Next in Tech

The shifts that the agentic revolution is driving are felt in many areas of technology and Dell Technologies spans some of those that are seeing the greatest upheaval. The 451 Research team was in attendance at the annual Dell Technologies World conference and Brian Partridge, William Fellows, Henry Baltazar and Greg Macatee joined host Eric Hanselman to talk about their perspectives on the conference, agentic advancement and the technology market. Dell has positioned itself as a purveyor of not only the compute infrastructure needed to build the foundation for AI, but also as the custodian of AI's most critical raw material – data.
The rapid evolution of agentic applications has created a need for new capabilities that is being complicated by both technology infrastructure demands and geopolitical events. Supply chains are being challenged by increasing demand for storage at a time when silicon pipelines were already under tremendous pressure. All of this is happening as the costs of AI are starting to have a material impact on businesses. Tokenomics, the impact of the cost of producing AI tokens, has taken center stage.
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guest: Brian Partridge, William Fellows, Henry Baltazar, Gregg Macatee
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith, Dylan Scheible

One of the more interesting areas where AI is having an impact is in building operations. While building automation technology has made significant advances, AI is bridging gaps in building system controls. Analyst Zöe Roth has been researching the approaches and achievements from various smart building automation technologies and joins host Eric Hanselman to discuss what she's seen and what opportunities lie ahead. Some of the advances from data center information management (DCIM) systems are being applied to smart buildings. A typical building has multiple control capabilities for HVAC, lighting, and mechanical that often aren't interconnected and smart building systems can unify visibility and operations.
The integration of AI in smart buildings has to balance a number of different aspects of both the human in the loop for control and the scale that the introduction of cloud-based management offers. Fully autonomous operations may be some time off, but vendors are working to build trust and capability. Cloud-based systems can provide a consolidated view of a portfolio of buildings and improve maintenance operations, but face reluctance in some sectors where on-premises preferences prevail. AI is advancing rapidly and will accelerate further as it matures.
 
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guest: Zöe Roth
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun with Barb Dalumpines
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith, Dylan Scheible

The rush to capitalize on agentic capabilities is in full swing in enterprise, but there is caution in operational settings, like industrial control systems. Getting to autonomy in these environments requires a greater consideration in design and implementation and Cody Falcon of ABB joins host Eric Hanselman to continue a conversation that started at CERAWeek to explore the many aspects that should be in consideration. Risk is, of course, much greater in physical systems and AI requires more complex guardrails to manage it. But the greater challenge is in building trust.
AI's ability to handle scope and scale can be tremendously valuable in control systems and the ready availability of telemetry and operational data give implementations a solid base to work from. The journey to autonomy is one that has to be built on proven successes. As with any new employee, agents will need to build trust.
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Credits:
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Guest: Cody Falcon, Global Digital Portfolio & Technology Leader, Energy Industries, ABB
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith, Dylan Scheible

The recent announcement of the capabilities of the Mythos AI model have raised many concerns about the cybersecurity implications of ever more powerful AI tools. Scott Crawford and Daniel Kennedy return to the podcast to debate the impact with host Eric Hanselman. Is this more marketing than real attack potential? It seems like the pace and scale of the discovery of new vulnerabilities could overwhelm traditional remediation and patching practices. Is this a reason to hold back the release of new AI models?
If nothing else, these developments should serve as a wakeup call for enterprises to revamp the way in which they approach both their software supply chains and operational procedures. Increased speed and scale are necessary, but it's also critical to secure the source of patches and updates to counter attacker efforts to compromise them. Attackers have always been good at taking well intentioned improvements and weaponizing them.
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Demand for data center capacity is booming, which won't come as a surprise to any of our listeners, but that boom is extending into the associated areas that are looking to manage risk in this growth. Analysts Tony Lenoir and Kelly Morgan return to the podcast to discuss an upcoming webinar that explores the challenges that insurers are facing with host Eric Hanselman. The "Underwriting the Digital Backbone: Navigating Risk and Growth in Data Center Insurance" webinar digs into the complex risk equations that insurers have to navigate. Data center projects have escalated in scale and cost and this creates concerns not only about financing, but also the entangled supply chain and energy grid connectivity pathways. When data center power demands are approaching the gigawatt level, simply providing reliable power becomes much more challenging.
At the same time, the risks for data centers are becoming more complicated. The shift to liquid cooling can deliver much more efficient operation, when compared with air cooling, but it has a downside. When racks of GPU's can dissipate almost a megawatt of energy, even short interruptions of cooling supply can cause catastrophic damage. And the GPU's being damaged are tremendously valuable and in short supply. Business continuity insurance has to account for these much greater loss potentials, as well as looking at location risks from environmental hazards. Geopolitical concerns are now a key part of balancing risk, as well. Check out the webinar for a deeper dive with more details.
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