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SAN FRANCISCO, — RSA Conference – Cisco, the leader in enterprise networking and security, unveiled its plan for a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform that secures and connects organizations of any shape and size. The company is designing the Cisco Security Cloud to be the industry’s most open platform, protecting the integrity of the entire IT ecosystem – without public cloud lock-in.

The Cisco Security Cloud will secure and connect organizations of all shapes and sizes.

“With the complexity of hybrid work, continued acceleration of cloud adoption, and the ever-advancing threat landscape, organizations are looking for a trusted partner to help them achieve security resilience. We believe Cisco is uniquely positioned due to its scale, breadth of solutions and cloud-neutral business model to meet their needs,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “Cisco is already delivering upon key tenets of our cloud platform vision. We’re excited to increase our innovation velocity to truly deliver on the vision of the Cisco Security Cloud.”

The Security Cloud will provide an integrated experience for securely connecting people and devices everywhere to applications and data anywhere. With unified management, the open platform will provide threat prevention, detection, response, and remediation capabilities at scale. Cisco has been on the journey toward the Security Cloud for some time and is sharing additional progress with new innovations across its security portfolio.

Secure Access
Ushering in the next generation of zero trust, Cisco is building solutions that enable true continuous trusted access by constantly verifying user and device identity, device posture, vulnerabilities, and indicators of compromise. These intelligent checks take place in the background, leaving the user to work without security getting in the way. Cisco is introducing less intrusive methods for risk-based authentication, including the patent-pending Wi-Fi fingerprint as an effective location proxy without compromising user privacy.

To evaluate risk after a user logs in, Cisco is building session trust analysis using the open Shared Signals and Events standards to share information between vendors. Cisco unveiled the first integration of this technology with a demo of Cisco Secure Access by Duo and Box.

“The threat landscape today is evolving faster than ever before,” said Aaron Levie, CEO and Co-founder of Box. “We are excited to strengthen our relationship with Cisco and deliver customers with a powerful new tool that enables them to act on changes in risk dynamically and in near real-time. You can expect to see more innovation and execution from Box and Cisco that help businesses protect their content across any location, application, or device.”

Secure Edge
To radically simplify how organizations connect and protect users, things, and applications, anywhere, Cisco is excited to introduce Cisco+ Secure Connect Now, a unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution. Cisco+ Secure Connect Now is a turnkey offer available in several countries that allows customers to quickly deploy SASE and ease day-to-day operations through a cloud-managed platform. The as-a-service subscription is optimized for value and managed through a unified dashboard.

Cisco offers unmatched breadth and depth in its networking and security capabilities, which is why Telefonica Tech will add Cisco’s SASE suite to its service portfolio.

“As businesses shift to support hybrid work and work from anywhere models, we are committed to helping them adapt to the increased demand for high performing and secure connectivity,” said Rames Sarwat, Director of Cyber Security & Cloud Products and Services at Telefonica Tech. “Together with Cisco, we will offer customers an innovative, managed service that will combine SD-Branch with Cisco SASE to address a complete set of next-generation connectivity and security use cases for the branch and the hybrid worker.”

Secure Operations
Cisco added a new Talos Intel On-Demand service offering custom research on the threat landscape unique to each organization. To help accelerate incident detection and response, Cisco announced enhancements to Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics with its ability to automatically promote alerts into SecureX and map those alerts to MITRE ATT&CK. This follows the general availability of SecureX device insights to aggregate, correlate, and normalize data about the devices in their environment, and the integrations of Kenna and Secure Endpoint to better prioritize vulnerabilities. Cisco also introduced the Secure Firewall 3100 Series, designed for hybrid work with a new encrypted visibility engine that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect hidden threats.

Simplification
Cisco is introducing simplification across the portfolio with the new unified Secure Client. Streamlining how administrators and users manage endpoints, half of Cisco Secure agents, including AnyConnect, Secure Endpoint, and Umbrella, will be unified by mid-year 2022 with additional agents to be added over time. This follows the new cloud-delivered Secure Firewall Management Center, which is enabled through the Cisco Defense Orchestrator and unifies management of both cloud and on-premise firewalls.

To learn more, visit Cisco.com/go/security.

SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.

CONTACT: Carro Halpin, carroh@cisco.com

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 5, 2022 Google Cloud today announced the launch of Manufacturing Data Engine and Manufacturing Connect, two new solutions that enable manufacturers to connect historically siloed assets, process and standardize data, and improve visibility from the factory floor to the cloud. Once data is harmonized, the solutions enable three critical AI- and analytics-based use cases–manufacturing analytics & insights, predictive maintenance, and machine-level anomaly detection.

Manufacturers are undertaking a massive digital transformation driven by rising customer expectations, supply chain volatility, shifting buyer behavior, and more. Yet, only 21% of manufacturers have active AI initiatives in production to help solve these issues. While data from disparate systems can be manually prepared for AI and analytics pilots, siloed data sets still need to be accessible centrally and in real-time to support production scale. Additionally, many existing AI and analytics solutions are designed to be used by data scientists and are not easy to use for manufacturing business leaders.

Manufacturing Data Engine and Manufacturing Connect, available today, help manufacturers unify their data and empower their workforce with easy-to-use analytics and AI solutions based on cloud infrastructure:

Manufacturing Data Engine is an end-to-end solution that processes, contextualizes, and stores factory data on Google Cloud’s market-leading data platform. It provides a configurable and customizable blueprint for the ingestion, transformation, storage, and access to factory data. It integrates key Google Cloud products, including Cloud Dataflow, PubSub, BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Looker, Vertex AI, Apigee, and more, into a manufacturing-specific solution.
Manufacturing Connect is a factory edge platform co-developed with Litmus Automation that quickly connects to, and streams data from, nearly any manufacturing asset and industrial system to Google Cloud, based on an extensive library of more than 250 machine protocols. Deep integration with the Manufacturing Data Engine unlocks rapid data intake into Google Cloud for processing machine and sensor data. The ability to deploy containerized applications and ML models to the edge enables new dimensions of use cases.
Once data is centralized and harmonized by the Manufacturing Data Engine and Manufacturing Connect, it can then be used to address a growing set of industry-specific use cases, including:

Manufacturing analytics & insights, which helps manufacturers quickly create custom dashboards to visualize key data—from factory KPIs such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), to individual machine sensor data. Integrated with the Manufacturing Data Engine, engineers and plant managers can automatically set up new machines and factories, enabling standardized dashboards, KPIs, and on-demand drill-downs into the data to uncover new insights opportunities throughout the factory. These can then be shared easily across the enterprise and with partners.
Machine-level anomaly detection, which helps manufacturers identify anomalies as they occur and provides alerts—leveraging Google Cloud’s Time Series Insights API—on real-time machine and sensor data such as noise, vibration, or temperature.
Predictive maintenance, which enables manufacturers to anticipate an asset’s need for service, helping reduce downtime and maintenance cost. Manufacturers can leverage ML models and high-accuracy AI optimizations that are deployable in weeks.
“Bridging gaps across systems and placing easy-to-use AI directly into the hands of manufacturing engineers leads to better results,” said Hans Thalbauer, Managing Director, Supply Chain and Manufacturing Industries, Google Cloud. “These new solutions can support workforce transformation initiatives by providing engineers with the tools to be self-sufficient, without the need for data scientists or additional integration code.”

“The growing amount of sensor data generated on our assembly lines creates an opportunity for smarter analytics around product quality, production efficiency and equipment health monitoring, but it also means new data intake and management challenges,” said Jason Ryska, Director Manufacturing Technology Development, Ford Motor Company. “We worked with Google Cloud to implement a data platform now operating on more than 100 key machines connected across two plants, streaming and storing over 25 million records per week. We’re gaining strong insights from the data that will help us implement predictive and preventive actions and continue to become even more efficient in our manufacturing plants.”

“With the tight integration of a powerful factory edge solution with Google Cloud, it is easier than ever for factories to tap into cloud capabilities,” said Masaharu Akieda, General Manager, Digital Solutions Division, KYOCERA Communication Systems Co., Ltd. “Google Cloud’s solutions enable a broader group of users beyond data scientists to quickly access, analyze and use data in a variety of use cases. We are excited to partner with Google Cloud as we implement new manufacturing solutions to optimize production operations and consistently increase quality.”

“As the global innovator of solid state cooling and heating technology, we’ve developed a sustainable manufacturing platform that uses less water, less electricity, and less chemical waste,” says Jason Ruppert, Chief Operations Officer, Phononic. “This partnership with Google Cloud allows us to contextualize data across all of our manufacturing processes – ultimately providing us the analytics and insights to optimize our operations and continue to bring to the world products that cool sustainably, reducing greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions and improving the environment.”

Supporting Partner Quotes:

“By building modular solutions on the Manufacturing Data Engine from Google Cloud, such as Cognizant’s Asset Performance Excellence (APEx) offering, we are able to offer additional resources to deploy and scale solutions for our customers quickly and confidentially, as well as mitigate design and deployment challenges,” said Manoj Mehta, SVP, Global Head of Industry 4.0, IoT and Engineering, Cognizant. “Cognizant’s partnerships with cloud leaders are enabling the company to support large, complex deployments across multiple industrial environments, providing a solid foundation on which to digitally transform businesses.”
“C3 AI is proud to be Google Cloud’s partner in bringing real enterprise AI solutions to the manufacturing industry,” said Ed Abbo, President and CTO, C3 AI. “We created an alliance with Google Cloud to improve the reliability of assets and fleets with AI-powered predictive maintenance, improve revenue and product forecasting accuracy, and bolster the sustainability of manufacturing facilities and operations through optimized energy management. This partnership delivers tangible, immediate and game-changing results to manufacturers worldwide.”
“As industrial transformation takes hold and a massive amount of information is garnered at the edge, putting this data to work, and extracting the most value from it is essential for operational efficiency,” said Christine Boles, VP, Network & Edge Group, General Manager, Industrial Solutions Division, Intel Corporation. “Integrating and optimizing Google Cloud’s new manufacturing solutions on Intel edge products allows factories to unlock the potential for data analytics and running AI at the edge. This enables engineers to analyze, and act on, their siloed operational data in near real-time, bringing needed intelligence to improve operations and product quality.”
“The biggest challenge manufacturers face is collecting data from disparate factory systems and using that data to enable digital transformation,” said Vatsal Shah, Co-founder and CEO, Litmus. “Manufacturing Connect, co-developed with Litmus, bridges the gap between factory and Google Cloud, delivering the critical edge data connectivity and machine learning model deployment needed for closed loop AI. The Google Cloud and Litmus manufacturing solution will help enterprise customers maximize their AI investments and realize unmatched time-to-value.”
“The industrial sector has been in search of solutions that modernize assembly lines through use of computer vision, automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, and voice user interfaces,” said Marco Santos, President, U.S. and Latin America, GFT. “These solutions help increase the quality of products being manufactured and significantly reduce costs, waste, and ultimately time-to-market. GFT and our team of engineers are very proud to have partnered with Google Cloud since the inception of this project to help deliver a solution that will bring all these benefits to the factory floor.”
“As the manufacturing industry adapts to the next normal, simplified access to data and sophisticated AI in the cloud offers the promise of providing a more accurate response to supply chain disruptions,” said Asif Hasan, Co-founder, Quantiphi. “We are excited to be a launch partner for Google Cloud’s new manufacturing solutions that provide organizations access to unified and contextualized data from disparate factory systems and enable downstream AI applications like predictive maintenance, anomaly detection and visual inspection. We are excited to bring this solution to our manufacturing customers to help drive operational excellence across their value chains.”
“Combining Google’s expertise with data aggregation and AI services and SoftServe’s proficiency with applying intelligence and AI to data at enterprise scale provides executives and digital leaders in manufacturing with incredible opportunities to add intelligence to operations, generate insights, and start capturing their competitive advantage,” said Volodymyr Semenyshyn, President, EMEA, Finance & Manufacturing, SoftServe. “We are excited to have collaborated with Google Cloud’s manufacturing solutions team and helped further their mission to shape the future of intelligent manufacturing.”
“Applying Google Cloud’s AI, edge, IoT and cloud technologies for smarter and more effective manufacturing has been our mission for more than a decade,” said Florian Holz, CEO, SOTEC. “We are thrilled to support even more joint customers implementing the announced solutions to their shopfloor, fast and effectively, based on our proven multi-disciplined engineering expertise.”
“We are delighted to offer complementary solutions that help our joint customers realize the vision of smart, secure and sustainable manufacturing,” said James Hodge, GVP & Chief Strategy Advisor, International, Splunk. “We complement Google Cloud’s manufacturing solutions with IT and OT Security–helping manufacturers with state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection–and we equip manufacturers with real-time insights of the CO2 footprint of their manufacturing operations and supply chains and empower them towards their carbon neutrality and sustainability goals.”
To learn more about Manufacturing Data Engine and Manufacturing Connect, please visit our page, read more on our blog, or join our customers and partners for panel discussions at our Manufacturer Spotlight event. For pricing and availability, customers should contact their sales representatives.

The new manufacturing solutions will be demonstrated in person for the first time at Hannover Messe 2022, May 30–June 2. Visit us at Stand E68, Hall 004, or schedule a meeting for an onsite demonstration with our experts.

About Google Cloud
Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology – all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

SOURCE Google Cloud

CONTACT: press@google.com

BARCELONA, Spain — At the Huawei Day0 Forum held the day before MWC22 Barcelona, Ryan Ding, Huawei’s Executive Director and President of the Carrier BG, gave a keynote speech entitled “Lighting up the Future”. Ding said that operators can work on three factors: connection density, computing diversity, and carbon reduction intensity, and called on operators to join Huawei in its GUIDE business blueprint to create a better digital economy together.

Ryan Ding giving a keynote speech (PRNewsfoto/Huawei)
Ryan Ding giving a keynote speech (PRNewsfoto/Huawei)
The global digital economy is developing rapidly, and over 50% of global GDP will be digitalized in 2022. Many countries and regions, like China, South Korea, and the EU, have already announced huge investment plans for the digital economy. As ICT infrastructure providers, operators will play an increasingly important role in leading the development of the future digital economy.

Three levers to shape the future of the digital economy
During his keynote, Ding explained that the vitality of digital economy can be evaluated by three factors: connection density, computing diversity, and carbon reduction intensity, and that these factors give operators the levers they need to shape the future of the digital economy.

By increasing connection density, operators can grow their 5G user base and expand their business scope. By diversifying their computing resources, operators can create synergies between connectivity and IT to boost enterprise digitalization for new growth. In carbon reduction, new green ICT solutions, like those Huawei provides, will increase network capacity and cut the energy consumption per bit for greener development.

5G has come a long way
Commercial 5G deployment started two years ago, and since then, the numbers of 5G networks, users, and devices have grown rapidly. By the end of 2021, more than 200 operators have deployed commercial 5G networks, servicing more than 700 million 5G users. There are currently over 1,200 commercial 5G devices in use. This growing user base is bringing commercial returns to operators while driving continuous network rollouts.

During the event, Ding shared 5G success stories from various operators and showed how new 5G applications like AR, VR, and new video are offering users new experiences. Flexible 5G pricing models are also benefiting both users and operators and driving rapid growth in the 5G user base.

In China, 5GtoB private networks have been deployed at scale in multiple industries. By the end of 2021, Huawei has signed more than 3,000 commercial 5GtoB contracts with Chinese operators and partners, gaining a wealth of experience in industry applications. One highlighted example was from China’s Inner Mongolia, where a coal mine is using 5G to remotely control shearers. Since 5G was deployed, coal miners have been working in a safer and more comfortable environment.

Connectivity + IT for new growth
According to Ding, as more industries are going digital, IT infrastructure will need to be rebuilt to drive more efficient operations. By creating synergies between IT and CT, cloud and edge, and cloud and networks, Huawei hopes to help operators go digital and intelligent and achieve new revenue growth. In Asia Pacific, for example, Huawei’s OneStorage solution has helped one operator cut TCO by 30%.

Green ICT: More Bits, Less Watts
Green ICT is key to sustainable growth in the digital economy. The ICT industry is providing new technologies to help other industries reduce their carbon footprints. In fact, these savings are predicted to amount to ten times larger than the ICT industry’s own footprint. At the forum, Ding also shared Huawei’s green strategy: More Bits, Less Watts. With its full range of green solutions, including green site, green network, and green operation, Huawei aims to help operators increase network capacity and cut the energy consumption per bit. Huawei also proposed the Network Carbon Intensity index to quantify the carbon emissions of the ICT industry and help operators make their green strategy a reality.

At the end of his speech, Ding proposed Huawei’s GUIDE business blueprint, which aims to help operators develop the five key capabilities required for business success: expanding services, innovating efficiently, leveraging resources, competing on value, and contributing to society.

MWC22 Barcelona will run from February 28 to March 3 in Barcelona, Spain. Huawei will showcase its products and solutions at stand 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1. Together with global operators, industry professionals, and opinion leaders, we will dive into topics such as industry trends, GUIDE to the Future, and green development to envision the future of digital networks. For more information, please visit: https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwc2022.

SOURCE Huawei

CONTACT: Yirou Zhou, +86-13603024680, zhouyirou@huawei.com

PLANO, Texas, Feb. 21, 2022 — AT&T has joined Ericsson’s (NASDAQ: ERIC) Startup 5G program, a 5G innovation collaboration driven by Ericsson’s ConsumerLab that assists communications service providers (CSPs) with commercialization and monetization of 5G, leveraging years of research on consumer behavior and trends. AT&T is the first U.S. service provider to join the global program.

Ericsson Startup 5G aims to help CSPs by introducing them to the right consumer innovation companies, and supporting the development of a go-to-market strategy to address an estimated global $3.7 trillion business opportunity within the 5G consumer market by 2030. CSPs that collaborate with Startup 5G are bolstered by Ericsson’s ConsumerLab research and analytical data, as well as exclusive access to a worldwide network of 40+ 5G startups.

AT&T has joined Ericsson’s Startup 5G program, a 5G innovation collaboration driven by Ericsson’s ConsumerLab.

Jay Cary, Vice President – 5G Product & Innovation, AT&T, says: “AT&T customers are already enjoying the benefits of our 5G network, with fast speeds, low latency and superior reliability. Now, the network we’ve built is ready to take on more social and immersive experiences that will transform how we live, work and play. Tapping into Ericsson’s ConsumerLab and its deep catalogue of companies and innovative ideas could help us bring new experiences to life using technology like AR and VR across a variety of interests, including travel and sports.”

AT&T joins an array of innovative companies from across the globe that seek to drive 5G innovations. Ericsson’s Startup 5G Program supports exploration and identification of innovative capabilities spanning multiple consumer segments and touching technologies in areas such as entertainment & media, gaming, sports, learning and more.

Jasmeet Sethi, Head of ConsumerLab, Ericsson Research, says: “With access to more than 40 global startups, the program offers AT&T a unique opportunity to not only leverage actionable consumer insights from our Ericsson Research Analytical Platform but also connect with innovation partners to emerge, on top of their existing initiatives and programs.”

This project is the latest in a long history of collaboration between AT&T and Ericsson, including the development of public and private 5G networks.

Rob Johnson, Vice President and Head of Global Customer Unit AT&T, Ericsson, says: “We are excited to have AT&T, with its long legacy of innovation in the mobile space, joining our Startup 5G program to put exciting new 5G applications and services in consumers’ hands. Our global industry knowledge, ecosystem of partners and service provider collaborations will help drive innovative 5G products that will open new possibilities for consumers. We are glad to be embarking on this journey together with AT&T.”

Last year, Ericsson released the largest global 5G consumer study to date – Five Ways to a Better 5G – capturing opinions equivalent to 1.3 billion consumers and 220 million 5G users. The report revealed that 5G is already beginning to trigger new smartphone behaviors, with 5G users spending more time on cloud gaming and augmented reality (AR) apps compared to 4G users.

Read the Ericsson ConsumerLab: Five Ways to a Better 5G report here.

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Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans the business areas Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services and Emerging Business. It is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s innovation investments have delivered the benefits of mobility and mobile broadband to billions of people globally. Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York. www.ericsson.com

SOURCE Ericsson

WUHAN, China, Feb. 14, 2022 — China Telecom and Huawei have jointly completed the lab verification of a 200G+ large-capacity transmission system. It is set to provide key technical support for the construction of a next-generation long-haul, large-capacity transmission system.

With the rapid development of the Internet Data Center (IDC), Industry Digitalization, and Cloud services, transmission traffic increases by more than 30% every year. Against this backdrop, it is critical to improve transmission speed, capacity, latency, stability, and reliability. Unlike application in submarine cable systems, it is even more challenging to deploy 200G+ long-haul, large-capacity transmission backbone on a large scale while lowering the cost for terrestrial cable systems.

To address these challenges, Huawei provides an innovative E2E optical-electrical solution based on Flexgrid Blade OXC. It features Super 200G+ based on channel-matched shaping (CMS), special pluggable erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) with ultra-wide gain spectrum, Super C+L band ready Raman amplifiers, and liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) supporting flexible slicing and ultra-low filter penalty.

Together with transmission experts from China Telecom, Huawei has recently verified the feasibility of 1:1 replication of the commercial deployment on a live network in a lab, and finally, Super 200G+ transmission over 3600 km without electrical regeneration has been achieved. The solution doubles the single-fiber capacity to 16Tbps, which can evolve to 32Tbps in the future.

“The verification project proves the performance of Huawei’s Super 200G+ E2E optical-electrical solution in ultra-long haul and extremely harsh conditions,” Victor Zhou, President of Huawei’s Transmission Network Domain, said. “This solution doubles the transmission capacity without compromising the distance, continuously reducing the per-bit cost for operators.”

SOURCE ChinaTelecom

CONTACT: chentianhan@huawei.com

HONG KONG, Jan. 26, 2022 — The Sandbox, a leading decentralized gaming metaverse and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, has committed US$50M to Brinc, a leading global venture accelerator, for The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program, which will target 100 startups to enhance the open metaverse.

With applications now open and the first cohort scheduled to start in Q2 2022, The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program is a dedicated track within Launchpad Luna, the accelerator launched in mid-2021 as a partnership between Brinc and Animoca Brands. The new program aims to accelerate 30 to 40 startups a year over a three-year period. The program will invest in, mentor, educate, and support the development of promising startups and projects while also providing access to potential partnerships and business development opportunities across the growing networks of The Sandbox, Animoca Brands, and Brinc.

The new program is looking for startups that can enhance the open metaverse, who will be evaluated on their traction, technical expertise, and ability to deliver unique experiences. Startups accepted into the program will receive an initial investment of up to US$250,000 each. The Sandbox will also provide further grants of up to US$150,000 in SAND tokens to the best performers, as well as LAND grants. Startups that demonstrate meaningful traction post-program can also apply for follow-on investment from The Sandbox, Animoca Brands, and Brinc.

The core directive of The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program is to support the launch of new startups that can contribute to the growth and expansion of The Sandbox ecosystem by building unique experiences and populating the platform with fresh creativity and new content. Pioneering blockchain startups in the fields of art, collectibles, culture, entertainment, gaming, media, content, and streaming, are encouraged to apply. Accelerated startups will be empowered to contribute to The Sandbox’s rapidly growing ecosystem and actively engage with its existing and growing user base. Online applications are now open at: brinc.io/metaverse.

The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program will support the open metaverse built on shared values and through open, transparent, decentralized governance. This will replace the current paradigm of closed platforms thanks to powerful network effects, creating a more sustainable digital future.

High-profile mentors supporting the program — alongside Yat Siu (Animoca Brands), Sebastien Borget (The Sandbox), Manav Gupta (Brinc) — include: Cathy Hackl (CEO of Futures Intelligence Group), Holly Atkinson (lead blockchain developer at The Sandbox), Holly Liu (co-founder of Kabam), Janine Yorio (CEO of Republic Realm), Leah Callon-Butler (director of Emfarsis and columnist at CoinDesk), Pavel Bains (co-founder of Bluzelle), Serena Tabacchi (director and co-founder of Museum of Contemporary Digital Art), Susan Cummings (CEO of Petaverse Network), Yam Karkai (co-founder of World of Women), and Yingzi Yuan (founder and builder of Metaverse Summit). Web 3.0 leaders from Altitude Games, Binance, Dragonfly Capital, Republic Crypto, and True Global Ventures will also provide mentorship.

The Sandbox metaverse aims to revolutionise how people interact in their day-to-day lives, including how users interact socially, shop, or consume entertainment. Recent partnerships with The Sandbox include Snoop Dogg, who owns virtual land in the metaverse and will give users VIP access to concerts, events and dedicated digital items; Atari, the pioneer of arcade games that has seen recent success as a global gaming brand with RollerCoaster Tycoon, who will introduce IPs from its portfolio to the Sandbox metaverse; and Skybound Entertainment, who brought The Walking Dead game experience to the virtual world.

Brinc continues to invest and support startups in the open metaverse, which represents the new digital frontier. Key areas of focus include entertainment, education, and inclusivity through a more equitable digital economy. The new program will support startups by integrating sustainability, inclusion, and equitability into their business models.

Partnership Commentary

Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox and chairman of the Blockchain Gamer Alliance, said: “The Sandbox’s Metaverse Accelerator is a major expansion of our ongoing commitment to support the next generation of metaverse entrepreneurs. With imagination, ideas and hard work, startups from all over the world can realize their visions and drive societal impact by creating more opportunities for everyone. We’re especially eager to support underrepresented founders in their ambitions as they explore the infinite possibilities offered into The Sandbox ecosystem.”

Yat Siu, executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, said: “The open metaverse will not be owned by any single entity and thus presents an incredible opportunity to create a participatory and collaborative nonzero-sum environment based on openness, equitability, user governance, and digital property rights. We’re proud that our partnership with Brinc is powering accelerator programs that support founders to innovate in and scale up the creator economy.”

Manav Gupta, founder and CEO of Brinc, said: “We believe the metaverse is not just a destination but a new way of talking about an equitable and more sustainable future. For example, as digital experiences develop, we will find ourselves having fewer reasons to emit carbon to travel for work or play. We may even reduce purchases of physical world products (art, collectibles, merchandise, etc.) that usually have highly unsustainable means of production and are major contributors to climate change. New metaverse startups and Web 3.0 technologies have the potential to not only develop new ways to work and play, but also to democratize access to financial services, education and entertainment. We believe that for the metaverse to thrive, we need developers and content creators to thrive — and this accelerator provides the perfect platform to enable them to do so.”

About The Sandbox

The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, is one of the decentralized virtual worlds that has been fueling the recent growth of virtual real-estate demand, having partnered with major IPs and brands including The Walking Dead, Atari, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Care Bears, The Smurfs, Shaun the Sheep, and Binance. Building on existing The Sandbox IP that has more than 40 million global installs on mobile, The Sandbox metaverse offers players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize their creations.

For more information, please visit www.sandbox.game.

About Brinc

Headquartered in Hong Kong, Brinc is a leader in global venture acceleration, operating 18 multidisciplinary accelerator programs in seven countries. Brinc accelerates startups focused on Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, connected hardware, drones, robotics, clean energy and food technology, all within a sustainability mandate.

Brinc has a portfolio of 200+ companies with founders from over 35 countries. Brinc also supports corporations with investment services, distributed innovation strategies, sourcing of new startups and technologies, as well as venture-building Web 3.0-enabled businesses. Global corporations (Manulife, Huawei, Schneider Electric, Puma, Batelco, Merck, Omantel, Linrun Group, Zhihui Park), government organizations (Hong Kong Science Park, NEOM, MBRIF, Guangdong Soft-tech Park), tertiary institutions (HK City University, National University of Singapore) and leading venture funds (Artesian, LeverVC, Tamkeen, EDB) have all run programs with Brinc. In 2021, Brinc launched a series of venture funds to invest in high-potential early stage companies through accelerators and provide LPs with a dedicated innovation platform and access to Series A+ co-investment opportunities.

Learn more about Brinc: www.brinc.io and Brinc’s commitment to developing sustainable systems.

About Launchpad Luna

Animoca Brands and global venture accelerator Brinc launched Launchpad Luna in mid-2021 to identify, mentor, and invest in promising blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFT) startups that are shaping the future of the Web and driving digitalisation. The Launchpad Luna accelerator collaborates with world leading platforms, brands and mentors to identify and foster Web3 & NFT innovation in the fields of culture, art, entertainment, media, gaming, streaming, collectibles, insurance, finance, data management and DeFi. The first cohort invested in 27 startups across these verticals.

About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, a Deloitte Tech Fast winner and ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification. It develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1®, Disney, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon. The company has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Bondly, and Lympo. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 150 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralized projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse, including Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on Twitter or Facebook.

Learn More: https://blog.brinc.io/animoca-brands-and-brinc-launch-nft-accelerator-launchpad-luna-7e7490c0805e

SOURCE Brinc

CONTACT: The Sandbox global contact: media@sandbox.game; Brinc global contact: press@brinc.io; Animoca Brands global contact: press@animocabrands.com

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 10, 2022 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that LG Electronics has joined the IBM Quantum Network to advance the industry applications of quantum computing.

By joining the IBM Quantum Network, IBM will provide LG Electronics access to IBM’s quantum computing systems, as well as to IBM’s quantum expertise and Qiskit, IBM’s open-source quantum information software development kit.

LG Electronics aims to explore applications of quantum computing in industry to support big data, artificial intelligence, connected cars, digital transformation, IoT, and robotics applications – all of which require processing a large amount of data.

With IBM Quantum, LG can leverage quantum computing hardware and software advances and applications as they emerge, in accordance with IBM’s quantum roadmap. By leveraging IBM Quantum technology, LG will provide workforce training to its employees, permitting LG to investigate how potential breakthroughs can be applied to its industry.

“Based on our open innovation strategy, we plan to use IBM Quantum to develop our competency in quantum computing,” said Byoung-Hoon Kim, CTO and Executive Vice President of LG Electronics. “We aim to provide customers with value that they have not experienced so far by leveraging quantum computing technology in future businesses.”

“We’re happy to welcome LG Electronics to a growing quantum computing ecosystem in Korea at an exciting time for the region,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and VP, Quantum Computing at IBM. “The relationship between IBM and LG Electronics will permit LG to explore new types of problems associated with emerging technologies and will help strengthen the quantum capabilities in Korea.”

Quantum computing is an exciting evolution in computation. While classical computers calculate in bits that represent 0 and 1, quantum computers use qubits that harness quantum mechanical phenomena such as interference and entanglement in computation to solve problems that are fundamentally intractable for classical computers. As a result, quantum computing is well suited to help explore new approaches of solving problems like those in LG Electronics’ open innovation strategy including big data, artificial intelligence, connected cars, digital transformation, IoT, and robotics applications.

At the IBM Quantum Summit in November 2021, IBM recently unveiled its new ‘Eagle’ quantum computing processor with 127 qubits, a major step forward in IBM’s roadmap to reach Quantum Advantage.

There are more than 170 clients, including ‎ LG Electronics, Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, academic institutions and research labs working with IBM Quantum technology to advance ‎quantum computing and explore practical applications. The IBM Quantum team and clients are researching and exploring how quantum computing will help a ‎variety of industries and disciplines, including finance, energy, chemistry, materials science, ‎optimization and machine learning, among many others.

About IBM Quantum
IBM Quantum is an industry-first initiative to build universal quantum systems for business and science applications. For more information about IBM’s quantum computing efforts, please visit www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/

Media Contacts:
IBM Quantum
Elizabeth Banta
Elizabeth.Banta@ibm.com

IBM Korea
SooNa Ryu/류수나 실장
snryu@kr.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM

ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® today announced that CES® 2022 will be closing one day early, and the in-person event will take place in Las Vegas on Jan. 5-7, 2022. The step was taken as an additional safety measure to the current health protocols that have been put in place for CES.

Over 2200 exhibitors are confirmed to exhibit in person at CES 2022. In the last two weeks, 143 additional companies have signed up to exhibit in person. Construction of exhibitors’ show floor space is well underway and soon attendees will be able to see and experience the latest tech innovations.

“As the world’s most influential technology event, CES is steadfast in its pledge to be the gathering place to showcase products and discuss ideas that will ultimately make our lives better,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. “We are shortening the show to three days and have put in place comprehensive health measures for the safety of all attendees and participants.”

Those that are unable to travel to Las Vegas for CES 2022 have the flexibility to join digitally and will have the opportunity to experience the magic of Las Vegas. Digital registration will grant access to more than 40 livestreamed conference sessions, keynotes, select Media Days press conferences and the ability to engage with exhibitors at CES. Additional registration information can be found at CES registration.

Those that are traveling to Las Vegas can find important details on updated health protocols and show entry process below to make their CES arrival and entry experience as smooth as possible.

Arrival Instructions — CES 2022

1) Before Leaving Home
All attendees must be FULLY vaccinated against COVID-19. Only individuals who are fully vaccinated will be able to pick up a CES badge and access CES in-person in Las Vegas.

CES also recommends individuals test for COVID-19 prior to departing for Las Vegas. International travelers coming to the U.S. must have a COVID test within 24 hours before departing for the U.S. Please check your airline website for more details.

2) Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination (REQUIRED)
All attendees MUST show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend CES in Las Vegas. If one is unable to do so, attendee will not receive a CES 2022 badge to access the official show venues.

U.S. based attendees are encouraged to use CLEAR’s free mobile app and Health Pass feature to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination and expedite their CES badge pick up. Learn more.
Non-U.S. based attendees, as well as U.S. based attendees who may be unable to use CLEAR, will need to provide their proof of vaccination at designated locations on-site. Learn more.
3) Pick up badge BEFORE entering show facilities (REQUIRED)
Attendees must pick up their own CES badge. Attendees cannot pick up badges for other attendees.

If arriving at McCarran Airport, CES recommends attendees use the Badge Pickup locations in the airport terminal, located in Terminals 1 and 3, to show proof of vaccination and obtain their show badge and Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Self Test

If attendees are not using the CLEAR app, they must go to a designated Customer Service Center location or airport locations to show their COVID-19 vaccine documentation. Customer Service Centers are located in public access areas before a CES security checkpoint. Once attendees provide proof of vaccination and pick up their badge, they will not need to verify their vaccination status again.

4) Test Before Entering a CES Venue
CES requests that attendees test for COVID-19 less than 24 hours before entering a CES venue.

CES will give attendees one complimentary Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self Test kit, provided by Abbott, when they collect their badge. Test kits are available at select Badge Pickup and Customer Service Center locations. If attendees pick up their badge at a location that does not have test kit distribution, attendees may go to one of the Customer Service Centers to pick up their test kit.

CES recommends attendees use their complimentary Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Self Test less than 24 hours before entering an official show venue. The test is easy to use, requires only a shallow nasal swab, takes 15 minutes and one can do it from the convenience of their hotel room. NOTE: Each kit contains 2 tests.

During CES 2022
5) Mask during the Show (REQUIRED)
Masks are required for large indoor events in the State of Nevada. Attendees will be required to wear masks as follows:

In exhibit booths and indoor exhibit facilities.
In conference and keynote rooms.
CES shuttle buses and any CES transportation services.
6) Test if experiencing COVID-19 Symptoms
If an attendee is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms while at a CES venue, they are to immediately visit a First Aid area in the venue in which they are located to obtain a COVID-19 test.

At Show Close
7) PCR Tests for International Travelers Returning Home
CES will provide complimentary RT-PCR testing for attendees who are traveling back to their international destination and who require a test to travel. Attendees will be required to present proof of outbound international travel within 72 hours to be eligible to receive your test at no charge. Please check your airlines to understand when you will need to test.

About CES:
CES® is the most influential tech event in the world – the proving ground for breakthrough technologies and global innovators. This is where the world’s biggest brands do business and meet new partners, and the sharpest innovators hit the stage. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®, CES features every aspect of the tech sector. CES 2022 will take place in person in Las Vegas, and digitally, Jan. 5-7, 2022. Learn more at CES.tech and follow CES on social.

About Consumer Technology Association:
As North America’s largest technology trade association, CTA® is the tech sector. Our members are the world’s leading innovators – from startups to global brands – helping support more than 18 million American jobs. CTA owns and produces CES® – the most influential tech event in the world. Find us at CTA.tech. Follow us @CTAtech

UPCOMING EVENTS

CES Unveiled Las Vegas
Jan. 3, 2022 – Las Vegas, NV
CES 2022 Media Days
Jan. 3-4, 2022 – Las Vegas, NV
CES 2022
Jan. 5-7, 2022 – Las Vegas, NV
SOURCE Consumer Technology Association

CONTACT: Jeanne Abella, jabella@CTA.tech, 703-907-5259

Related Links
www.ce.org

DALLAS, Dec. 21, 2021 — AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has agreed to sell its global programmatic advertising marketplace, Xandr Inc., to Microsoft.1 The agreement builds on a decade-long relationship between Xandr, including its predecessor companies, and Microsoft for delivering global digital media solutions for advertisers.

As the digital landscape evolves in a post-cookie world, Microsoft and Xandr can shape the digital ad marketplace of the future. Xandr’s technology strategically complements Microsoft’s current advertising offerings and will help accelerate delivery of digital advertising and retail media solutions for the open web by combining Microsoft’s audience intelligence, technology and global advertising customer-base with Xandr’s scaled, data-driven platform.

“Microsoft’s shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it a great fit for Xandr. We look forward to using our innovative platform to help accelerate Microsoft’s digital advertising and retail media capabilities,” said Xandr’s EVP and GM Mike Welch.

“With Xandr’s talent and technology, Microsoft can accelerate the delivery of its digital advertising and retail media solutions, shaping tomorrow’s digital ad marketplace into one that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers’ relationships with consumers and helps advertisers meet their goals,” said Mikhail Parakhin, President of Web Experiences at Microsoft.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory reviews.

About Xandr Inc.
Xandr Inc. is a first-tier affiliate of AT&T Inc. and a data-enabled technology platform powering a global marketplace for premium advertising. Xandr Invest, Xandr Monetize, Xandr Curate, and Invest TV are advanced technology platforms which maximize working media dollars, offer audience-based buying at scale for digital environments, and optimize media spend across screens for buyers and sellers alike.

*About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a diversified, global leader in telecommunications, media and entertainment, and technology. AT&T Communications provides more than 100 million U.S. consumers with entertainment and communications experiences across mobile and broadband. Plus, it serves high-speed, highly secure connectivity and smart solutions to nearly 3 million business customers. WarnerMedia is a leading media and entertainment company that creates and distributes premium and popular content to global audiences through its consumer brands, including: HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros., TNT, TBS, truTV, CNN, DC Entertainment, New Line, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies. Xandr provides marketers with innovative and relevant advertising solutions for consumers around premium video content and digital advertising through its platform. AT&T Latin America provides wireless services to consumers and businesses in Mexico.

AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. Additional information is available at about.att.com. © 2021 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the Globe logo and other marks are trademarks and service marks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

KISTA, Sweden, Oct. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Building on more than 20 years of collaboration, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and AT&T today announced a five-year agreement to accelerate the expansion of AT&T 5G. This deal helps support deployment of the service provider’s recently acquired C-band spectrum and the launch of 5G Standalone (SA). AT&T is tapping into Ericsson’s leading network expertise as the company works toward its 5G network goals.

Ericsson will help AT&T to bring its 5G network to more consumers, businesses and first responders across key industries – including 5G use cases in sports and venues, entertainment, travel and transportation, business transformation and public safety.

AT&T’s network evolution is made possible in part by the Ericsson Radio System portfolio, which includes the Advanced Antenna System, Advanced RAN Coordination and Carrier Aggregation technologies.

These deployments will support future network enhancements like Cloud RAN, which offers communications services providers increased flexibility, faster delivery of services and greater scalability in networks.

The solution supports a centralized RAN architecture enabled by Ericsson Fronthaul Gateway, a new technology that will enable a more efficient transport of the fronthaul interface by converting it to packet (eCPRI).

Scott Mair, President, AT&T Network Engineering and Operations, says: “As we continue to expand our nationwide 5G network, Ericsson’s technology offerings and 5G expertise will assist with our network evolution. This latest agreement provides the pathway for us to deploy Ericsson’s next-generation centralized RAN architecture, enabled by Fronthaul Gateway, with the ability to support future network enhancements, like the evolution to Cloud RAN.”

Ericsson Cloud RAN is a cloud-native software solution handling compute functionality in the Radio Access Network (RAN). It complements the existing technologies in the RAN domain and allows for the adoption of leading practices to become a foundation for openness, enabling innovation in 5G.

Ericsson Cloud RAN will enable communications service providers to seamlessly evolve towards cloud-native technologies and open network architectures to meet the demand for more deployment flexibility.

Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America, says: “This agreement reinforces our long-standing partnership of innovation and execution with AT&T. 5G networks will enable unprecedented, sustainable and exponential growth, accelerating the digital transformation of industries and the public sector, for the benefit of consumers, enterprises and society at large. Ericsson is excited to join forces with AT&T to help make this vision a reality.”

MORE INFO

5G Carrier Aggregation and Advanced RAN Coordination is a blended solution that optimizes coverage, capacity, and latency of mid-band and high-band deployments. It enables communications service providers to maximize their spectrum assets when deploying 5G.

Advanced Antenna System (AAS) is key to C Band deployment as it enables extended coverage, while providing tremendous throughput/capacity that can truly enable enhanced mobile broadband.

Ericsson Fronthaul Gateway is a new technology that will enable a more efficient transport of the fronthaul interface by converting it to packet enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI).

Related links:
Ericsson Radio System
Ericsson 5G RAN

NOTES TO EDITORS:

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ABOUT ERICSSON:

Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans the business areas Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services and Emerging Business. It is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s innovation investments have delivered the benefits of mobility and mobile broadband to billions of people globally. Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York. www.ericsson.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

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ARMONK, N.Y. and NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Deloitte today announced a new offering—DAPPER, an AI-enabled managed analytics solution. The solution reinforces the two organizations’ 21-year global alliance—which helps organizations accelerate the adoption of hybrid cloud and AI across the enterprise—and 10 years of experience implementing the Deloitte Analytics Platform. DAPPER’s end-to-end capabilities will allow organizations to gain confidence in the insights that their data provides via a secured, simple to consume managed service offering that aims to resolve the challenges of adopting AI.

Relevant and actionable data can catapult companies to success in today’s competitive, insights-driven business environment. Clients across industries report they are struggling to accelerate the value of AI and analytics—due to lack of trust in data, domain expertise, and the resources to create a solution that can work across business environments—while simultaneously meeting strict security and compliance requirements. Gartner® recommends its clients “choose AI cloud services over building custom models to address a broader range of use cases and for quicker deployment and built in scalability” (Hype CycleTM for Cloud Computing, 2021, Published 14 July 2021 – ID G00747400, by David Smith, Ed Anderson).

DAPPER is a result of the combined technology leadership, hands-on business experience, and industry experience of the Deloitte and IBM alliance. DAPPER combines the Deloitte Analytics Platform with IBM Cloud Pak for Data on Red Hat OpenShift to offer business users a fully-managed AI solution­–designed to avoid needing to commit the resources and lengthy time associated with developing, implementing, and managing a bespoke solution.

Built upon IBM’s modern hybrid cloud architecture and AI technology, DAPPER brings organizations the ability to scale up operations, promote an organization’s trust in its data, and enable smart reporting. DAPPER is a managed service run by Deloitte in the IBM Cloud, and available on premises or in multi-cloud environments. Its fully-managed analytics service provides a choice of service offerings and subscription model, and contains three core elements, built so that businesses can obtain maximum value out of their data:

A cloud-enabled analytics platform: Security and analytics platform backed by IBM with streamlined administration, operations and maintenance provided by Deloitte, engineered to give business users a seamless, automated data analytics solution.
Analytics development factory: Access to specialized analytics building blocks and methods engineered to streamline analytics development with operations, giving a DevOps experience to help accelerate the delivery of analytics assets.
Catalog of subscription service offerings: Combines simplicity with data integrations to offer a selection of analytics services including dashboards, enterprise reporting, data management tools, and orchestration and consumption of AI.
With DAPPER, Deloitte and IBM can help data scientists and business users alike build, organize, and manage insight-providing assets to help promote reporting that can be trusted within an organization and AI solutions so that enterprises can focus on business outcomes.

For example, with DAPPER, Deloitte and IBM can help enable a government organization to address fraud, such as tax fraud or those related to employment benefits, pension, or money laundering. With DAPPER, an analytics cloud can collect and help business users report upon siloed data across disparate data centers, making data available for advanced AI algorithms and reports, operating associated use cases, and supporting clients’ regulatory compliance requirements. Delivered as a managed service offering, all of this is designed to be deployed within weeks rather than months, and draws from real-time data across various business units or in this example, government agencies.

“Today’s announcement is another proof point of the companies’ longtime collaboration to help clients modernize with advanced technology,” said Evaristus Mainsah, GM, Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem, IBM. “Together, Deloitte and IBM have created a flexible hybrid cloud engine that can extract real value for clients by using AI to make the most of their data. DAPPER will drive transformation, spur innovation, and reshape business to pave a pathway to digital dominance.”

Richard Houston, Senior Partner and CEO Deloitte North & South Europe said, “DAPPER is built on 10 years of Deloitte’s business and technology innovation. It represents another market-leading example of how Deloitte and IBM have combined technology, experience and industry knowledge to help clients turn data into insights—quickly, reliably, and repeatedly.”

Deloitte, an IBM Platinum Business Partner, is part of IBM’s partner ecosystem, an initiative to support partners of all types—whether they build on, service or resell IBM technologies and platforms—to help clients manage and modernize workloads from the mainframe to the edge and everything in between using IBM solutions and Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform.

For more information, visit https://www.stepinsidethefuture.com/.

About IBM
IBM is the global leader in hybrid cloud and AI, serving clients in more than 170 countries. More than 3,200 clients use our hybrid cloud platform to accelerate their digital transformation journeys and, in total, more than 30,000 of them have turned to IBM to unlock value from their data — this client list includes nine out of ten of the world’s largest banks. With this foundation, we continue to leverage Red Hat OpenShift as the leading platform to address our clients’ business needs: A hybrid cloud platform that is open, flexible and secure. Guided by principles of trust, transparency and support for a more inclusive society, IBM also is committed to being a responsible steward of technology and a force for good in the world. For more information, visit: www.ibm.com.

About Deloitte
Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world’s most admired brands, including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500® and more than 7,000 private companies. Our people come together for the greater good and work across the industry sectors that drive and shape today’s marketplace — delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in our capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthier society. Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them. Building on more than 175 years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte’s more than 345,000 people worldwide connect for impact at www.deloitte.com.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the “Deloitte” name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms.

IBM Media Contact:
Mike Sefanov
mike.sefanov@ibm.com
650-281-8099

Deloitte Media Contact:
Patty Bloom
pbloom@deloitte.com
312-771-9179

SOURCE IBM

Related Links
www.ibm.com

ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — At the annual Hot Chips conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled details of the upcoming new IBM Telum Processor, designed to bring deep learning inference to enterprise workloads to help address fraud in real-time. Telum is IBM’s first processor that contains on-chip acceleration for AI inferencing while a transaction is taking place. Three years in development, the breakthrough of this new on-chip hardware acceleration is designed to help customers achieve business insights at scale across banking, finance, trading, insurance applications and customer interactions. A Telum-based system is planned for the first half of 2022.

A “flythrough” of IBM Telum. Each chip contains 8 processor cores with a deep super-scalar out-of-order instruction pipeline, running with more than 5GHz clock frequency, optimized for the demands of heterogenous enterprise class workloads. The completely redesigned cache and chip-interconnection infrastructure provides 32MB cache per core, and allows clients to scale up to 32 chips. The dual-chip module design contains 22 billion transistors and 19 miles of wire on 17 metal layers.
A “flythrough” of IBM Telum. Each chip contains 8 processor cores with a deep super-scalar out-of-order instruction pipeline, running with more than 5GHz clock frequency, optimized for the demands of heterogenous enterprise class workloads. The completely redesigned cache and chip-interconnection infrastructure provides 32MB cache per core, and allows clients to scale up to 32 chips. The dual-chip module design contains 22 billion transistors and 19 miles of wire on 17 metal layers.
A collection of IBM Telum 7nm processors on a silicon wafer. Telum is IBM’s first processor that contains on-chip acceleration for AI workloads, designed to bring deep learning inference to enterprise workloads to help address fraud in real-time. Credit: Connie Zhou for IBM.
A collection of IBM Telum 7nm processors on a silicon wafer. Telum is IBM’s first processor that contains on-chip acceleration for AI workloads, designed to bring deep learning inference to enterprise workloads to help address fraud in real-time. Credit: Connie Zhou for IBM.
According to recent Morning Consult research commissioned by IBM, 90% of respondents said that being able to build and run AI projects wherever their data resides is important1. IBM Telum is designed to enable applications to run efficiently where the data resides, helping to overcome traditional enterprise AI approaches that tend to require significant memory and data movement capabilities to handle inferencing. With Telum, the accelerator in close proximity to mission critical data and applications means that enterprises can conduct high volume inferencing for real time sensitive transactions without invoking off platform AI solutions, which may impact performance. Clients can also build and train AI models off-platform, deploy and infer on a Telum-enabled IBM system for analysis.

Innovations across banking, finance, trading, insurance

Today, businesses typically apply detection techniques to catch fraud after it occurs, a process that can be time consuming and compute-intensive due to the limitations of today’s technology, particularly when fraud analysis and detection is conducted far away from mission critical transactions and data. Due to latency requirements, complex fraud detection often cannot be completed in real-time – meaning a bad actor could have already successfully purchased goods with a stolen credit card before the retailer is aware fraud has taken place.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s 2020 Consumer Sentinel Network Databook, consumers reported losing more than $3.3 billion to fraud in 2020, up from $1.8 billion in 20192. Telum can help clients to move their thinking from a fraud detection posture to a fraud prevention posture, evolving from catching many cases of fraud today, to a potentially new era of prevention of fraud at scale, without impacting service level agreements (SLAs), before the transaction is completed.

The new chip features an innovative centralized design, which allows clients to leverage the full power of the AI processor for AI-specific workloads, making it ideal for financial services workloads like fraud detection, loan processing, clearing and settlement of trades, anti-money laundering and risk analysis. With these new innovations, clients will be positioned to enhance existing rules-based fraud detection or use machine learning, accelerate credit approval processes, improve customer service and profitability, identify which trades or transactions may fail, and propose solutions to create a more efficient settlement process.

Telum and IBM’s Full Stack Approach to Chip Design

Telum follows IBM’s long heritage of innovative design and engineering that includes hardware and software co-creation and integration that spans silicon, system, firmware, operating systems and leading software frameworks.

The chip contains 8 processor cores with a deep super-scalar out-of-order instruction pipeline, running with more than 5GHz clock frequency, optimized for the demands of heterogenous enterprise class workloads. The completely redesigned cache and chip-interconnection infrastructure provides 32MB cache per core, and can scale to 32 Telum chips. The dual-chip module design contains 22 billion transistors and 19 miles of wire on 17 metal layers.

Leadership in semiconductors

Telum is the first IBM chip with technology created by the IBM Research AI Hardware Center. In addition, Samsung is IBM’s technology development partner for the Telum processor, developed in 7nm EUV technology node.

Telum is another example of IBM’s leadership in hardware technology. IBM Research, among the world’s largest industrial research organizations, recently announced scaling to the 2 nm node, the latest benchmark in IBM’s legacy of contributions to silicon and semiconductor innovation. In Albany, NY, home to the IBM AI Hardware Center and Albany Nanotech Complex, IBM Research has created a leading collaborative ecosystem with public-private industry players to fuel advances in semiconductor research, helping to address global manufacturing demands and accelerate the growth of the chip industry.

For more information please visit www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/capabilities/real-time-analytics.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

About IBM

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service.

For more information, visit www.ibm.com

Media Contact:
Elizabeth Banta
IBM Systems
Elizabeth.Banta@ibm.com
732-996-4159

NEW YORK and LONDON, Aug. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) reveal in a new report the pressing need for the accountancy profession to make the necessary connections between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its relationship to environmental, social and governance (ESG) dimensions.

Polling over 5,700 respondents, including an expert panel of ACCA members across North America, the research reveals a global cautious tone, with fewer than half (43%) believing that the impact of AI on their rights as an individual is positive – such as safety and personal security, levels of fairness, levels of choice, levels of transparency. In North America, 30% of respondents believe this to be the case.

Feedback from North American respondents also reveals:

A considerable 82% believe that their leaders prioritize ethics as highly as profits – compared with 66% globally.
70% believe that the impact of AI on overall standard of living in society is positive – compared to 64% globally.
However, just 13% of their organization has implemented an ethical framework for AI use.
And 44% of respondents have a basic understanding of what an algorithm is.
ACCA and CA ANZ say in Ethics for sustainable AI adoption: Connecting AI and ESG that professional accountants, with their explicit and long-standing commitment to ethical practices, are well placed to guide organizations along a responsible path for AI adoption.

Jillian Couse, head of ACCA North America says: “Our findings present a wake-up call for the accountancy profession to lead the way and become the super connectors needed to ensure an ethical approach. Their management of the transition to mass usage of AI in an ethical, responsible manner is essential if sustainable long-term value is to be secured from it.”

The report’s nine recommendations include the need to set tone at the top on AI adoption by prioritising an approach that is consistent with organizational values such as diversity and inclusion in considering the impact of AI on under-represented groups, or fairness when it comes to recruitment or surveillance of employees; and transparency such as appropriately disclosing AI use to customers.

Another recommendation for the profession is to challenge greenwashing and seek insights from AI tools to help with professional skepticism in examining whether the organization’s claims about sustainability, such as on achieving net zero targets, are matched by its performance. Suspect claims need to be challenged.

Speaking of the global picture, Helen Brand, chief executive of ACCA says: ‘AI adoption must consider the needs of all, especially the under-represented and vulnerable in society. That’s why one of our recommendations is to ensure the profession exercises its professional judgement, because AI may create previously unseen situations. We recommend that professional accountants need to avoid over-reliance on simplistic checklist-based approaches which don’t give the full picture or leave space for unintended consequences.’

Also commenting on the global findings, Ainslie van Onselen, chief executive of CA ANZ adds: ‘Our report found that in order to ethically and sustainably adopt AI, organizations need effective governance mechanisms. This starts with setting the right tone and culture at the top and covers a range of areas from oversight and delivery procedures, to regulation and data governance. AI is a strategic endeavour that should be spearheaded by leaders who know and execute on the difference between what we have a right to do and what is the right thing to do. It’s important to build knowledge and skills at the intersection of AI, ethics and sustainable development. This aligns well to the accountancy profession which can play a key role in driving responsible adoption.’

The global accountancy profession is bound by the Code of Ethics (the ‘Code’) and its five fundamental principles as set out by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA). These are integrity, objectivity, professional competence and due care, confidentiality, and professional behavior.

Ethics for sustainable AI adoption: Connecting AI and ESG can be downloaded here: https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/professional-insights/technology/ai_ethics.html

About ACCA
ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the global professional body for professional accountants.

We’re a thriving global community of 233,000 members and 536,000 future members based in 178 countries and regions, who work across a wide range of sectors and industries. We uphold the highest professional and ethical values.

We offer everyone everywhere the opportunity to experience a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management. Our qualifications and learning opportunities develop strategic business leaders, forward-thinking professionals with the financial, business and digital expertise essential for the creation of sustainable organizations and flourishing societies.

Since 1904, being a force for public good has been embedded in our purpose. We believe that accountancy is a cornerstone profession of society and is vital helping economies, organizations and individuals to grow and prosper. It does this by creating robust trusted financial and business management, combating corruption, ensuring organizations are managed ethically, driving sustainability, and providing rewarding career opportunities.

And through our cutting-edge research, we lead the profession by answering today’s questions and preparing for the future. We’re a not-for-profit organization. Find out more at accaglobal.com

About CA ANZ
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) represents more than 128,000 financial professionals, supporting them to make a difference to the businesses, organizations and communities in which they work and live. Chartered Accountants are known as Difference Makers. The depth and breadth of their expertise helps them to see the big picture and chart the best course of action. Find out more: https://www.charteredaccountantsanz.com/about-us

SOURCE ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants)

CONTACT: Jeff Simmons, jeff@anatgerstein.com

Related Links
https://www.accaglobal.com

NEW YORK, July 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — CyberWarrior Academy (CWA) today announced the close of $25 million in outcomes-aligned financing to drive the expansion of their tuition payment options. The financing will allow one of the country’s leading cybersecurity bootcamp programs to train up to 2,000 additional students from underserved backgrounds for a career in cybersecurity. This financing will make an almost immediate impact on combating cyber threats in both the business and government world with an additional 2,000 newly skilled cyber engineers and analysts.

To make this financing possible, CyberWarrior Academy has partnered with Leif, the Tuition Finance Management Platform. Leif works with premier education providers who deliver exceptional outcomes to students across a variety of fields and arranged the financing for CWA. Leif’s outcomes-aligned tuition financing solutions include Income Share Agreements which help education providers maximize their program’s growth and impact potential.

CWA, a Massachusetts-based company is Microsoft Gold certified, employing years of industry experience and a hands-on curriculum to train elite cybersecurity practitioners. There are almost 500,000 cybersecurity job openings in the US, and close to 3 million worldwide.

Reinier Moquete, CEO of CyberWarrior Academy, commented: “Our finely tuned curriculum is designed to create world-class cybersecurity employees. Incentive-aligned financing demonstrates our commitment to the success of our graduates. We chose to partner with Leif because they are the market’s only full-service ISA Program Manager, enabling us to secure ISA financing and deploy their best-in-class technology solutions seamlessly.”

“Leif is committed to partnering with education providers across the country in any field of study and helping them maximize their impact by leveraging outcomes-aligned tuition financing in all its forms,” remarked Jeffrey Groeber, Founder and CEO of Leif. “We are thrilled to work with CyberWarrior Academy given this shared vision and commitment to building a lucrative skill set in their students.”

About CyberWarrior Academy:
CyberWarrrior Academy was founded as a vehicle to drive social impact and economic empowerment, a vision that is delivered on by investing corporate resources into social enterprises that increase opportunity and economic mobility for people of all backgrounds via training, mentorship, and technology. CyberWarrior Academy’s Cybersecurity Bootcamp is a live, online via video conference, skills-based, lab intensive program, including over 800 hours of instruction. Each week they deliver a new area of content or certification.

To learn more about CyberWarrior Academy’s Cybersecurity Bootcamp, click here

To Contact CyberWarrior Academy: Jonathan Edwards, Chief Operating Officer, Phone: 617.359.1017, Email: jedwards@cyberwarrior.com

About Leif:
Leif is a technology company dedicated to increasing access to quality and affordable education. The company has developed an end-to-end platform that enables the design, origination, and program management of Income Share Agreement and other outcomes-based tuition finance programs. As the infrastructure layer that powers tuition finance solutions for the postsecondary education ecosystem, Leif partners with schools to provide students with an outcomes-aligned form of education finance. Leif enjoys the benefit as the market leader based on the following core metrics:

20,000+ originations
200+ partner schools
$300+ million in arranged financing
LinkedIn
AngelList

SOURCE Leif

CONTACT: Amber Wang, awang@leif.org

Related Links
http://leif.org

ARMONK, N.Y., June 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — At VivaTech today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) CEO Arvind Krishna announced a new collaboration with 30 global organizations including governments, community colleges, non-profits, and employment agencies, focused on helping underserved populations improve their skills and employability.

According to the World Economic Forum, closing the global skills gap could add US$11.5 trillion to global GDP by 2028, but education and training systems need to keep pace with market demands. In addition, as reflected in a new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), job seekers are facing big challenges, and one in four consumers surveyed globally plan to switch employers in 2021.

“Closing the global skills gap is one of the most pressing issues of our time,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM, Chairman and CEO. “That is why I’m proud of these collaborations, which will help people of all backgrounds acquire the skills they need to thrive in a fast-changing global economy.”

The collaboration spans 12 countries and includes ActionAid Italia Onlus, The American Indian Foundation Trust, Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development, Argencon, Bay Area Community College Consortium (BACCC), Bruxelles Formation, Cité des Métiers, CSC Academy, CSRBOX, Edunet Foundation, Fondazione Human Age Institute, Fundación Konecta, Junior Achievement Americas, Junior Achievement Italy, Laboratoria, Mission Locale de Paris, Reacha Foundation, Tata Community Initiatives Trust, The Royal Alberta College, Technifutur®, Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet, Training Point, Turkish Industry & Business Association (TÜSİAD), Unnati Foundation, Uvi Jagriti Sansthan, VetsinTech, Jeevitam-VSS Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, Workforce Development Inc., and 60 000 rebonds.

These organizations will leverage the online learning program IBM SkillsBuild with their members, mostly underserved populations such as veterans, women, minorities, refugees, and unemployed young adults. The program is designed to empower job seekers within 3-6 months with professional workplace readiness and technical skills, earn badges and credentials recognized by the market, in local languages, and with personal mentoring.

In addition, ManpowerGroup, a world leading workforce solutions company, plans to connect these job seekers to real career opportunities. ManpowerGroup’s Experis brand – global leaders in IT resourcing – will provide data-driven insight on the tech roles employers are seeking to fill, leveraging its experience developing talent and connecting learners from these organizations to positions in cloud and infrastructure, cyber security, data analysis, digital workspace and enterprise applications. ManpowerGroup’s Talent Agents will offer assessment, coaching and personalized support to help learners from organizations in this collaboration to access growth roles and build employability for the long-term.

This alliance will support IBM’s goal to skill 500,000 people by the end of the year through the IBM SkillsBuild program. In addition, the collaboration will also collectively seek to:

Provide 15,000 people with special program-based learning experiences, including personalized trainings, and the chance to apply for a job.
Connect the workforce with real career opportunities, including a commitment to secure 7,000 jobs across different industries.
“70% of employers can’t find the skills they need for roles like data analytics, software development and remote customer service,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman & CEO. “The only way we can address this acute talent shortage is through partnerships across business, government and education. That’s why we are pleased to partner with companies like IBM who share our mission to create a more skilled and diverse workforce, so everyone is able to have a more equitable share of prosperity.”

“We are seeing an increased demand for new skills needed in future tech jobs like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data analytics, and cloud computing. IDC believes that the partnerships IBM has announced are essential to helping meet the demands for tech jobs of the future. However, the partnership with ManpowerGroup is a perfect complement to IBM SkillsBuild’s mission of providing training for to underrepresented groups as it provides meaningful career opportunities to badged IBM SkillsBuild participants,” said Curtis Price, VP, Social, Environmental Responsibility and Ethics at IDC

About IBM SkillsBuild
IBM SkillsBuild is a free, digital training program that helps adults develop valuable new skills and find jobs, regardless of their background or education. It operates in 141 countries, offering over 10,000 courses on cybersecurity, data analysis, cloud computing and many other technical disciplines — as well as in workplace skills such as Design Thinking. Participants can earn IBM-branded digital credentials and a global network of 90 nonprofit partners helps connect learners with local job opportunities. Most learners start with no experience and can be ready to apply for IT jobs within six months through participation in hands-on, project-based learning and mentoring support. As of May 2021, 215,275 people have joined IBM SkillsBuild since its launch and completed 341,000 learning hours.

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IBM Media Contact
Katie Leasor
kleasor@us.ibm.com

Carmen Maria San Segundo Gamez
IBM Media Relations
Carmen.SanSegundo@ibm.com

SOURCE IBM

Related Links
https://www.ibm.com/

BEIJING, May 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Almost two weeks ago, China succeeded in its first Mars landing, attracting world’s attention to the important milestone in China’s space exploration.

On Friday, science and technology as strategic support to national development, focusing on self-sufficiency and innovation, was once again highlighted in the country’s development roadmap with the convention of the 10th national congress of the China Association for Science and Technology in Beijing.