Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Microsoft: China's Volt Typhoon targets US critical infrastructure

Microsoft uncovered stealthy and targeted malicious activity aimed at critical infrastructure in the United States and carried out by Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored actor based in China.

Microsoft alledges that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.

The attack gains initial access to targeted organizations through Internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices. From there, the attacker extracts credentials to an Active Directory account used by the device, and then attempts to authenticate to other devices on the network with those credentials. Volt Typhoon proxies all its network traffic to its targets through compromised SOHO network edge devices (including routers). Microsoft has confirmed that many of the devices, which include those manufactured by ASUS, Cisco, D-Link, NETGEAR, and Zyxel, allow the owner to expose HTTP or SSH management interfaces to the internet.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has also published a Cybersecurity Advisory [PDF] which contains a hunting guide for the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of this attack.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/05/24/volt-typhoon-targets-us-critical-infrastructure-with-living-off-the-land-techniques/

https://media.defense.gov/2023/May/24/2003229517/-1/-1/0/CSA_Living_off_the_Land.PDF

Ayar Labs raises additional funding for optical I/O chiplets

Ayar Labs, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, raised an additional $25 million in Series C1 funding, for its work in silicon photonics for chip-to-chip connectivity.

Ayar Labs uses industry-standard silicon processing techniques to deliver fast, high-density, low power optical I/O chiplets and multi-wavelength light sources. 

The new funding brings the company's total Series C raise to $155 million. The oversubscribed up round was led by new investor Capital TEN. VentureTech Alliance also entered the Series C expansion that included participation by previous investors Boardman Bay Capital Management, IAG Capital Partners, NVIDIA, and Tyche Partners. Existing strategic and financial investors include Applied Ventures, GlobalFoundries, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, Intel Capital and Lockheed Martin Ventures.

“We’re extremely pleased with the ongoing interest and financing we’ve received from leaders in the semiconductor industry,” said Charles Wuischpard, CEO of Ayar Labs. “This C1 adds sophisticated investor partners that will allow us to accelerate our strategic roadmap, and is further validation of our technology and plan to bring silicon photonics-based interconnect solutions to market at scale.”

NVIDIA, which participated in Ayar Labs’ earlier Series C raise in April 2022, increased its investment in the company.

“NVIDIA is reimagining the data center with integrated hardware, software and networking for accelerated computing,” said Craig Thompson, Vice President of Business Development, Networking Business Unit at NVIDIA. “Generative AI models with trillions of parameters are accelerating demand for this platform, which is why we are increasing our investment in Ayar Labs.”

https://ayarlabs.com/

Tech Update video: Ayar Labs' Optical I/O Chiplets

How will optical I/O revolutionize data communications?



https://youtu.be/LP2-Y_TYPPE

Charlie Wuischpard, CEO from Ayar Labs explains:

  • The benefits of optical communication brought closer to the source, replacing copper traces on motherboards with fiber optic communication
  • Ayar Labs' chiplet using silicon photonics technology and micro ring resonators for efficient data transmission
  • Applications in AI training, scale-out architectures, and data centers for improved performance and efficiency

Check out other Tech Updates on our YouTube Channel (subscribe today): https://www.youtube.com/@NextGenInfra and check out our latest reports at: https://nextgeninfra.io/

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NVIDIA sees trillion dollar upgrade cycle for data center infrastructure

NVIDIA reported revenue for the first quarter ended April 30, 2023, of $7.19 billion, down 13% from a year ago and up 19% from the previous quarter.

GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.82, up 28% from a year ago and up 44% from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.09, down 20% from a year ago and up 24% from the previous quarter.

“The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

“A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process. Our entire data center family of products — H100, Grace CPU, Grace Hopper Superchip, NVLink, Quantum 400 InfiniBand and BlueField-3 DPU — is in production. We are significantly increasing our supply to meet surging demand for them,” he said.



https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2024

Dell'Oro: Open RAN and vRAN growth slowed in 1Q 2023

Revenue growth moderated in 1Q 2023 for both Open RAN and Virtualized RAN (vRAN), according to a recent report from Dell'Oro Group. 

“Since both Open RAN and vRAN are still driven by a few large service providers, the slower growth in the first quarter was for the most part in line with expectations, reflecting more so the state of the 5G rollouts with some of the advanced operators than a shift in the overall Open RAN/vRAN market sentiment,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President with the Dell’Oro Group. “There are also signs that activity is improving beyond the early adopters but it will of course take some time for the sum of these smaller early majority type deployments to move the broader market,” continued Pongratz.

Additional Open RAN and vRAN highlights from the 1Q 2023 RAN report:

  • After more than doubling in 2022, Open RAN revenue growth was in the 10 to 20 percent range in the first quarter while the vRAN market advanced 20 to 30 percent.
  • Positive developments in the Asia Pacific region were dragged down by more challenging comparisons in the North America region.
  • Short-term projections remain unchanged – Open RAN is still projected to account for 6 to 10 percent of the 2023 RAN market.
  • Top 5 Open RAN suppliers by revenue for the 2Q 2022 to 1Q 2023 period include Samsung, NEC, Fujitsu, Rakuten Symphony, and Mavenir.

https://www.delloro.com/news/open-ran-and-vran-growth-slowed-in-1q-2023/

Dell'Oro: MEC market fails to materialize

The Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) market has failed to materialize as expected. Dell'Oro Group is is lowering expectations by more than 20 percent for 2023.

In addition, the China Mobile Core Network (MCN) market hit a steep decline in 1Q 2023 weighing down the total market.

“The MEC market is not reaching the potential market as expected initially. Except for China, the big promise for MEC was addressing the needs of Enterprises. Several factors are contributing to the slower uptake,” stated Dave Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Some examples are: standalone private networks have garnered more attention and emphasis than MEC, which we define as extensions to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) networks; lack of applications with well-defined return-on-investment (ROI); competition from Hyperscale Cloud Provider (HCP), and upcoming Wi-Fi 7. We believe Enterprises are evaluating all of these choices before moving forward with more aggressive MEC deployments. As a result, we are lowering the MEC forecast for 2023 by more than 20 percent from our previous forecast.

“The China market’s growth rate had a steep decline in 1Q 2023 as its build-out of 5G Standalone networks reached maturity and is projected to end 2023 with a negative growth rate, a first since we started tracking the China market revenues in 2018. However, the Worldwide market, excluding China, in 1Q 2023, got the year off to a good start with the highest growth rate since 4Q 2019. We expect positive growth rates throughout the year with continuing buildouts of 5G Standalone networks,” continued Bolan.

Additional highlights from the 1Q 2023 Mobile Core Network and Multi-Access Edge Computing Report include:

  • The top MCN vendors worldwide for 1Q 2023 were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, and ZTE.
  • The top MCN vendors worldwide, excluding China, for 1Q 2023 were Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia.
  • The top 5G MCN vendors worldwide for 1Q 2023 were Huawei, Ericsson, ZTE, and Nokia.
  • The report counts 43 Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) that have launched commercial 5G SA eMBB networks as of 1Q 2023.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

DriveNets designs network fabric for large-scale AI workloads

DriveNets introduced a networking solution designed to maximize the utilization of AI infrastructures and improve the performance and utilization of large-scale AI workloads. DriveNets Network Cloud-AI aims for 30% improvement in JCT (Job Completion Time) of large-scale AI workloads, substantially improving resource utilization, while also supporting a standard Ethernet which allows for vendor interoperability and choice.

"AI compute resources are extremely costly and must be fully utilized to avoid 'idle cycles' as they await networking tasks," said Ido Susan, DriveNets co-founder and CEO. "Leveraging our experience supporting the world's largest networks, we have developed DriveNets Network Cloud-AI. Network Cloud-AI has already achieved up to a 30% reduction in idle time in recent trials, enabling exponentially higher AI throughput compared to a standard Ethernet solution. This reduction also means the network effectively 'pays for itself' through more efficient use of AI resources." 

"Network Cloud-AI provides balanced fabric connectivity between all GPUs in a cluster just as InfiniBand does," said Susan. "The difference is that Network Cloud-AI interfaces with servers on standard Ethernet. InfiniBand uses proprietary equipment which creates vendor lock on the networking and GPU level." 

DriveNets Network Cloud-AI is based on OCP's Distributed Disaggregated Chassis (DDC) architecture which is built on a distributed leaf-and-spine model designed to support service provider high-scale networks. Highlights:

  • Scale - connects up to 32,000 GPUs at speeds ranging from 100G to 800G to a single AI cluster with perfect load balancing
  • Maximum utilization - equally distributes traffic across the AI network fabric, ensuring maximum network utilization and zero packet loss under the highest loads
  • Shortest JCT - supports congestion-free operations through end-to-end traffic scheduling, avoids flow collisions and jitter, and provides zero-impact failover with sub-10ms automatic path convergence
  • Openness - is an Ethernet-based solution that avoids proprietary approaches and supports vendor interoperability with a variety of white box manufacturers (ODMs), Network Interface Cards (NICs), and AI accelerator ASICs

DriveNets said early trials by leading hyperscalers using Network Cloud-AI over white boxes with Broadcom's Jericho family chipset achieved up to 30% improvement in JCT compared to other Ethernet solutions. 

"Ethernet has proven time and again to be the best choice for all networking needs by enabling an open, healthy, and competitive ecosystem," said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. "Large-scale training and inference of AI models will benefit from networks that can perform at 100% utilization like DriveNets Network Cloud-AI. Broadcom's Jericho3-AI delivers an Ethernet network with perfect load balancing and end-to-end congestion management, resulting in significant reduction in job completion time compared to any other alternative."

https://drivenets.com/solutions/ai-networking/


Farice lights Iceland-Ireland subsea cable with Ciena

Farice has deployed Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution to support its recently launched IRIS cable system connecting southwest Iceland to Galway, Ireland, with onward connectivity to the UK, Denmark, and the Nordics.

 The IRIS cable system, which went live on March 1, is a six-fiber pair trunk delivering 22Tb/s per fiber pair, for a total capacity of 132Tb/s, at 500Gb/s line rates. The 1,700km submarine cable is the third to connect Iceland to Europe, providing a diverse, high-capacity pathway for traffic flowing between the regions. 

For IRIS, Farice deployed Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics, and Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller. Ciena Services provided consulting, systems integration, training, and optimization—and will perform maintenance services to ensure the network continues to operate at peak performance. Additionally, Ciena assisted Farice with upgrading terrestrial routes in Iceland for IRIS and DANICE to a protected ring system with a fast restoration using a ROADM-based GeoMesh Extreme architecture; DANICE was also updated to WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics.

"By deploying a third submarine network cable in Iceland, Farice has dramatically increased the redundancy and resiliency of connectivity in the northwest Atlantic. Route diversity and green energy capabilities will help make Iceland highly attractive to data center operators, cloud providers, and other businesses that require high-performance networking," states Thomas Soerensen, VP, Global Submarine Solutions, Ciena.



Apple signs multiyear deal with Broadcom for 5G RF components

Apple signed a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar agreement with Broadcom for 5G radio frequency components — including FBAR filters — and cutting-edge wireless connectivity components. 

The FBAR filters will be designed and built in several key American manufacturing and technology hubs, including Fort Collins, Colorado, where Broadcom has a major facility woth more than 1,100 employees.

“We’re thrilled to make commitments that harness the ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit of American manufacturing,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “All of Apple’s products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we’ll continue to deepen our investments in the U.S. economy because we have an unshakable belief in America’s future.”

Broadcom will continue to invest in critical automation projects and upskilling with technicians and engineers at the Fort Collins site. 

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/

CoreSite expands in Silicon Valley and Denver

CoreSite announced the continued expansion of its Silicon Valley and Denver data center campuses. Plans include:

  • Silicon Valley: CoreSite is adding its ninth data center in Santa Clara, California. With the addition of the new 240,000-square-foot, purpose-built data center – known as SV9 – the company’s newest Silicon Valley data center campus will have 1.179 million total square feet of data center space. Located at 2915 Stender Way, SV9 will offer 34 megawatts of IT load with a new utility substation onsite. CoreSite has also completed the design and permitting process to add 3,420 square feet and 500 kilowatts of IT load to its downtown Denver (DE1) data center at 910 15th Street, one of the most interconnected data centers in the Denver metro region. Construction of SV9 is expected to be complete in 2024, preleasing is available now.
  • Denver: Strategically located in downtown Denver, CoreSite’s DE1 and DE2 data center facilities deliver two network-rich data centers and the region’s largest peering exchange. The expansion at DE1 will increase the total square footage in CoreSite’s Denver campus to 37,420. CoreSite is pre-leasing the DE1 expansion, which will be available for customers in 2H 2023.

“With expansions in both our Silicon Valley and Denver markets, CoreSite is delivering on our long-term strategy to meet the ever-increasing data center capacity demands and interconnection requirements of our valued customers,” said Juan Font, President and CEO, CoreSite and SVP of U.S. Tower. “Our strong financial backing by Fortune 375 wireless infrastructure leader, American Tower, and private equity partner, Stonepeak, means we have the direct access to capital required to grow with our customers to anticipate and build solutions for their future needs.”

https://www.coresite.com/



Nick Lippis ONUG perspective: Capex, Opex & Cloud Migration

Struggling to navigate the transition from hardware to software-based infrastructure? 

Nick Lippis, Co-Founder & Co-Chair of ONUG, explains:

– The shift from CapEx to OpEx and managing infrastructure you don’t own

– The rise of network and security teams in enterprise cloud infrastructure

– How ONUG provides tools, knowledge, and best practices for successful digital transformation 

See video: https://ngi.fyi/onugsp23-onug-nick

Check out the rest of ONUG Spring 2023 showcase here: https://ngi.fyi/onugspring23yt

Want to be in one of NextGenInfra.io videos? Contact us at info@nextgeninfra.io

ATX cites safety of its supercapacitors for broadband

ATX Networks recently completed testing of its hybrid supercapacitor-based energy storage modules that demonstrate the solution’s ability to withstand excessive physical and electrical stress without creating a safety hazard or dangerous environmental conditions.

 The testing was conducted by Georgia-based testing laboratory Energy Assurance, part of the Element Materials Technology (Element) Group.

ATX claims that its next-generation energy storage medium is safer than alternative backup power sources, such as lead-acid and some lithium-based batteries, and less susceptible to catching fire or leaking dangerous chemical substances because they are electrostatic, rather than electrochemical.

 “Broadband service providers want assurances that the equipment they use to provide standby power throughout their networks will not ignite, leak or explode if mishandled or subjected to extreme conditions,” said George Goncalves, ATX’s Director of Energy Storage Product Management. “The Areca units continued to perform as expected with no cell damage and no instances of thermal runaway during any of the eight tests run on our hybrid supercapacitor units.”

https://www.atx.com

Vietnam's VNPT deploys 10G fiber broadband with Nokia

Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT) has begun deployment of 10G fiber broadband with Nokia. The initial rollout will connect 10,000 homes and businesses in the 8 largest provinces of the country. 

Nokia is providing fiber access nodes for the operator’s exchanges and fiber modems for end users’ premises. The deployment includes Nokia's 7360-FX Lightspan series access node (OLT) which supports multiple fiber technologies including GPON, XGS-PON, 25GS-PON and Point-to-Point Ethernet to deliver a wide range of services.

In September 2021, the country’s Ministry of Information and Communications launched the National Digital Transformation Programme with the goal that fiber internet infrastructure should cover 80 percent of households and 100 percent of communes by 2025.

Mr. Dang Anh Son, CEO at VNPT Net Corporation, said: “This project is our first step towards high-class FTTx services which meet our residential and business customers’ demand for higher bandwidth and service quality using the latest generation XGS-PON. Next step, VNPT will work with Nokia to deploy cloud-based network management systems for the XGS-PON and enhance customer experiences through digital transformation solutions.”

Rubén Morón Flores, Head of Market Unit Vietnam at Nokia, said: “We are proud to have been selected by VNPT for this important milestone of bringing 10G broadband to the country for the first time. The APAC region is the largest in the world for fiber broadband. Our multi-gig and multi-PON solution provides for incredible flexibility and scale. Vietnam has ambitious plans and we’re delighted to be part of them.”

Nokia notes that its Quillion chipset now has more than 250 operator customers around the world. 


ADVA announces planned CEO transition

ADVA confirmed that Christoph Glingener will step down as CEO and transition to his previous role as CTO for ADVA effective June 30, 2023, and will continue as CTO for Adtran, to which he was appointed in January 2023. 

Tom Stanton will be appointed ADVA’s new CEO effective July 1, 2023, and will also continue as Adtran’s CEO. Tom Stanton was named Adtran Inc. CEO in 2005 and chairman of the board in 2007. 

https://www.adva.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20230523-adva-optical-networking-se-announces-planned-ceo-transition



Monday, May 22, 2023

Blueprint: Using Carrier Geolocation Data for Real-Time Insights

by Heather Broughton, AVP Marketing, Service Provider Solutions at NETSCOUT

Many communication service providers (CSPs) investing in 5G technology are turning to geomarketing solutions to better reach their revenue goals. This follows reports that 9 in 10 companies worldwide use location data, and that use is expected to grow in significance over the next few years. 

However, geomarketing as an economic opportunity is underutilized because existing geolocation methods lack operational feasibility and precision, leading to many CSPs wondering how they can refine their approach and tap into additional geolocation revenue streams over the next decade. 

That is the topic we will explore in this article, specifically how carrier geolocation data can increase revenue opportunities for subscriber location-based services without the need for GPS. This approach allows CSPs to analyze their data better and discover intelligent and timely insights into their subscribers, devices, services, networks, and applications. 

Geolocation Solutions Rely on Precision

When we talk about precision in geolocation services, we first must address the fact that current legacy geomarketing methods in the market – such as Over the Top (OTT) GPS and passive geolocation – has fundamental flaws that restrict their capabilities for real-time use. Examples include errors in dense urban areas, limitations indoors where coverage is limited, and GPS systems that are easily turned off and run out of battery. Likewise, passive geolocation methods suffer from configuration errors rendering large locations, Net Energy Metering (NEM) and User Equipment (UE) Radio Frequency (RF) parameters that contain errors and bias, and higher latency due to ‘weighting’ past sessions to smooth movements.

By comparison, through a better understanding of network data, particularly by applying smart data instrumentation and analytics at the RAN level and beyond, mobile network operators can significantly improve accuracy compared with traditional methods. Machine learning (ML) models can be trained to learn on just 1% of 3GPP-based minimize drive test (MDT) calls to predict all other calls and provide a more precise, anonymized view of subscribers with fewer variations compared with traditional modeling. This type of data is extremely rich – giving insight into location-based activities and behavior – and, when combined with other sources within data lakes, can yield a range of revenue opportunities across sectors. 

Geolocation Data Monetization Opportunities by Sector 

In general, geolocation data is becoming harder and harder to come by. Smartphone manufacturers and ecosystem players like Apple and Google have introduced measures in recent years to limit the amount of information collected by applications to improve user privacy. This affords mobile network operators considerable opportunity to provide precision geolocation data with many important use cases across industries. Consider just a few examples:

  • Advertising and marketing: Geomarketing uses consumers' location to provide relevant messaging for products or services they may be interested in at that particular point in time. With accurate geolocation data, CSPs can help advertisers set geofencing to trigger select mobile ads – such as to promote a new store or regional offer – and verify ad conversions. 
  • Fraud detection and prevention: Credit card fraud in the U.S. continues to rise each year, amounting to billions of dollars in costs to financial institutions. However, even with sophisticated algorithms, spotting fraud in real-time remains a challenge. Accurate, real-time geolocation data offers an opportunity for card issuers to verify transactions and stop payment before any funds are lost.  
  • Business & government planning: Before building a new branch location or paving a new road, planners want to know traffic patterns and behaviors. Having accurate geolocation data is invaluable in verifying other data sources and can help organizations set or adjust strategies to reflect the real world.  

In conclusion, current geomarketing methods, including GPS and passive monitoring, have unique limitations, and emerging technologies such as smart data, RAN-based machine learning models can help ensure data accuracy to provide a range of unique services across industries. As 5G continues to advance in the next decade, CSPs will find new ways to improve existing geomarketing methods and provide a transformational experience for their subscribers.

About the Author

Heather Broughton is an area vice president overseeing communications service provider solutions at NETSCOUT. She has more than 20 years of experience in telecom, including positions held at Verizon/MCI focused on performance management and translations for both fixed and mobile networks.

Axelera AI raises $50 million for edge inference

Axelera AI, a start-up based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, raised over $50 million in Series A funding for its development of a hardware + software solution for AI interference at the edge.

The company says its AI edge solution enables computer vision applications to become more accessible, powerful and user friendly than ever before.

In addition to its headquarters in Eindhoven, Axelera AI has R&D offices in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and the UK, with more than 120 employees in 14 countries. 

New investors include CDP Venture Capital, Verve Ventures and Fractionelera.

IBM offers Hybrid Cloud Mesh service

IBM introduced a SaaS offering to help enterprises to bring management to their hybrid multicloud infrastructure.

IBM Hybrid Cloud Mesh automates the process, management and observability of application connectivity in and between public and private clouds to help modern enterprises operate their infrastructure across hybrid multicloud and heterogeneous environments.

When generally available later this year, IBM Hybrid Cloud Mesh will also leverage the DNS traffic steering capabilities from NS1, an IBM Company, to find the best connection between clouds and end users and deliver applications that are optimized for performance, cost, and availability at every connection point.

IBM’s recent acquisition of NS1, a provider of network automation SaaS solutions that are designed to enable businesses to deliver content, services and applications to millions of users while helping optimize performance, reliability, security, and cost, will also play in a role in helping IBM Hybrid Cloud Mesh provide application-centric connectivity.

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2023-05-17-IBM-Announces-Launch-of-IBM-Hybrid-Cloud-Mesh-to-Help-Enterprises-Regain-Control-of-their-Multicloud-Infrastructure

Applied Materials plans Semiconductor Innovation in Silicon Valley

Applied Materials plans to invest up to $4 billion over the next 7 years in Silicon Valley to build "the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D)." 

The new Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center is planned as the heart of a high-velocity innovation platform designed to accelerate development and commercialization of the foundational technologies needed by the global semiconductor and computing industries.

The facility will include more than 180,000 square feet of state-of-the-art cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities and ecosystem partners. 

“While semiconductors are more critical to the global economy than ever before, the technology challenges our industry faces are becoming more complex,” said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials. “This investment presents a golden opportunity to re-engineer the way the global industry collaborates to deliver the foundational semiconductor process and manufacturing technologies needed to sustain rapid improvements in energy-efficient, high-performance computing.”

Applied’s new EPIC Center is designed to be a premier platform for leading logic and memory chipmakers to collaborate with the equipment ecosystem. For the first time, chipmakers can have their own dedicated space within an equipment supplier facility, extending their in-house pilot lines and providing early access to next-generation technologies and tools – months or even years before equivalent capabilities can be installed at their facilities.

Leading semiconductor and computing companies voicing support include AMD, IBM, Intel, Micron, Nvidia, Samsung, TSMC and Western Digital.

https://ir.appliedmaterials.com/news-releases/news-release-details/applied-materials-launches-multibillion-dollar-rd-platform

Google Cloud region opens in Qatar

Google opened a cloud region data center in Doha, Qatar. 

The new region launches with three zones, allowing users to distribute applications and storage to help protect against service disruptions. The Doha region also launches with a key set of Google Cloud products, including Compute Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Span.

The new Doha region is part of Google Cloud’s global network of 37 regions and 112 zones that bring cloud services to over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Biden nominates Anna Gomez as FCC commissioner

President Biden nominated Anna M. Gomez to serve as a commissioner on the FCC.  

Gomez is a telecommunications attorney who currently serves as a Senior Advisor for International Information and Communications Policy in the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Gomez served as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Deputy Administrator from 2009 to 2013. She also served for 12 years in various positions at the Federal Communications Commission, including as Deputy Chief of the International Bureau and as Senior Legal Advisor to then-Chairman William E. Kennard. Gomez also was Vice president for Federal and State Government Affairs at Sprint Nextel and an Associate at Arnold and Porter.

President Biden also re-nominated current commissioners Geoffrey Adam Starks and Brendan Carr for new terms at the FCC.

https://www.fcc.gov