At its Innovation Day 2026 event, Western Digital (now rebranded as WD) unveiled a customer-centric storage roadmap to reinvent hard drives for AI-era infrastructure, spanning 100TB+ HDDs, new performance- and power-optimized architectures, and an intelligent platform designed to improve storage economics and time-to-value.

This article is a summary of my talk at QCon San Francisco 2024. For the past decade, I have worked as an applied scientist and machine learning engineer across multiple domains, including social media, fintech, and productivity tools.

Every major cloud and data platform now publishes guidance on how organizations should secure artificial intelligence (AI). From Google's Secure AI Framework (SAIF) and Amazon Web Services' CAF-AI and Generative AI best practices to Microsoft's Secure AI and Responsible AI standards, enterprises are surrounded by frameworks.

What to look out for over the next year, according to experts

Last year, we saw the integration of gen AI into everything, the rise of AI agents, and the explosion of vibe computing. As this year gathers pace, we'll see agentic AI move from pilots into production, the emergence of AI payments, and AI redefine how we think of user interfaces.

Other benefits include scaling support without growing headcount and reduced cost to serve, according to an Intercom survey.

Over 14,000 Ollama server instances are publicly accessible on the internet right now. According to a recent Cisco analysis, 20% of these actively host models susceptible to unauthorized access. BankInfoSecurity separately reported discovering more than 10,000 Ollama servers with no authentication layer - the result of hurried AI deployments by developers under pressure to deliver.

The rise of AI agents could put up barriers between customers and brands, leaving leaders to ponder how they can build loyalty and collect customer data in a new environment.

CIOs and CISOs ask AI vendors tougher questions and keep a closer eye on these tools to ensure they deliver on their promised potential.

At what point did cloud computing stop being cheaper -- and why did you stay, anyway?

In an era defined by digital transformation, cloud adoption, and hyperconnectivity, cybersecurity has become a top priority for organizations of every size and industry. Cyberattacks are no longer limited to simple malware or phishing emails-they now include ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), zero-day exploits, insider threats, supply-chain compromises, and nation-state-backed attacks.

Recent supply chain attacks involving self-propagating worms have spread far, but the damage and long-term impact is hard to quantify.

A new report from The Identity Underground reveals a significant disconnect between executive priorities and frontline capabilities in managing AI-driven identity threats, according to BetaNews.

Every organisation now operates across hybrid and multi-cloud, where the traditional perimeter no longer applies. Attackers exploit encrypted and East-West traffic to move laterally and evade detection.

National governments already run cybersecurity through a mix of ministries, regulators, law enforcement, and private operators that own most critical systems.

Federal civilian agencies have been ordered to remove end-of-life devices within 12 months due to widespread exploitation campaigns by sophisticated hackers.

In a world where businesses are built on digital infrastructure, IT security has become a critical pillar of organizational resilience and trust. From cloud computing and remote workforces to SaaS applications and connected devices, modern IT environments are larger, more complex, and more exposed than ever before. At the same time, cyber threats are growing in scale, speed, and sophistication-making traditional, reactive security approaches ineffective.

I first tried to 'shift left' cloud identity in early 2020. We were building a greenfield AWS environment with a strong cloud team and leadership support to do things properly. The idea was familiar: push security decisions earlier, give developers autonomy, and avoid becoming the bottleneck later.