PEX Network’s weekly bulletin rounds up the latest industry vendor news including product releases/updates, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes.
This week includes:
- IBM aims to enhance generative AI with new generation of optics tech
- SBS, Red Hat partner to accelerate digital transformation for financial institutions
- Workday elects Liz Centoni to board of directors
- Esker partners with AI for Business
- ABBYY opens Trust Center to advance reliable and ethical AI
IBM aims to enhance generative AI with new generation of optics tech
Technology giant and process mining provider IBM unveiled breakthrough research in optics technology that could “dramatically improve” how data centers train and run generative AI models. IBM researchers pioneered a new process for co-packaged optics (CPO), the next generation of optics technology, to enable connectivity within data centers at the speed of light through optics to complement existing short reach electrical wires, according to a press release. The technology could significantly increase the bandwidth of data center communications, minimizing GPU downtime while accelerating AI processing, it added.
This innovation would enable:
- Lower costs for scaling generative AI through a more than five-times power reduction in energy consumption compared to mid-range electrical interconnects.
- Faster AI model training, enabling developers to train a large language model (LLM) up to five-times faster with CPO than with conventional electrical wiring.
- Dramatically increased energy efficiency for data centers, saving the energy equivalent of 5,000 US homes’ annual power consumption per AI model trained.
“As generative AI demands more energy and processing power, the data center must evolve – and co-packaged optics can make these data centers future-proof,” said Dario Gil, SVP and director of research at IBM. “With this breakthrough, tomorrow’s chips will communicate much like how fiber optics cables carry data in and out of data centers, ushering in a new era of faster, more sustainable communications that can handle the AI workloads of the future.”
Watch thought leader Vishal Bhalla reflect on the pros and cons of AI
SBS, Red Hat partner to accelerate digital transformation for financial institutions
Financial technology solutions company SBS announced a new collaboration with enterprise open-source solutions provider Red Hat to accelerate digital transformation for global financial institutions. The collaboration brings together SBS’s expertise in the financial services space with Red Hat OpenShift to help equip financial institutions with the modern architectures they need to more quickly deploy and scale cloud-based software applications within their existing infrastructures, according to a press release.
“Working with Red Hat underscores our commitment to guiding our clients through their digital transformation journeys, which for many begins with cloud migration,” said Eric Bierry, CEO of SBS. “With Red Hat OpenShift, we’re giving our clients the flexibility to leverage a cloud-agnostic strategy with a fully managed application platform. It’s a strategic play for institutions that want to benefit from the cloud while still addressing security and compliance requirements for their critical data.”
Watch Cherise Crenshaw-Holmes PhD, founder of Modern Work Consultancy, discuss building inclusion into digital transformation
Workday elects Liz Centoni to board of directors
Information system vendor Workday elected Liz Centoni, executive vice-president and chief customer experience officer at Cisco, to its board of directors. Centoni is a seasoned leader with a passion for leveraging technology to drive customer success and deliver experiences, having held a range of senior engineering and strategy roles during her 24 years at Cisco. She was instrumental in developing Cisco’s responsible AI framework and has advocated for equity in tech at events including the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting.
“Liz’s passion for championing customer success aligns perfectly with our unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences, making her an ideal addition to our Board,” commented Carl Eschenbach, CEO of Workday. “Her expertise will be instrumental in ensuring that we continue to exceed customer expectations as we innovate and grow.”
Esker partners with AI for Business
AI-powered business solutions provider Esker announced a new referral partnership deal with AI for Business for both its source-to-pay and order-to-cash solutions. “We conducted a comprehensive review of the AI and automation software market to identify a best-in-class solution provider capable of addressing our clients’ needs in order-to-cash and source-to-pay processes,” said Agnes Gudwanska, co-founder of AI for Business. The goal was to find an innovative partner that could streamline workflows while driving measurable value, she added.
The partnership will be “incredibly valuable” for businesses undergoing AI and digital transformation, commented Dan Walker, co-founder of AI for Business. “Together, we can help businesses streamline operations, adopt innovative practices and achieve their transformation goals with confidence.”
Watch Sangeeta Krishnan, senior analytics lead at Bayer, discuss consolidating tools for better efficiency
ABBYY opens Trust Center to advance reliable and ethical AI
Intelligent document processing (IDP) vendor ABBY opened the ABBYY Trust Center, a centralized platform designed to support reliable AI. The initiative aims to streamline access to important compliance and security information. “The rate of AI innovation is expected to compound exponentially as we dawn into the intelligent age,” ABBYY stated, “Rapid advancements in AI, quantum computing and blockchain are converging to empower people to live and work in ways we never could have imagined.” Specifically, the advancements in deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision are altering AI and automation to deliver intelligent automation, it added.
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