TECHNOLOGY
How Will Blockchain Tech Intersect with AI?
Few subjects have generated as much buzz and excitement in the world of tech as blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI).
At a glance, the two seem completely unrelated. For example, checking the Cronos price has little, if anything to do with using AI to generate images.
Blockchain and artificial intelligence are more closely related than you might expect. We’re seeing them intersect more and more, a relationship which promises to offer us some incredible new tools and opportunities. Let’s find out more.
1. Automating Systems and Processes
If we want to know how blockchain and artificial intelligence intersect, it is absolutely critical that we have a solid grasp and understanding of what they are, how they work and what they can be used for.
Blockchain platforms serve as digital ledgers where actions can be processed and recorded. These platforms are most commonly associated with cryptocurrencies, and they act as a network through which transactions made using these digital currencies can be actioned.
However, blockchain tech can be used for much more, and we have seen it adopted and implemented across a range of industries, including supply chain management and healthcare.
Blockchain networks are decentralised and highly secure. They can function independently without the need for oversight or regulatory control, with all actions and information secured by cryptography.
AI is an umbrella term used to describe sophisticated computer systems that can accurately mimic human thinking and behaviour. The technology has exploded in popularity in recent years, as a result of the development of tools such as ChatGPT, and experts predict AI is set to completely change our lives.
AI tools use a range of different systems and processes to complete tasks, respond to user prompts, and think independently. These include things like neural networks and large language processing.
Now that we know what blockchain and AI are, let’s discuss how the two are intersecting and in what industries we see them used in combination.
2. Improving Cybersecurity
Our lives are increasingly lived through digital platforms and online spaces. While this has made the world immeasurably more convenient and interconnected, it has also given rise to the threat of cybercrime.
Being the victim of a cyber attack could see you lose money or even have your identity stolen. This means cybersecurity is incredibly important and is something everyone needs to think about if they are interacting with or using digital tools and services.
Blockchain secures the information stored on the network using cryptography. However, while this can keep data safe, it does nothing to prevent attacks from taking place. AI can be implemented in a more active sense, it can identify and eliminate cybersecurity attacks, constantly learning and adapting to new threats. This two-pronged approach will prove incredibly effective in the fight against cybercrime.
3. Taking Healthcare to the Next Level
Technology is critical to the healthcare industry. By adopting new tools and systems, healthcare providers can offer their patients greater levels of care and improved recovery rates.
We’ve seen an increase in the use of blockchain platforms to store sensitive customer records and information. Medical records are private, and, in most countries, this privacy is enshrined in law. If a data breach was to occur, customer privacy would be infringed, and the organisation could face severe legal penalties. By storing records in blockchain networks, data can be kept safe and protected from attacks from hackers and cybercriminals.
By combining this practice with AI, healthcare professionals will be able to access these records more easily and efficiently, with a higher degree of accuracy.
Preparing patients for surgery can be time-consuming, but doing so is essential. Using a combination of blockchain and AI, this process can be streamlined, with automated systems able to evaluate medical history and individual needs and requirements ahead of surgery, saving time and resources.
4. Enhancing Logistics
The rise of ecommerce has completely transformed the way in which we purchase goods. Products are now shipped to and from every corner of the planet, and they must reach their destinations in as little time as possible.
The logistics of such a global network are complex and incredibly fragile. Disruption at any stage can trigger a domino effect and cause untold damage.
Supply chain routes can be stored in blockchain networks, giving all involved parties access to the paths goods and products follow as they make their way towards their destinations. If issues occur on routes, the exact source can be pinpointed and flagged.
To improve this, AI can be implemented for the analysis and evaluation of routes. The nature of these intelligent systems means that they can use their own native critical analysis skills to assess the strength of logistical networks and make suggestions to improve processes. They can also evaluate changes in the market and make updates according to changing supply and demand.
5. Simplifying Our Life
Blockchain and AI are revolutionising the world. These technologies may seem like something from a science fiction film, but they are very real, and they are changing our lives in more ways than you might realise. The two technologies are interesting all the time, and combined application of them is increasing in industries including cybersecurity, healthcare and logistics.
TECHNOLOGY
Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3
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.
TECHNOLOGY
HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces
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.
TECHNOLOGY
Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud
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.
