0:12
A.I. · the day's top 10 · june 10th
Microsoft is rethinking Project Helix, the next generation Xbox, due to the RAM crisis affecting the electronics industry. The crisis is causing a shortage of RAM and high prices due to high demand for AI servers.
Anthropic has temporarily doubled the usage limits of its Claude Cowork tool for paying customers until July 5th. Meanwhile, GitHub Copilot has switched to a token-based billing system, replacing its flat fee model, and users are reporting significantly higher bills.
A recent expedition to the Lisima plateau in Angola discovered 70 new species, including spiders, dragonflies, and butterflies. In Hong Kong, over 100 robots were showcased at the InnoEX event, highlighting the current state of humanoid robotics in China.
Adobe was not always the dominant force in creative software, having started by solving the problem of printing documents correctly. Sandstone, an AI startup for legal teams, has raised $30 million in funding. Teradata's CEO has told employees that there will be no salary increases this year, as the company is investing in AI instead.
Prada and Axiom Space have unveiled the liquid cooling and ventilation garment that will be worn by astronauts on the Artemis IV mission to the Moon. Microsoft is laying off between 200 and 400 employees from its Azure division in China, the third round of cuts in two years, amid tightening regulations from Beijing and Washington.
2:04
From the data center to the edge: How to build secure, effective enterprise AI infrastructure
While hyperscalers and neo-cloud providers may get the lion’s share of attention for providing AI infrastructure, many enterprises are taking a build-it-themselves approach to meet their specific AI requirements. The success of such projects is crucial to achieving business objectives, yet companies face significant challenges as they try to scale pilots to production.
Organizations must keep up with the dynamic, ever-changing demands that AI applications place on compute and network infrastructure, from the data center to the edge. That means architecting systems to grow as demand warrants and to avoid performance bottlenecks. The architecture must also account for AI-driven security vulnerabilities and ensure appropriate defenses are in place.
Yes, it’s a tall order. But here, in simplified form, is a three-step plan for meeting those objectives.
Integrating all the required components in piecemeal fashion for an AI factory is complex, costly, and fraught with integration risk. Start with a modular design, based on proven NVIDIA reference architectures . A modular approach combines pre-validated accelerated computing hardware, AI software, and orchestration platforms, as well as networking and storage capabilities.
A modular strategy speeds implementation and creates a faster time to value for your AI infrastructure. Using modules that combine compute, networking, and storage makes it easier to scale capacity as needed, whether in the data center or at edge facilities.
In addition, the modular approach simplifies the job of addressing varying requirements, from inferencing engines at the edge to massive-scale model training in the data center, while staying within the same solution family.
The same applies to easing integration processes, as modular platforms offer pre-validated software. The Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA approach, for example, includes hardware ( Cisco AI PODS ) that is pre-validated to work with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software; Cisco Security and Splunk Observability software; orchestration platforms such as Ubuntu, Red Hat OpenShift, and Rancher by SUSE; as well as storage systems including VAST Data, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage), Hitachi Vantara, Nutanix, and NetApp.
Companies can also choose to manage the hardware and software with the cloud-based Cisco Intersight platform, which provides monitoring and management for physical and virtual infrastructure from the data center to the edge.
Embedding security throughout your AI infrastructure is critical to ensure continuous monitoring, threat detection, and response. However, this step can introduce tremendous complexity, especially given the bevy of cyber threats that AI introduces. Addressing them means implementing security solutions to cover all components of your AI infrastructure, including AI models, agents, applications, workloads, and the underlying infrastructure.
With agentic AI, which essentially empowers agents with decision-making capabilities, you need to secure agents as if they were employees. That means zero-trust policies should apply, including precise, context-aware controls to enforce least-privilege access for AI agents. If an agent is behaving suspiciously, it should be quarantined and investigated.
A critical benefit of Cisco’s modular approach is having all required security software built in. It simplifies integration and deployment while ensuring all security bases are covered.
Even if you follow steps one and two, you may still need assistance in determining your best deployment options.
Working alongside a vendor with a strong partner program and expert guidance can be a great asset. Value-added resellers (VARs) add value through expertise gained from numerous customer deployments and close relationships with their partners. Many also carry relevant certifications, such as the new Cisco AI Infrastructure Specialist Certification , which demonstrates credibility.
Vendors and VARs also offer professional services and NVIDIA enterprise support . The upfront costs are well worth it in the long run to minimize technical deployment and financial risks, lower your overall AI cost per token, and realize faster time-to-value from AI investments.
Learn how the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA can help ensure a sound foundation for your enterprise AI projects.
6:00
EU rules on securing IT products begin this week, but enterprises aren’t ready
Too many enterprises remain ignorant of the European Union’s 2024 Cyber Resilience Act, the first elements of which enter force on June 11, according to a new survey.
Two-thirds of respondents to the survey by Open Source Security Foundation said they were unfamiliar with the CRA, which aims to make hardware and software sold in the EU more secure.
As well as the CRA’s demands on vendors, it also has implications for users of open-source software , hence the Foundation’s interest in the topic. Among other measures, the CRA creates the role of open-source steward within the enterprise, with responsibility for ensuring that a security policy is in place for any software being used within the organization.
The first part of the CRA to enter force, on June 11, concerns the designation of conformity assessment bodies by member states. Then, from September 11, manufacturers will be required to begin reporting vulnerabilities in their products to the relevant authorities. The remaining obligations under the Act, which include substantial financial penalties, will apply from December 11, 2027.
The impending sanctions seem not to have concerned businesses: 56 percent of respondents to the OpenSSF survey were unaware that non-compliance fines could reach €15 million or 2.5 percent of global annual turnover.
The lack of knowledge about the implications of the Act surprised OpenSSF CTO Christoph e r Robinson . “We’ve been speaking on this topic for some time and we’re scratching our heads on why more companies are not aware of the implications of the Act,” he said.
He surmised that some companies don’t think EU regulations on hardware and software security apply to them — but such concerns will soon be a global matter. “Other countries, like Japan, are considering similar laws,” he said.
One area of misunderstanding could be that the CRA applies to vendors, and their customers may think that the requirements under the Act didn’t apply to them. He said that this was a misguided approach, particularly when the CRA’s application to open-source software is taken into account.
“There are about 700 million projects in Git Hub. If you work for an organization like a bank, you have little idea which of those projects are being used,” he said.
Under the Act, software companies will have to supply a software bill of materials (SBOM) that has been passed as secure, he said.
Companies that supply US federal government organizations already face this requirement, he said: “If you’re selling to the US government — which is the largest customer on the planet – you should be providing an SBOM.”
Cybersecurity consultant Hans Study said that by addressing the supply chain issue, the CRA is a step in the right direction. “Almost every application has dependencies, whether that is free and open-source software, commercial packages, or some mix of both. The problem has always been responsibility, and the blame game that comes with it. What the CRA does is make it harder for companies to dodge that responsibility when they are building, selling, or placing products with digital elements on the market,” he said.
6:00
Trump Says "Secret Military Mission" Allowed 200 Ships, 100 Million Barrels To Cross Hormuz
Confirming our reported from both a week ago (see "As Gulf States Plan Bypass Pipelines, US Military Is Quietly Helping Ships Cross Hormuz") and this afternoon ("Growing Number Of Oil Tankers Successfully Sneak Through Hormuz, Shrinking Iran's Leverage") moments ago Trump posted on Truth Social that he had "directed our Great U.S.
