Think using the smartphone is a cool way of paying? Well, that’s neat but China-based Sunmi aims to take digital payment a step further with its face-recognition payment solution.
Category: Enterprise
India PC market slides in Q1
Weak consumer demand, high inventory from previous quarters, and supply issues for Intel chips are among the reasons why the India PC market slipped in Q1. According to IDC, the segment dropped 8.3 percent to 2.15 million units that quarter.
NVIDIA strikes back at Intel
Take that, Intel! GPU giant NVIDIA has fired back at Intel, which reported that its Xeon Scalable processors outperforms NVIDIA GPU on ResNet-50 deep learning Inference.
HP Enterprise buys Cray for US$1.3b
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) is on the acquisition trail again with the purchase of supercomputing pioneer Cray for US$1.3 billion.
Cray to build world’s fastest supercomputer for US government
The race to have the world’s fastest supercomputer has taken on a new spin with the US Department of Energy commissioning Cray to build the most powerful yet by 2021. Called Frontier, the new 1.5-exaflop supercomputer will be built on built on Cray’s Shasta supercomputing platform using AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs.
Fujitsu HK appoints Tang as new GM of sales
Fujitsu Hong Kong has appointed Freddie Tang as General Manager of Sales. In his new role, Tang will oversee Fujitsu’s sales and go-to-market strategy in Hong Kong and Macau, including building relationships with strategic and enterprise customers, growing the customer base, developing new vertical markets, and optimising sales functions to achieve cost effectiveness and sales efficiency.
AMD CEO to deliver Computex 2019 keynote
This year’s Computex in Taipei will kick off with a keynote address by AMD President and CEO Lisa Su at the Computex International Press Conference on May 27 at 10am.
Worldwide cloud services to grow exponentially through 2022
Cloud services are really hot with projected growth of 17.5 percent to US$214.3 billion in 2019, according to Gartner. The momentum is expected to continue through to 2022 with the research firm projecting the market size and growth of the cloud services industry at nearly three time the growth of overall IT services.NVIDIA to acquire Mellanox
NVIDIA has reached a US$6.9 billion agreement to acquire Mellanox, a supplier of end-to-end Ethernet and smart interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage.
Data scientists to get certification
Data scientist is one of the hottest jobs in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) where big data is king. IBM and The Open Group have come together to provide a certification programme for this highly-sought after job.
The age of AI in radiology is here
Speaking with a passion of an artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare evangelist, Kimberly Powell declared that the age of AI in radiology is here. And she has earned the right to say that because she has been championing this since she joined NVIDIA 11 years ago.
6th edition of EmTech Asia draws more than 800 participants
Emtech Asia has grown from strength to strength since its inception. The sixth edition of the conference on emerging technologies and their impact is expected to pull in more than 800 participants from around the world. Last year’s event drew more than 700 participants.
Google avails NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs on Google Cloud Platform in Singapore
The Google Cloud Platform running on NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs (above) has been beta launched in Singapore, availing the power of GPU cloud computing to customers around the region.
IBM and T-Systems team up on mainframe services
Remember the mainframe? It used to rule the world of computing and was presumed by some to be extinct when the advent of Intel-based servers and GPU-powered supercomputers. Presumed is the key word here because the mainframe is still alive and kicking though it does not command the clout that it did in the past.
China: Quick adopter, widespread use of technology
By Edward Lim
In the early 2000s, I visited Beijing for the first time and was amazed to see a taxi using a global positioning system (GPS) to get me to my destination. To put things in perspective, this was before the arrival of smartphones and GPS wasn’t even used in Singapore.
Making 8K movie editing a reality
8K movie is the next big thing and an announcement by RED and NVIDIA is making editing such movies a reality. The partners have introduced the NVIDIA CUDA-accelerated REDCODE RAW decode SDK that gives software developers and studios a powerful new way to work with 8K video.
HCL to acquire US$1.8b of IBM software assets
India software firm HCL Technologies has entered into an agreement to acquire a portfolio of IBM software products for US$1.8 billion. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2019 upon completion of applicable regulatory reviews.
NVIDIA unleashes powerful ‘T-Rex’ GPU
It’s no dinosaur but the newly-announced NVIDIA Titan RTX, dubbed T-Rex, is certainly very powerful — to the tune of 130 teraflops of deep learning performance and 11 GigaRays of ray-tracing performance.
Amazon takes on big guns in machine learning
A new player has entered the machine learning arena. While big players such as Google, Intel and NVIDIA have been slugging it out, Amazon has thrown its hat into the ring with its newly-launched Inferentia chip.
SSMC opens S$300m clean room in Singapore
Semiconductor maker Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Company (SSMC) has opened a new S$300 million Annex 10 clean room in Singapore.
Arcadier to raise US$25m for blockchain e-commerce marketplaces
Singapore headquartered Arcadier, has launched Token Generation Event (TGE) Presale to raise US$25 million by Q3 next year for its Project ArcadierX blockchain-enhanced marketplace platform. A private sale has yielded US$1 million in investment.
NTU achieves highest Linpack score in global supercomputing competition
A six-person team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has achieved 56.51 teraflops, the highest Linpack score — a measurement of a system’s floating point computing horsepower — in a global supercomputing competition held in conjunction with SC18 in Dallas.
Ecozen impresses at inaugural Rabobank Food Loss Challenge
Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are not usually associated with food and agriculture but five startups have shown that such technologies can play a major role in minimising food loss. Some 1.3 billion tonnes of food are lost worldwide each year.
NVIDIA GPUs power a quarter of Top 500 supercomputers
The world’s top two supercomputers — – the US Department of Energy’s Summit, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sierra, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. — pack a combined total of more than 40,000 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs, according to the latest of the Top 500 list released in conjunction with SC18.
Saba Software acquires Lumesse
Talent development solutions provider Saba Software has completed its acquisition of Lumesse, a provider of talent acquisition, talent management, and learning experience technology.
Taiwan hospital deploys NVIDIA DGX-2 for next-generation medical services
Taiwan’s Chinese Medical University Hospital (CMUH) has become the first healthcare provider in Asia to deploy and operate the NVIDIA DGX-2 AI supercomputer.
IBM in “game-changer” Red Hat acquisition
IBM has announced its US$34 billion acquisition of open source leader Red Hat. The move has been dubbed a “game-changer” by Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, who added that it changes everything about the cloud market.
Infineon gives startups a heads up with first Co-Innovation Space
Names such as Ampotech, Plunify, SHADO, and XNERGY may not ring a bell today but with a little help from Infineon, they may well become the successes of tomorrow.
Online marketplace Honestbee launches brick-and-mortar Habitat
It’s interesting how trends keep evolving. In the past decade or two, many supermarkets have opened up online stores to cater to changing consumer demands. On the other side, new companies set up online stores to challenge these traditional players. Yesterday, one of these, Honestbee, took the reverse route by setting up Habitat, its first brick-and-mortar outlet in Pasir Panjang, Singapore.
Huawei ups the ante on AI
Huawei has upped the ante with an ambitious US$140 million investment in developing one million artificial intelligence (AI) talents in three years. Under its AI Developer Enablement Programme, the China telecoms giant will work with universities and research institutions as well as partners and developers to build an ecosystem with AI resources, platforms, courses, and joint solutions to better support AI development.
Goodbye, Google Plus!
Google Plus aka Google+ will be no more — for consumers, at least. The search giant is shutting down its social media service after discovering security lapse that put the data of half a million users at risk.The stuff of spy movies
Supermicro has become infamous overnight following an expose by Bloomberg quoting unnamed sources. According to the report, “the attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 US companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain.”
Facebook to give SEA startups a leg up
Social media giant Facebook is partnering with Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore to give Southeast Asia startups a head start in developing data-driven technologies.
Qualcomm accuses Apple of IP theft
The legal tussle between Qualcomm and Apple has hit another level with the chipmaker accusing the smartphone giant of passing trade secrets to Intel. An earlier court battle, Qualcomm said that Apple breached an agreement for it to audit Apple’s use of Qualcomm’s source code.
Singapore launches unified payment QR code
The number of QR codes for payment is akin to the number of credit card offerings in the market — it keeps growing, making it more of a hassle than convenience for merchants and consumers. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has stepped in to solve this problem with the launch of the Singapore Quick Response (SGQR) Code.
The Weather Channel showcases realistic weather simulation
The weather wreaked havoc across the world last week with a number of hurricanes and typhoons. The Weather Channel leveraged the same technology used for computer games to create simulations that brought the impact of such weather into homes.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma walks the talk
By Edward Lim
It’s hard to let go when you’re one of the richest man in the world and leading one, if not the biggest, e-commerce company in the world. But, Jack Ma is a man of his word. A man who knows his time and a man who has shown what resilience is all about.
NVIDIA GPU Cloud supports Microsoft Azure
NVIDIA and Microsoft have announced that Microsoft Azure is now supported on the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) platform.
China wins battle for AI investments
A battle of sorts is taking place in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). It has been widely reported that China is ramping up its focus on the technology that is expected to transform businesses and industries. Numbers from ABI Research point to a swing in favour of China.
NVIDIA AI Conference keynotes: Transforming industries, creating AI infrastructure
The first NVIDIA AI Conference in Sydney on September 4 will kick off with two keynote addresses. Marc Hamilton, Vice President of Solutions Architecture and Engineering, NVIDIA, will talk about Transforming Industries With AI. Jason Humphrey (right), Head of Retail Risk, ANZ Bank, will then share on Creating the Infrastructure to Undertake Deep Learning.
Free WhatsApp backup on Google Drive
WhatsApp backup will no longer count towards Google Drive storage quota, thanks to a new agreement between the two companies.
NVIDIA and RED Digital Cinema ease 8K bottleneck
8K is the new benchmark for professional videos captured by state-of-the-art cameras but delivering that standard for editing was not quite possible until NVIDIA’s announcement this week at SIGGRAPH of the Turing architecture and the new Quadro RTX GPUs.
NVIDIA unveils Turing architecture and new Quadro products
To the uninitiated, images just look look sharper and more detailed because of improved resolution. But, there’s much more to that, one of which is ray tracing, a rendering technique used to generate an image by tracing the path of light as pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects.
NetApp rolls out NVIDIA-powered NetApp ONTAP AI architecture
NetApp has introduced NetApp ONTAP AI proven architecture to simplify, accelerate and scale the data pipeline across edge, core and cloud for deep learning deployments and to help customers achieve real business impact with AI.
IBM retrenches 200 in Singapore in Mexico shift
IBM has axed reportedly at least 200 staff from its Tampines plant in Singapore. This is because the IT giant is shifting manufacturing of its IBM Power Systems to IBM Guadalajara, Mexico.
SingHealth patient database compromised in cyber attack
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was among 1.5 million patients who had their personal data stolen in the nation’s most severe cyber attack to date. Also compromised were the outpatient prescriptions of 160,000 patients.
TechnologyOne secures 5-year deal with 3 NZ government agencies
TechnologyOne has inked a five-year contract with New Zealand’s Central Agency Shared Services, under which it will provide software-as-a-service (SaaS) to the Treasury, the State Services Commission and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Outage and strike do not faze Amazon on Prime Day
Amazon Prime Day is still going strong and racking up tons of sales despite an outage that prevented some customers in North America from accessing the website and the app, and a strike by workers in Spain.
Singapore launches SEA’s first geospatial centre
Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has launched GeoWorks, the first geospatial industry centre in Southeast Asia (SEA). The centre will kick off by housing 22 geospatial technology start-ups from across the region to network and interact with government agencies and the industry with the aim of developing geospatial solutions.
PC market inches up 2.7% in Q2
Global traditional PC shipment posted the strongest growth in more than six years during the past quarter, according to IDC. Total shipment was 62.3 million units, which translates to a 2.7 percent year-on-year growth.
Broadcom to acquire CA for US$18.9b
Fresh from its failure to acquire Qualcomm in March, Broadcom has made a move for former software giant CA Technologies. The US$18.9b deal brings together two unlikely partners — one a chipmaker and the other a software company that had its glory days in the 1990s.
Bosch and Daimler pick NVIDIA Drive Pegasus for robotaxis
Daimler and Bosch have chosen NVIDIA Drive Pegasus AI supercomputer to power their robotaxis, which are expected to start testing in Silicon Valley next year.
Suning Tesco opens first UAV logistics route in Wuhan
China e-commerce firm Suning Tesco has opened the first pilot route for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) logistics and transportation in Wuhan, China. Its logistics arm Suning Logistics and Ewatt Aerospace jointly developed two UAVs for this purpose.
China tops IDC’s smart cities awards
China has emerged tops with five out of 19 winners in the 2018 IDC Smart City Asia Pacific Awards (SCAPA). Taiwan and Singapore were next with four and three awards respectively across 12 functional categories.
IBM snags A$1b Australia government contract
IBM has scored a massive win with a five-year A$1 billion agreement with the Australia government.
To Dell and back
Dell Technologies is making a comeback on the New York Stock Exchange. The PC giant went private in 2013 as part of a transition strategy in the midst of changes in the industry brought about by mobile and cloud computing.
Banking spend drives external storage Q1 growth in India
Banking led professional services, manufacturing, telecommunications and government to contribute more than 80 percent to overall external storage market in India in Q1, according to IDC India. The quarter saw a jump of 12.7 percent year-on-year to US$84.1 million.
APrivacy launches WhatsApp bot for financial services industry
APrivacy has introduced APrivacy Bot on WhatsApp to help banks and insurance companies better engage with their customers. It offers a fully programmable chatbot, or connection with an existing chatbot, providing interaction with customers directly over WhatsApp.
AMAX launches AI-optimised server platform
High-performance server maker AMAX has launched the DL-E48A, a reconfigurable single/dual root high-density GPU platform designed for artificial intelligence (AI) training and inference.
Intel tweet that launches a new GPU war
On June 13, Intel had the GPU world in a flurry when it tweeted “Intel’s first GPU coming in 2020”. The media were quick to post stories of this incoming new GPU, which would add interesting competition to a market dominated by NVIDIA with AMD a distant second.
Entelechy Asia 