Insights and Articles
AI Infrastructure Is Starting to Follow Energy, Not Just Users
For a long time, Europe's plan for digital infrastructure has been pretty straightforward: build where lots of people live, where businesses need it, and where fast connections are a must. This approach made cities like Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris,...
Why Big Technology Trends Usually Disappoint Before They Deliver
There is a predictable cycle in technology. Something new arrives, investors declare it revolutionary, consultants produce elaborate diagrams explaining why everything is about to change, and companies start spending money partly out of optimism and partly out of fear...
Why Cheap Thinking Is So Expensive
There is a line from Terry Pratchett that has no business being as useful in boardrooms as it is on rainy cobbled streets. It comes from Men at Arms, via Samuel Vimes, a man who understands both poverty and wet feet better than most consultants understand...
The Network Is Becoming Invisible. Splendid. Now Who Pays for It?
There was a moment at FutureNet World where you could almost hear the industry collectively nodding. Not because anything particularly shocking had been said. Quite the opposite. Everything sounded inevitable. AI will run the networks. OSS will...
AI Is Scaling Faster Than Its Value
There is a certain inevitability about how businesses adopt new technology. First comes the excitement. Then the overconfidence. Then, usually, the incident. Artificial intelligence is no exception. In fact, it may be the fastest we’ve ever gone...
The Atlantic Just Gave Up a Forgotten Backbone of the Digital World
I read a really good article a few days ago about the collapse of an old cable system. It made me smile for some reason because it described the retrieval of thousands of kilometres of spent cable from the ocean floor in dull, mechanical terms. There...
Why AI Inclusion Matters for SMEs
Artificial intelligence is no longer a future phenomenon but an everyday reality in business. Large organisations are racing to adopt new ways of working and competing with advanced AI technologies, with the advantage of devoting significant amounts of money, people,...
5 Tips to Improve Sales Performance
Improving sales performance is rarely about working harder (I feel a Scott Adams quote coming). More often, it is about working with better information. In complex B2B environments, particularly in enterprise markets, sales are heavily influenced by how well teams...
How AI is Changing Telecoms
Not long ago, telecoms were mostly about coverage maps (I still have my old Cable and Wireless sub-sea cable systems poster somewhere), signal strength, and price per megabit. If the network was fast and reliable, most businesses were satisfied. That is...
When the Machines Start Guessing the Future
We have become used to computers being fast. We have not yet adjusted to the idea that they may behave in ways we do not fully understand, although that is starting to come. Quantum computing, if it matures in the way its advocates promise, will not simply...
Efficiency is the Forgotten Lever in the AI Race
The AI industry has developed a curious habit. Whenever power becomes scarce or expensive, the response is not to use less of it, but to go hunting for more. New data centres are announced. Grid upgrades are demanded. Power purchase agreements are paraded like...
When Prediction Becomes Power
For most of history, power has belonged to those who could decide. Kings ruled because they judged. Generals won because they anticipated. Governments survived because they (sometimes) chose tolerably well, often with imperfect information and limited time. Thinking...
Why Most Award Entries Fail (and What Judges Actually Look For)
I spend a fair amount of time sitting on judging panels for industry awards. This year, over the Christmas period, that included judging the Data Centre World Awards (DCW). I also judge the Global Connectivity Awards (GCA) later in the year. Take a...
The Art of Procrastination
By Peter Zanatta There are two kinds of people in the world, those who dread deadlines and those who actually need them to deliver “stuff”. I belong firmly to the latter camp, the cliff-edge brigade. Give me a month to do something, and...