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How Technology is Transforming Global Food Systems

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How Technology is Transforming Global Food Systems

Considering issues such as climate change and an ongoing global pandemic, humanity has plenty to worry about these days.

And in terms of impact on both environmental and humanitarian outcomes, food security is one of the most important issues in modern times. As the global population continues to rise, there’s an increasing strain on the global food system. 

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Put simply, we must find ways to feed everyone, keeping sustainability in mind while also considering economic interests. It’s a delicate balance, and there’s a growing urgency to find solutions before it’s too late. The consensus is that 9.1 million people will inhabit the Earth by 2050, necessitating a 70% increase in food production over current levels to keep everyone fed.  

Fortunately, advancements in technology offer viable avenues toward transforming global food systems for the better, starting with supply and demand. To solve the issue of food insecurity, we must look at relevant data while also working to streamline the entire supply chain, from field to table. From scientific advancements in genetics to blockchain, automation, and beyond, technology holds the key to optimal supply chain management in a world that’s constantly evolving. 

Navigating the Modern Food Technology Market

Although global food production is a humanitarian issue, it’s also an economic one, and technology has always been involved. According to Statista, the worldwide food technology market size exceeded $220 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. And the food tech market is only expected to increase, thanks in large part to increasing consumer demand for healthier food products and greater transparency at the company level.  

While capital interests remain the backbone of society, economic factors must be taken into account when discussing global food systems. Potential investors should make room in their budgets for technology and software upgrades, and utilize that tech in the capital decision-making process. As a general rule of thumb, businesses should invest in technology that allows for more streamlined operations, as well as transformative technologies that foster innovation. 

Where the global food system is concerned, existing advanced food techniques and technologies have the potential to raise crop yields, which is a huge step towards mitigating food insecurity on a large scale. But all of those crops have to get to the consumer somehow, even as the global shipping industry is experiencing unprecedented challenges. As such, adaptive technology can help a business address any supply chain deficiencies, and analyze data on performance to improve the customer experience. 

Blockchain, Automation, and Beyond: Technology as a Tool

At every stage of the food distribution system, data is shared. By effectively analyzing that data, we may be able to transform global food systems for the better, and blockchain technology can help us make sense of it all. Although the concept may appear complex on the surface, blockchain technology has wide-reaching applications when it comes to the supply chain. With blockchain, everyone involved in the food production and distribution processes can access relevant, shared data, for improved transparency and a lower risk of fraud. 

Interestingly, one of the oldest forms of industrial technology is also one of the most revolutionary in the 21st century, propelling us towards a future where every global citizen has access to healthy food. Beginning in the Industrial Revolution, automation technology allowed for greater production yields across nearly every industry, typically at a lower cost, and the global food system is no exception. Examples of automation technology in action can be seen across the supply chain, from the factory floor to the order fulfillment office.  

Industry experts claim that automation benefits the food industry in numerous ways. For starters, automation helps standardize quality control, minimizing health risks at every stage of production. That’s because, with automation, there are fewer points of direct contact with a food and/or agricultural product, thus fewer potential contaminants. Further, automation has been found to improve workplace safety, increase efficiency, and may even protect a company’s reputation from irreparable harm. 

Feeding a Growing, Increasingly Online World

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Brand image is important, in fact, that a businesses’ longevity can even hinge on its reputation. Social media and unlimited internet access have made it easier than ever for consumers to share their experiences with a company or product, for better or worse. Today’s digital communications technology can help food production and distribution companies stay on top of social media posts and trends that may have a long-term impact on one’s bottom line. Company leaders can set themselves apart from the competition by monitoring online channels and engaging in open communication with consumers. 

In our ever-growing world, the global food system is on the brink of collapse. Agricultural production has slowed down considerably in recent years, despite increased demand and rampant food insecurity in underdeveloped nations around the world. To meet the increasing demand for food and agricultural resources and propel the industry forward, global food leaders must thus adopt new technologies in supply chain management and analytics. 


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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

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AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.  

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

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Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

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Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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