Latest news with #AIinfrastructure
Fast Company
14 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
How Cisco has been quietly retooling for the AI revolution
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company 's weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Exclusive Interview With Cisco's Jeetu Patel Data centers are popping up all over the world to support the quickly growing demand for all kinds of AI apps and services. Cisco, of course, is no stranger to the data center, and it's been working hard over the past few years to make itself a vital part of the AI technology stack. I asked Cisco EVP and chief product officer Jeetu Patel how he sees the current situation in generative AI, and about how his company fits into the picture. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Can you give me your 30,000-foot view of the transition to generative AI? We're now moving from this mode of chatbots intelligently answering questions for us to us now moving into a mode where agents are conducting tasks and jobs almost fully autonomously on behalf of humans. As that happens, there's going to be an augmentation of the capacity of billions and billions of agents that'll actually get added on over the course of the next few years. But the requirements that you have around low-latency, high-performance, high-energy-efficiency infrastructure, as well as around safety and security so that the user can establish trust with these AI systems, is going to have to be fully reimagined. Can you describe in simple terms how Cisco plays in the AI tech stack? At the very baseline, we build our own silicon and ASICs [application-specific integrated circuits] for the network itself. I think we're the only non-Nvidia silicon provider that is part of Nvidia's reference architecture where our networking is tied with their GPUs and we actually make sure that those work together in a reference architecture that an enterprise can deploy. We then have our own systems, which are the physical boxes for the networks and the servers on the compute side, and the optics and the optical systems that actually can do ultra-long haul data center interconnect, as well as interconnect between clusters. We then provide the safety and security platform that's needed to secure AI as well—we're one of the largest security players in the market. We provide a data platform in Splunk. We're actually building our own bespoke custom models for security and networking. You mentioned latency as a key challenge. How critical is response time for AI applications? If it takes three seconds for an AI voice agent to respond to you, you know it's a robot and you don't want to talk to it. But if you do it within 500 milliseconds, you have a very different kind of behavior from the human. In our user testing, outside of efficacy, latency is one of the most important things. It has to be interruptible and it has to have enough training on EQ [emotional intelligence] and sentiment analysis, so that if you're sounding annoyed, it doesn't say, 'How's the weather today?' How do you handle the security challenges with multiple AI models? Most of these models are putting their own safety and security guardrails in the models. But models can get tricked through jailbreaking techniques. We've built a product that not only does the visibility of what data is flowing through the model and when the model is getting fine-tuned, so you can do a continuous validation. . . . We validate the model within a matter of minutes through an algorithmic red-teaming exercise rather than it taking weeks or months for companies to validate the model. We jailbroke DeepSeek within 48 hours. We can take that model and then create runtime enforcement guardrails for every application developer. The end outcome is that no developer has to rebuild the security stack every time they build an application, and no model provider needs to be responsible for every single way that a model can be jailbroken. So every app developer building on top of DeepSeek will benefit from this pool of knowledge that Cisco knows about how to jailbreak the model and how to protect against that? That's exactly right. We believe that you need a neutral party that provides a common substrate of security for every app developer, every model builder, every agent developer, so that the developer can innovate fearlessly. Are AI companies putting big data centers in the Middle East because they have plenty of power and room to grow, or is it to better service customers in that region? It's literally both. You don't have enough power to fuel all the demand for AI right now. The amount of usage that OpenAI is getting right now is literally like breaking the internet. They came up with $20 a user—they're losing money on $20 a user, from what the industry says. So they added a plan for $200 a user. My guess is they're going to lose money at $200 a user. They have a plan for $2,000 a user. They will lose money for $2,000 a user. Tha''s not a bad thing. It tells you that there is intrinsic demand. The demand for data centers is going to be insatiable for a very long time. As models get more efficient over time, you'll have small models with very large context windows—you might have a million-token context window, very small model, very small data set with a very small footprint to be able to get the inference done. But we're not quite there yet. Is it because of inference costs that they can't make money? What's the big cost driver? Right now it's the usage and the cost of GPUs. It's expensive. But the beauty about this is it's the wrong thing to focus on to get a company to profitability at this stage. What they should focus on is the acquisition of as many users as possible so that they can have the daily workflow fusion of ChatGPT for both consumers and enterprises. Once that happens, they can figure out a way to optimize later. But right now, starting to optimize would be putting cycles in the wrong thing.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS) Soared On Thursday
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) stands against other best-performing stocks on Thursday. Nebius Group grew its share prices by 17.54 percent on Thursday to close at $46.30 apiece after raising as much as $1 billion through the issuance of convertible notes. In a statement, Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) said that the funds will be raised in two tranches, the first of which amounts to $500,000 covering 2 percent convertible notes due 2029, while the remaining $500,000 will cover 3 percent convertible notes due 2031. A close-up of a businesswoman using a laptop, being illuminated by the AI-enabled cloud interface sponsored by the company. 'The fresh capital we are raising now gives us more firepower to go faster, paving the way for increased revenue opportunities in 2026 and further accelerating us toward our medium-term target of mid-single-digit billions of dollars in revenue as a high-margin business, with potential upside,' said Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) founder and CEO Arkady Volozh. 'Building foundational AI infrastructure is a capital-intensive business. In addition to access to the capital markets, we are fortunate to have non-core assets and equity stakes with significant growth profiles that can be used to support the future funding requirements of our core business,' he added. Overall, NBIS ranks 1st on our list of best-performing stocks on Thursday. While we acknowledge the potential of NBIS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Tahawul Tech
29-05-2025
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Microsoft and Core42 delve into the transformative power of sovereign public clouds
Microsoft and Core42, a G42 company specialising in sovereign cloud, AI infrastructure, and digital services, recently released a comprehensive whitepaper titled 'Balancing Innovation and Compliance in the AI Era: Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud Leveraging Microsoft Azure'. This whitepaper delves into the transformative role of sovereign public cloud solutions in shaping the UAE's digital future, providing strategic insights and best practices for technology leaders to effectively adopt and deploy these solutions. Sovereign public clouds are crucial for several reasons: data sovereignty compliance ensures that data is stored, processed, and managed within a specific country or region, adhering to local laws and regulations, which is particularly crucial for sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, and financial data. Sovereign clouds enhance security and privacy by implementing advanced measures like strict access controls and encryption, safeguarding data against unauthorized access, especially from foreign entities. They provide organisations greater operational control, enabling them to comply with legal and regulatory requirements while managing access to their data. Additionally, sovereign clouds support national interests by bolstering local digital infrastructure, fostering innovation, and reducing reliance on foreign providers. They also maintain scalability and cost efficiency, delivering the benefits of public cloud services while ensuring strict adherence to local regulations. A central insight from the whitepaper is that modern sovereign-enabled public clouds eliminate the long-standing trade-off between innovation and regulation. The paper features real-world use cases from the UAE, including AI-powered fraud detection in financial services, predictive diagnostics in healthcare, citizen data protection in government, and real-time analytics in energy. These examples illustrate how sovereign infrastructure can unlock transformative value while maintaining full regulatory alignment. By adopting a sovereign cloud model, companies in the UAE can embrace digital transformation with confidence, aligning technological progress with national priorities. The whitepaper also explores how the UAE is heavily investing in AI and the cloud to drive its digital future, with initiatives such as Abu Dhabi's strategy to become the world's first fully AI-native government by 2027. The UAE's sovereignty-first digital economy vision is being realised through such foundational infrastructure. By embedding data governance, compliance, and national security at the heart of digital transformation, the UAE is setting a global benchmark for AI-era leadership. The paper further highlights that global spending on sovereign cloud solutions is projected to nearly double from $133 billion in 2024 to $259 billion by 2027, emphasizing the urgency for governments and industries globally to integrate digital sovereignty into their core technology strategies. Sherif Tawfik, Chief Partnership Officer – AI & Cloud for Sovereignty, Microsoft reiterated Microsoft's unwavering commitment to supporting the UAE's ambitious vision of becoming a global leader in digital transformation. 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, exemplifies our dedication to providing secure, compliant, and innovative cloud solutions that meet the unique needs of regulated industries in the UAE. By leveraging Microsoft Azure, we are providing a robust, secure, and compliant cloud infrastructure that empowers UAE organisations to harness the full potential of AI and cloud capabilities to innovate and accelerate their digital transformation journey while ensuring data sovereignty and regulatory compliance'. Adrian Hobbs, Chief Technology Officer, Core42, highlighted the significance of the partnership between Core42 and Microsoft as a testament to their shared commitment to driving digital innovation while ensuring compliance with local regulations. 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, which leverages our sovereign control platform, Insight, is designed to meet the unique needs of regulated industries. This initiative aims to enable businesses to achieve their digital ambitions securely and in compliance with regulatory requirements. Our collaboration with Microsoft ensures that we provide a cloud environment that fosters innovation while upholding the highest standards of data sovereignty and regulatory compliance. We are proud to contribute to the national journeys towards becoming global technology leaders'. The partnership between Microsoft and Core42 has been pivotal in driving digital innovation and transformation across the UAE. Recently, the Abu Dhabi Government announced a landmark agreement with Microsoft and Core42 to implement a sovereign cloud system that will enhance efficiency and boost innovation in government services. This multi-year agreement aims to create a unified, high-performance sovereign cloud computing environment capable of processing over 11 million daily digital interactions between Abu Dhabi Government entities, citizens, residents, and businesses. The collaboration is a testament to the shared commitment of Microsoft and Core42 to drive digital innovation while ensuring compliance with local regulations. The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, which leverages the Core42 sovereign controls platform 'Insight', exemplifies this dedication by providing secure, compliant, and innovative cloud solutions tailored to the unique needs of regulated industries in the UAE. For more detailed insights on sovereign enabled public clouds, read the white paper: Image Credit: Microsoft & Core42
Globe and Mail
07-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Is Super Micro Stock Too Cheap to Ignore After a 62% Drop?
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) has had a rough ride over the past year, with its stock plummeting by more than 62% amid allegations of accounting manipulation and operational challenges. The decline began following a report from Hindenburg Research last year, accusing the company of accounting irregularities and other serious missteps. This led to investor panic, which was exacerbated when Super Micro delayed its annual filing. Eventually, Super Micro submitted its overdue financials, narrowly avoiding a potential delisting from the Nasdaq. However, the relief was short-lived. The company's fiscal third-quarter results disappointed investors further, and a guidance cut for the full year compounded the damage. Super Micro reported $4.6 billion in revenue, which was below expectations. Management attributed the shortfall to a pause in purchasing decisions, as customers weighed their options between Nvidia's (NVDA) Hopper GPUs and the Blackwell platform. This temporary hesitation in AI infrastructure spending has led to deferred orders, although the company believes many of these deals will land in the June and September quarters. Still, Super Micro trimmed its full-year revenue outlook for fiscal 2025. The company now expects revenue between $21.8 billion and $22.6 billion, down from a previous forecast of $23.5 billion to $25 billion. The reduced guidance reflects lingering uncertainty about the pace of enterprise and hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending. AI-Driven Demand to Support Recovery While these developments paint a challenging picture for Super Micro in the near term, the sharp decline in its stock price may already reflect these concerns. Moreover, the strong demand for AI GPU solutions in enterprise and cloud markets suggests potential opportunities ahead. Despite the short-term headwinds, Super Micro's underlying business remains deeply tied to solid secular trends in tech, particularly the growing demand for AI computing infrastructure. The company's AI GPU platforms now account for more than 70% of total revenue, and demand from both enterprise and cloud service providers remains strong. The company continues to ramp up production of its Data Center Building Block Solutions (DCBBS), which support next-generation GPUs and are designed to offer faster deployment, lower power and water usage, and significantly better efficiency and total cost of ownership (TCO). These solutions are already being delivered in volume, including new air-cooled and liquid-cooled systems for Nvidia's B200 HGX platform and advanced racks. To further enhance its AI offerings, SMCI has expanded its support for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) platforms, including the MI325X, and plans to support upcoming chip releases like Nvidia's B300 and AMD's MI350 later this summer. The company's growing portfolio of AI offerings will support future growth. SMCI's leadership in green computing, primarily through its direct liquid cooling (DLC) technology, gives it a competitive advantage. Last year, the company shipped 4,000 high-power AI racks equipped with DLC, helping customers slash energy costs. The next generation, DLC-2, promises even better results, driving demand. The company's global footprint continues to grow. A new Malaysia campus has started shipping products, while operations in Taiwan and Europe are scaling up. SMCI is also expanding its U.S. manufacturing capacity to support key partners and government initiatives, strengthening its logistics in an uncertain macro environment. Is SMCI Stock a Value Play for Patient Investors? Super Micro's long-term investments in DLC and DCBBS provide a competitive advantage. These systems deliver cost and energy benefits, driving higher demand in the coming quarters. While near-term macroeconomic and market uncertainties have analysts maintaining a 'Hold' rating, SMCI's early mover advantage in AI infrastructure, product innovation, and advancements in DLC technology further solidifies its competitive position, enabling it to capitalize on AI demand, deliver strong growth in the long term, and gain market share. For investors willing to weather short-term volatility, this beaten-down stock represents a bargain near current levels.
