Cloud HPC Deal
Microsoft has acquired cloud computing software vendor Cycle Computing in a move designed to bring orchestration tools along with high-end computing access capabilities to the cloud. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to the web site Crunchbase, a Microsoft investment arm previously provided Cycle Computing with "non-equity assistance." Microsoft said Tuesday (Aug. 15) ... Full article
Splunk Beefs Up Cloud Monitoring Tool
As enterprises accelerate the shift to a hybrid private/public cloud model, a growing list of data analytics vendors are stepping up to offer cloud monitoring and other tools designed to ease cloud migrations that are expected to consume the lion's share of IT budgets over the next year and a half. Among them is Splunk ... Full article
‘IoT for Puppies’ and AI Help Identify Guide Dog Trainees with the Right Stuff
The dog has been called our "first friend," the bond between dogs and people extends to our pre-history, and one of the most revered forms of that bond is the relationship between the visually impaired and the service dog. However, because the skills required of these dogs is so high, training them is not only ... Full article
Huawei, MapD Join Forces on GPU-Based Servers
Data analytics and visualization specialist MapD Technologies has inked a deal with Huawei, the multinational networking and telecommunications giant, to juice the Chinese vendor's server hardware with scalable GPU-supported analytics. The partners announced an agreement this week intended to improve compatibility between Huawei's latest FusionServer and MapD database and visualization platforms. Huawei (SHE: 002502) announced ... Full article
Intel Moves on Blockchain, Self-Driving Cars
Chip giant Intel Corp. continues to diversify beyond its x86 roots into emerging markets ranging from autonomous vehicles to blockchain technology. It announced initiatives this week covering both, including a partnership with Microsoft to provide hardware and joint software development for a planned enterprise blockchain service. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced Thursday ... Full article
3+ Months after Launch, Wasabi’s Assault on S3 Said to Be on Plan
David Friend comes across as a modest, unassuming fellow who talks about his start-up storage company, Wasabi, and its technology in an understated, commonsensical kind of way. But make no mistake, Friend is pursuing a grand ambition that takes dead aim at a big target: the public cloud storage market, which Wasabi intends to turn ... Full article
Data Among Keys to Industrial IoT Success
Among the first sectors likely to cash in on the Internet of Things is industrial, which has been in the vanguard of networking the factory floor to achieve efficiencies while collecting and leveraging all the data generated by connected devices and machines. A new study on how to make money on the industrial IoT finds ... Full article
Data Unification: A New Path to Digital Transformation
You may be familiar with the cliché that data is the new oil and analytics is the combustion engines that will power enterprises to corporate nirvana with all manner of game-changing insights. But the problem is that for most large businesses, enterprise data is like the tar sands. It’s there and everyone believes in its ... Full article
IBM Scales AI with Distributed Deep Learning
IBM announced today an enhancement to its PowerAI software platform aimed at scaling AI models on today’s fastest GPUs. Scaling to 256 GPUs with its new distributed deep learning (DDL) library, IBM reported it has bested previous scaling records set by Google and Facebook on two well-known image recognition workloads. “This is one of the ... Full article
U.S. Expands Cyber Training Effort
In order to secure enterprise networks and their far-flung components, everyone needs to be on the same page. That's at least part of the thinking behind a renewed U.S. cyber initiative designed to bring embattled security teams up to speed as threats continue to evolve. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which helps ... Full article