Next in Tech

Demand for data center capacity is booming, which won't come as a surprise to any of our listeners, but that boom is extending into the associated areas that are looking to manage risk in this growth. Analysts Tony Lenoir and Kelly Morgan return to the podcast to discuss an upcoming webinar that explores the challenges that insurers are facing with host Eric Hanselman. The "Underwriting the Digital Backbone: Navigating Risk and Growth in Data Center Insurance" webinar digs into the complex risk equations that insurers have to navigate. Data center projects have escalated in scale and cost and this creates concerns not only about financing, but also the entangled supply chain and energy grid connectivity pathways. When data center power demands are approaching the gigawatt level, simply providing reliable power becomes much more challenging.
At the same time, the risks for data centers are becoming more complicated. The shift to liquid cooling can deliver much more efficient operation, when compared with air cooling, but it has a downside. When racks of GPU's can dissipate almost a megawatt of energy, even short interruptions of cooling supply can cause catastrophic damage. And the GPU's being damaged are tremendously valuable and in short supply. Business continuity insurance has to account for these much greater loss potentials, as well as looking at location risks from environmental hazards. Geopolitical concerns are now a key part of balancing risk, as well. Check out the webinar for a deeper dive with more details.
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guests: Tony Lenoir, Kelly Morgan
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

While expanding regulatory requirements have been pushing developments in digital sovereignty, increasing levels of geopolitical concerns are driving greater urgency in improving control of digital assets. Andreas Prins, global head of sovereignty solutions for SUSE joins host Eric Hanselman to look at how organizations need to shift their thinking to leverage all of the benefits that sovereignty initiatives offer. We've seen study results that show that enterprises see sovereignty as a path to better workload and data portability. To make this work effectively, they need to consider the full technology stack that supports their digital environments. Understanding the controls available to manage sovereignty goals is an important first step, but it's just as important to look at how applications and data can be pulled out of any environment, if the need arises. Understanding the effort to exit can highlight dependencies that could hinder a path to improved sovereignty.
Focusing exclusively on sovereignty can also miss another important benefit – improvements in business resilience. By starting with resilience, organizations can link together security and sovereignty with operational concerns. The result can be more efficient and effective technology operations that go beyond fulfilling simple regulatory requirements and help to build stronger businesses.
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guest: Andreas Prins
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

The next episode of our Quantum CEO series looks at the software development stack for quantum computing and how quantum software is developed. Co-founder of Classiq, Amir Naveh, joins host Eric Hanselman to discuss the challenges in working across the dramatically different architectures that make up the current quantum computing landscape. It's been nine years since IBM introduced the Qiskit development environment and much has changed. Developers can move from simple quantum circuits designs to much more high-level representations of quantum logic, while targeting a broad set of quantum computers on which the can run. Much as classical computing tools advanced to more effective and efficient compilers and tool chains, quantum development tooling is tackling more complex problems and raising the level of abstraction at which developers can operate.
The improvements in development tools are expanding the audience for quantum computing and reinforcing the imperative that enterprises large and small should be working to understand how they can put quantum computing to work. Quantum is not a technology for a distant future, it's a reality that can have impacts in many applications today.
 
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guest: Amir Naveh
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

The next in our Quantum CEO series looks at the nature of a fundamental element of quantum computing – the qubit. Dr. Theau Peronnin, cofounder and CEO of Alice & Bob, joins host Eric Hanselman to explore the nature and characteristics of this often-misunderstood foundation of the quantum world. There is no standardized definition for a qubit, and yet, many quantum efforts measure their success in terms of qubit counts. At the same time, there are efforts to define logical qubits, as a more functional measure, further clouding the term. It's far better to look at the work that they can do and what the constraints are in their operation. The current generation of quantum computers work with environments that are computationally noisy, creating error rates that are more than eighteen orders of magnitude greater than classical computers. That puts a focus not only on managing error rates, but also on establishing meaningful benchmarks around quantum performance.
There are also efforts to expand the working life of a qubit, the coherence time, and the speed of computation. Differing approaches to quantum computing trade off stability and durability of the quantum state needed to perform a computation. Quantum capabilities are expanding more rapidly than many had predicted and organizations need to develop a better understanding of where and when quantum computing can fit in their business plans.
 
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We kick off the next in our CEO series with a look at quantum computing. Alan Baratz is the CEO of D-Wave and he joins host Eric Hanselman to explore quantum computing architectures, how they're evolving, and how enterprises should be considering quantum computing applications. D-Wave now offers both annealing and gate model quantum computing systems, with different types of problems being suited to each type. While many view quantum computing as a distant future, quantum approaches are delivering business value today, particularly in quantum annealing, where optimization of scheduling and processing can be done with greater precision and speed.
One of the challenges the enterprises face is translating existing use cases into the quantum realm. So often, heuristics are developed to approximate the computations that are required. The shift to quantum thinking steps beyond the heuristics that were applied to reduce computational efforts and looks at directly addressing computationally complex problems. It's a shift to embracing a new way addressing some of the most challenging enterprise problems.
 
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Credits:
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Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith