Hatfields and McCoys. Lakers and Celtics. GIF versus GIF. The rivalries of our time are always storied. One of the biggest seems to be cooling, however. AMD and Intel have announced a new partnership aimed at countering the surge of ARM-based designs. The companies are trying to standardize aspects of the x86 instruction set in order to make it eas…

At Open Compute Summit this past week, key trends shaping the future of computing and infrastructure were discussed. One major concern is the global data center energy consumption, which is projected to triple by 2030, highlighting the urgent need for more efficient energy solutions. As technology advances, the shift from a 3nm process to a 2nm pro…

At Commvault SHIFT 2024, The Futurum Group's Daniel Newman and Patrick Moorhead sat with CEO Sanjay Mirchandani, who discussed Commvault's strategic pivot towards a cloud-first approach in cyber resilience. This shift involves key acquisitions, such as Appranix and Clumio, and new partnerships with AWS and Google, aimed at enhancing cloud data prot…

A big cyberattack attributed to groups backed by the Chinese government has telecom providers worried. In this new report, investigators have determined that the group, known as Salt Typhoon, has had months-long access into the network infrastructures of companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies. That access includes visibility over the …

Microsoft has revamped its AI-powered Recall feature, shifting from automatic to opt-in use with enhanced security measures like full encryption and Windows Hello authentication, addressing privacy concerns. California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB-1047, which aimed to regulate AI models, citing concerns that smaller models outside the regulation…

We're happy to have Dr. Bob Sutor joining us this week on the Rundown, since he covers quantum and advanced computing for The Futurum Group. IBM made two important announcements in the quantum space this week. The first announcement was Qiskit, a quantum SDK that runs on Python for quantum computers. This promises to bring quantum compute to a more…

We have talked at length this year about Intel's efforts to turn the ship and add more profitability to the ledger. One of the crown jewels in that portfolio is the foundry business. It has been the recipient of a large amount of government funding through the CHIPS Act. But it is also playing catch up with TSMC and others. New broke yesterday that…

AT&T has decided enough is enough. They have filed a lawsuit over the tactics they claim are putting first responders and critical government services at risk. AT&T is claiming breach of contract because of the new support policy enacted by Broadcom after the VMware acquisition. The key point comes in an amendment in their support agreement that sa…

This year, at the smallest VMware conference in many years, Broadcom made some important announcements. As we've previously discussed, VMware Cloud Foundation 9 was detailed, along with Tanzu Platform 10, an enhanced Edge Orchestrator platform, VeloCloud Software-Defined Edge, and more. Although we miss the community coming together at VMworld ever…

This week kicked off the annual Hot Chips conference and AI has once again dominated the conversation. There were a lot of stories to talk about, from wafer scale chips to silicon photonics, Cerebras' giant leap into AI Inferencing, Microsoft Azure's MAIA 100 AI Accelerator, IBM's On-Chip DPU, Broadcom's AI Compute ASIC, Intel's Guadi 3, and more. …

Our big story this week is from AMD. They're opening up their wallet to the tune of nearly $5 billion to buy ZT Systems. The two companies have had a preexisting partnership, with ZT having collaborated on the EPYC processor lines. ZT's biggest customers are AWS and Azure, as ZT specializes in hyperscale AI systems that are bought by the rack. This…

Black Hat was last week and Hacker Summer Camp never fails to disappoint. There were some big takeaways from the show, such as Moxie Marlinspike telling DevOps they're the problem with security as well as a whole host of exploits, like the ones we've covered above. However, AI is king in 2024 and we knew everyone was going to be talking about it. T…

It's not a great day for Intel and some 15,000 workers. In the earning call last week the CPU giant revealed that while they hit their revenue target numbers this past quarter there are storm clouds on the horizon. Challenges from AI companies as well as issues with some of their most recent chip designs has Pat Gelsinger looking to cut costs. The …

Microsoft has released an accountability notice after the big Crowdstrike outage. According to the release, Microsoft is going to change and innovate in the area of end-to-end resilience. This includes things like VBS enclaves, which require no kernel mode drivers, as well as Azure Attestation, which determines secure boot posture. The messaging in…

Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:03 - NVIDIA's B20 AI Chip 5:35 - Wiz Denies Google's $23 Billion 9:15 - AMD Acquires Silo AI 14:07 - BMC Announces Mainframe AI Integration 18:04 - Einstein Service Agent Released by Salesforce 22:18 - Swiss Government Mandates Open Source 26:58 - Crowdstrike Update Strikes Microsoft's Cloud Services 43:…

Google is looking to make their biggest acquisition ever. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Alphabet will be making a bid to purchase Wiz for $23 billion. Wiz has spent the past four years developing a cloud security platform that has detected some big problems in a number of providers, including one in Microsoft Bing. Goo…

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released a comprehensive guide to bolster operational security (OPSEC) for election officials. This guide aims to enhance the security of election infrastructure by offering detailed strategies for identifying and mitigating potential risks within the election context. This and more on…

The US government is worried there might not be enough trained workers to fill the needs of the CHIPS act. President Biden has announced a Workforce Partner Alliance (WFPA) to ensure the gap for skilled workers will be closed as soon as possible. WFPA is designed to reward providers with grants of between $500,000 and $2 million to provide the trai…

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has launched a private cloud solution leveraging the KVM hypervisor, aiming at customers upset by the Broadcom-VMware merger. This is added to the existing bare-metal and container solutions in HPE's Private Cloud offering. HPE is also the latest major IT vendor to partner with NVIDIA on a suite of private cloud sol…

Amazon Web Services recently held their re:Inforce conference, as the company attempts to partner with customers to deliver a securre environment. Following the shared responsibility model concept that was the focus last year, it seems that the company is emphasizing that security is a job for everyone in the modern cloud. We also saw product annou…

The US Justice Department and FCC have announced an agreement that gives them each a role to play in potential antitrust investigations against the biggest players in the AI market. Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI were named in the agreement specifically according to insider reports. This follows reports that antitrust investigators have big concerns…

At Qlik Connect in Orlando, significant announcements affecting the industry were examined. Key highlights included the integration of Talend Cloud to enhance data pipeline capabilities and the introduction of Qlik Answers, an AI-powered knowledge assistant tailored to enterprise data. The partnership with the United Nations to support climate chan…

The world’s leading internet firms are actively collaborating with regulators in the European Union to ensure compliance with the bloc’s stringent data protection rules. According to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which serves as the lead EU regulator for major tech companies including Alphabet’s Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and Op…

Pat Moorhead and Daniel Newman sat down with Sam Burd to discuss AI PCs at Dell Tech World. These new PCs include significant new AI integrations, and Dell expects these to initiate a "super cycle" of PC upgrades. We discussed the importance of Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite earlier in the program, but what should we make of the market for AI PCs? Thi…

The June 2024 Top500 supercomputer list was released at ISC 2024, and there is a lot to unpack. The latest Top 500 Supercomputers list highlights significant trends in the supercomputing landscape, as NVIDIA takes 7 spots with Grace-based systems, including 3 of the top 20. Although the balance between Intel and AMD remains static, there is a shift…

The annual security party known as RSA kicked off this week and one of the things you can count on is big announcements from companies at the event and we've collected a few of them. Red Hat Summit 2024 is also happening this week. The big news from the event is all about AI. The first big announcement is InstructLab, an open-source project aimed a…

You don't need an algorithm to know that AI is the hottest invements right now outside of frozen concentrated orange juice. Investors are seeing the mountain of money that Nvdia is making and giving startups all the funding they could hope for. While massive funding for startups in Silicon Valley is old news this recent wave has seen the huge inves…

In a landmark ruling from the US Federal Trade Commission, non-compete clauses in employment agreements are no longer valid and all existing non-compete clauses are null and void starting in 120 days. The government argues that non-competes stifle wages and reduce the talent pool for companies to draw from. Businesses counter that argument with the…

Our eyes were on Google Cloud Next last week, as the hyperscaler announced new ARM chips, lots of partnerships, and of course wall-to-wall AI. Google's Vertex AI Agent Builder allows no-code deployment of agents, Google Vids targets video editing, and the search giant is leaning into Retrieval-Augmented Generation or RAG. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcom…

In a historic move, key federal lawmakers, including Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers unveiled a sweeping proposal aimed at granting consumers extensive rights to manage the use of their personal data by tech giants like Google, Meta, and TikTok. The proposed legisla…

The US and the UK have allied to make sure AI is developed safely. A new memorandum of understanding has laid out proposals for testing and information sharing to ensure that AI is being safely written and maintained to prevent harm to anyone using it. The ultimate goal, as stated by representatives from both governments, is harnessing the potentia…

NVIDIA GTC event was the big story last week, both on the Rundown and in the tech industry generally. NVIDIA is clearly the company to beat in AI and HPC and this has the entire industry on its toes. Every company in tech is emphasizing their partnership and joint offerings with NVIDIA. But there's a reaction from their competitors, too, with Googl…

This week is NVIDIA GTC, or as Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman called it "the Woodstock of AI". There's been a lot of discussion about the ascendant NVIDIA and how they plan on capitalizing on a hot market. NVIDIA unveiled Blackwell, their newest architecture. The chip was named after American mathematician David Blackwell and math is most definite…

Yesterday VAST Data announced what they are calling the AI Factory, and we got a detailed look at this during a Tech Field Day Showcase. VAST is collaborating with NVIDIA, Supermicro, and Run:ai to demonstrate their ability to operationalize AI at scale. Highlighting their rapid growth and partnerships, VAST Data's architecture supports new capabil…

NetApp is updaing their ransomware protection solutions. They've made some new additions to their Automated Ransomware Protection (ARP) platform to address new attack vectors and improve logic for attack detection, including new methods like partial file encryption. NetApp is claiming a 99% precision in detection of ransomware attacks. They have al…

In a series of bold moves, Broadcom has restructured VMware shifting to subscription-only licenses across all offerings. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan wants VMware to focus on resiliency, developer efficiency, and infrastructure efficiency. Tan outlines three key strategies: radical simplification, substantial R&D investment for on-premises to private clou…

The US Department of Justice is at it again with a new team for Operation Dying Ember. Sounds spooky, right? This time it was to undertake a secret court order to remove malware from Ubiquiti devices infected by Fancy Bear. The devices in question had default administration passwords as well as remote admin access on the public Internet. The DOJ re…

Cohesity is set to acquire the data protection assets of Veritas in a huge deal. Cohesity will be picking up the NetBackup portfolio as well as SaaS offering Alta. The move is seen as a huge bolster to Cohesity both in their cloud offerings as well as traditional on-prem enterrpise back and data protection. The deal will merge the two companies int…

Cisco Live EMEA is happening this week and we're here learning all the great things that Cisco is investing in and bringing to the market. We thought it would be great to give you a quick overview of the biggest announcements as well as providing some context around why they're important. This and more on this week’s Rundown. Head to GestaltIT.com …

Juniper Networks is putting more Marvis in everything. In a major announcement this week they released several new products. One of those was expanding the Mist AI platform into Juniper Apstra to create more integration between the two acquisitions. WIth Apstra you get intent-based networking and with Mist you get access to a virtual network assist…

According to a recent report from the IEA, data center electricity demands are set to rise over the next three years. The report discusses the CO2 emissions and the potential mitigation that companies have committed to doing to achieve carbon neutrality. Also of note was the assertion that clean energy sources could meet this growing demand to help…

Two of the biggest players in the networking space are about to become one. Rumors started swirling on Monday evening that HPE was looking to acquire Juniper Networks and those rumors were confirmed yesterday. HPE will be paying $40/share or approximately $14 billion for all of the company. Juniper started off as a huge player in the service provid…

Two of the biggest players in the networking space are about to become one. Rumors started swirling on Monday evening that HPE was looking to acquire Juniper Networks and those rumors were confirmed yesterday. HPE will be paying $40/share or approximately $14 billion for all of the company. Juniper started off as a huge player in the service provid…

It has been a big year in the enterprise IT industry for many reasons. Pat Gelsinger and Intel continue to refocus its business, the SEC gets serious with SolarWinds, Broadcom's deal to acquire VMware, HPE Aruba Ascendant, the incredible rise of generative AI, the battle of open source licenses, and of course, the Futurum Group acquiring Gestalt IT…

It has been a big year in the enterprise IT industry for many reasons. Pat Gelsinger and Intel continue to refocus its business, the SEC gets serious with SolarWinds, Broadcom's deal to acquire VMware, HPE Aruba Ascendant, the incredible rise of generative AI, the battle of open source licenses, and of course, the Futurum Group acquiring Gestalt IT…

Change is in the air and it's licensed. The biggest news this week came from VMware (by Broadcom) as they announced a simplification of their licensing model. The first change is that VMware Cloud Foundation has had the subscription cost cut in half and additional support levels added to help with activation and lifecycle management. VMware vSphere…

IBM and Facebook parent company Meta have decided to advocate for a more open approach to AI. They've announced a joint AI Alliance group. The companies are part of a growing trend that sees advocates arguing that AI shouldn't be proprietary and closed. Also signing on to the alliance are Dell, Sony, AMD, Intel, and several other AI startups. The g…

Amazon announced that they will be using Nvidia's NVSwitch to create new rackscale AI platforms. This allows customers to use Nvidia technology like Grace Hopper or build something using AWS Nitro DPUs and Elastic Fabric Adapaters. That last combination doesn't use InfiniBand and moves to Ethernet. Two new chips are coming out from the Amazon labs.…

It's been a wild week for OpenAI. On Friday, the board notified CEO Sam Altman that he was being removed. Then President and Chairman Greg Brockman quit. OpenAI then went through three interim CEOs in a weekend. Meanwhile, Altman and Brockman were hired by Microsoft but rumors swirled they would be reinstated at OpenAI, which eventually happened la…

As Supercomputing 2023 is held in Denver this week, we're on the lookout for all the latest news. We have a new list of Top-500 supercomputers, more Nvidia announcements, and lots of AI. Perhaps the biggest topic of discussion, though, are the many questions about HPC itself: Will we be able to live in an exascale world? And what does that even mea…