The IT Pro Podcast

Digital sovereignty has quietly become one of the most urgent requirements in the tech sector. Once a matter for policy debate, this is now a critical business issue and as much a matter of resilience as one of compliance.Indeed while we've spoken about the need for digital sovereignty before, recent geopolitical developments have cast the debate in far starker light. With European governments and businesses leaning heavily into digital sovereignty, it's clear there's an emerging race to secure critical workloads.Just how important will digital sovereignty be in 2026?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss all things digital sovereignty – how it's being realized, the scale of the transformation, and how we could see things play out.Read more:Sovereign infrastructure spend to triple in Europe as fifth of workloads stay localWhat is a sovereign cloud?Sovereign cloud services are now the “bare minimum” expected by customers, and hyperscalers are scrambling to meet demandWhat the new AWS European Sovereign Cloud means for enterprisesWhat the new Microsoft Sovereign Cloud push means for European customersCIOs wrestle with Europe's new digital sovereignty approachCan the UK achieve AI sovereignty?

Risk management is a constant point of concern in the modern enterprise, with cybersecurity threats, compliance pressures, and financial leaps of faith all piling pressure on the teams who are forced to manage them. But risk management can't always be about bailing out the sinking ship. Sooner or later, businesses need to integrate their risk management systems and connect teams together via a centralized framework.What are the benefits of overhauling risk management in this manner? And how can it be achieved?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Qualys, Rory is joined by Ivan Milenkovic, VP Risk Technology EMEA at Qualys, to explore how businesses can reduce the burden on C-suite executives and improve their overall resilience by restructuring their approach to risk management.Read more:Risk Operations Center (ROC) | Qualys

This episode was first published on 18 July 2025.Cyber attacks can feel a layer detached from the real world. Yes, businesses frequently see IP stolen, get frozen out of systems, or have data wiped by malicious actors. But if you haven't got your finger on the pulse, cyber attacks can also fail to register in your day to day.But there are instances where cyber attacks come crashing into the lives of everyday people, and become impossible to ignore: when attackers go after critical infrastructure and operational technology. Breaches and malware attacks at power and water plants, against core supply chain organizations, or against transport networks can all cause catastrophic damage, enormous financial losses – and even lead to deaths.In this episode, Rory speaks with Magpie Graham, technical director of intel and services at Dragos, to discuss attacks on operational technology, critical infrastructure, and the future of large-scale cyber attacks.Read more:What is operational technology – and why is it at risk?Manufacturing firms are struggling to handle rising OT security threatsWhen everything connects, everything's at riskFormer NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bareCISA shares lessons learned from Polish power grid hack – and how to prevent disaster striking again

Identity controls in the enterprise have only become more complicated over the last few years.Initially, the focus was on IoT devices, which were exploding in the enterprise environment. But recent years have brought an onslaught of AI tools and AI agents, all of which come with security and governance complications.How can business leaders get a grip on the adoption of AI agents, particularly as these tools begin to communicate with one another and with third-party enterprise tools?In this episode, Rory speaks to Shiven Ramji, president, Auth0 at Okta, to discuss the future of identity, security and governance in the face of AI agents.

January is supposed to be a month full of new starts and potential, in which we try to embrace resolutions or set out our plans for the year ahead.But in the tech sector, it's become something of an ominous month – the start of layoff season. January 2026 has been no different, with Amazon announcing 16,000 jobs cut in a plan that could see up to 30,000 cut by the end of May according to Reuters.Earlier in the month, Dell made waves at CES 2026 with the news that it's reviving the XPS laptop line, just one year on from its announcement that the brand would be deprecated. What can we make of the job cuts and of Dell's reversal?In this episode, Rory welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore some of January's biggest stories.Read more:Amazon is cutting 14,000 roles in a bid to ‘operate like the world's largest startup'‘Lean into it': Amazon CEO Andy Jassy thinks enterprises need to embrace AI to avoid being left behind – even if that means fewer jobs in the futureFresh Microsoft layoffs hit software engineering roles, documents showReturn of the XPS: Dell resurrects iconic brand at CES after customer demandDell kills off XPS and other brands for PC simplicity

Every business wants its payments to process smoothly. Simply put, if you're introducing friction into your payment processes, you're making it harder to drive revenue and dissuading users from becoming return customers.One sector that knows this better than most is iGaming, which has to meet the demands of users around the world including mobile payments, virtual wallets, and cross-border social gaming payouts.Delivering all this in near real-time, with adequate security and reliable infrastructure, is no small feat. How are these payment systems possible?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Paysafe, Rory is joined by Bob Legters, chief product officer at Paysafe, to discuss the best practices for building a payments strategy – and how this can be applied to iGaming.

One of the major challenges of today's environments is the rising tide of bots, with generative AI driving a new era of the technology.Bots have been a part of the internet since at least the 1990s but recent technological advancements have swollen their number exponentially. Some of these net dwellers are benign, others are malicious, and some sit somewhere in between. But no matter what category they fall into, they can all cause problems for businesses. How much of an issue is this for businesses and what can they do to mitigate it? In this special discussion, in association with Fastly, Jane speaks to Marshall Irwin, chief information security officer (CISO) at Fastly, to discover more about how organizations can protect themselves from the risks of bots.

The environmental impact of AI is a growing area of study and one that businesses must begin to seriously consider.When you power a data center with coal, it's obvious that it's having a detrimental impact on the environment. But is a ‘green' data center really green? And to what extent might the benefits of AI outweigh potential environmental negatives?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the shifting sustainability targets of the world's public cloud giants, as caused by AI, and what they're doing to get back on track.Read more:Microsoft Environmental Sustainability Report 2025Amazon 2024 Sustainability ReportGoogle 2025 Environmental ReportGoogle emissions have surged 51% in five years – but it's making solid progress in data center efficiencyData center carbon emissions are set to skyrocket by 2030, with hyperscalers producing 2.5 billion tons of carbonSmall businesses are ‘flying blind' on carbon emissions and struggling to meet sustainability goals – and the blame lies with big tech vendorsBig tech's solution for AI-related carbon emissions could be more AIMicrosoft wants to drastically cut carbon emissions, so it's building data centers with woodCan small modular reactors meet data center power demand?Google just confirmed the location of its first small modular reactor

The tech sector started this year with a bang at CES 2026, the annual event that brings together over 140,000 attendees to share the latest innovations in consumer and business technology.Unsurprisingly, at this year's event AI was a primary focus – with more details on Nvidia and AMD's latest hardware, alongside AI PC innovations by brands like Lenovo.Alongside these headlines, however, we also saw a return to form by companies such as Dell, with the resurrection of the XPS laptop range.What did we learn from CES about what to expect in business hardware over the coming year?In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Mike Moore, deputy editor at TechRadar Pro, to discuss the biggest moments from CES 2026.

We're just over a week into 2026 but already, enterprise cybersecurity teams will be hard at work repelling attacks – and business leaders will be worrying about the year ahead.On the one hand, we're told that AI tools are beginning to empower security teams to go further and faster. On the other, the use of AI by hackers to launch attacks also appears to be on the rise.All of this is happening against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and continual attacks by state-sponsored hacking groups against businesses. How will all this come together in 2026 and beyond?In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Jamie Collier, lead advisor in Europe at Google Threat Intelligence Group, to explore the risks – both novel and ordinary – enterprises face in 2026.Read more:NCSC issues urgent warning over growing AI prompt injection risks – here's what you need to knowCyber experts have been warning about AI-powered DDoS attacks – now they're becoming a realitySalt Typhoon attack on US congressional email system ‘exposes how vulnerable core communications systems remain to nation-state actors'OpenAI says prompt injection attacks are a serious threat for AI browsers – and it's a problem that's ‘unlikely to ever be fully solved'OpenAI turns to red teamers to prevent malicious ChatGPT use as company warns future models could pose 'high' security riskA flaw in Google's new Gemini CLI tool could've allowed hackers to exfiltrate dataGoogle says you shouldn't worry about AI malware – but that won't last long as hackers refine techniquesNorth Korean IT workers: The growing threatNorth Korean hackers...

As we ring in the new year, we're returning to the ITPro tradition of looking ahead and discussing the key trends that will shape the tech sector in 2026.While there will undoubtedly be surprises ahead, both exciting and concerning, it's also possible to look at some of the standout moments from 2025 to help us understand where we're headed.So what can we expect IT decision makers to come up against in 2026?For this new year's edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro's News and Analysis Editor, to discuss the key trends that will shape 2026.FootnotesAI adoption is finally driving ROI for B2B teams in the UK and EUAI is finally delivering bang for its buck, according to MicrosoftUK firms are pouring money into AI, but they won't see a return on investment unless they address these key issuesFormer NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bareIf you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up callNorth Korean IT workers: The growing threatUS Department of Energy's supercomputer shopping spree continues with Solstice and EquinoxInside Isambard-AI: The UK's most powerful supercomputerNvidia just announced new supercomputers and an open AI model family for science at SC 2025

2025 has almost come to a close and the new year is right around the corner.At this time of year, it's usual to reflect on the year and consider some of the biggest, most impactful things that have happened. But here at ITPro, we like to take a different approach: what didn't happen?The tech industry can't help but make bold promises and some just don't pan out. What are some of the biggest targets, trends, and predictions that just haven't come to fruition in 2025?In this episode, Jane and Rory are once again joined by Ross Kelly, news and analysis editor at ITPro, to discuss the biggest misses of the year.Read more:Is enterprise agentic AI adoption matching the hype?‘Agent washing' is here: Most agentic AI tools are just ‘repackaged' RPA solutions and chatbots – and Gartner says 40% of projects will be ditched within two yearsAgentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should know'It's slop': OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy pours cold water on agentic AI hype – so your jobs are safe, at least for nowIBM is targeting 'quantum advantage' in 12 months – and says useful quantum computing is just a few years awaySAS thinks quantum AI has huge enterprise potential – here's whySAS rejects generative AI hype in favor of data fundamentals at Innovate 2025Post-quantum cryptography is now top of mind for cybersecurity leadersWhy does Nvidia have a no-chip quantum strategy?Meta executive denies hyping up Llama 4 benchmark scores – but...

Cybersecurity teams are facing a double edged sword of challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, AI tools offer a great deal of autonomous working and the promise of automating some of the more laborious tasks that a cybersecurity team has to undertake.On the other hand, attackers are also using AI to launch large scale attacks such as sophisticated phishing campaigns and identity theft. To fight this threat, cybersecurity teams will need to unify data like never before and take advantage of as many new technologies and processes as they can.How can they go about this? And what does a unified cybersecurity strategy really look like in 2026?In this episode, Rory is joined by Mandy Andress, chief information security officer at Elastic, to explore how businesses can evolve their threat detection and security posture, as well as how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for attackers.Read more:In the age of AI threats, the future of security is unifiedAI-generated code is now the cause of one-in-five breaches – but developers and security leaders alike are convinced the technology will come good eventuallyAI-generated code risks: What CISOs need to knowAgentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should knowThe NCSC touts honeypots and ‘cyber deception' tactics as the key to combating hackers — but they could ‘lead to a false sense of security'

In the race to train and deploy generative AI models, companies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into GPUs, chips that have become essential for the parallel processing needs of large language models.Nvidia alone has forecast $500 billion in sales across 2025 and 2026, driven largely by Jensen Huang, founder and CEO at Nvidia, recently stated that “inference has become the most compute-intensive phase of AI — demanding real-time reasoning at planetary scale”. Google is meeting these demands in its own way. Unlike other firms reliant on chips by Nvidia, AMD, and others, Google has long used its in-house ‘tensor processing units' (TPUs) for AI training and inference.What are the benefits and drawbacks of Google's reliance on TPUs? And how do its chips stack up against the competition?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss TPUs – Google's specialized processors for AI and ML – and how they could help the hyperscaler outcompete its rivals.Read more:

HPE Discover Barcelona 2025 was in full swing this past week, with thousands of attendees descending on the Fira Barcelona to hear the latest news on the networking, servers, storage, supercomputing – and, of course, AI.It's a pivotal time for the firm, as it consolidates its hardware partnerships and heralds a recent acquisition, while laying out its strategy to help customers not only meet demand, but expand their networks and adopt new technologies.What are some of the biggest things HPE announced – and what does the firm have lined up for 2026 and beyond?In this episode, Rory interviews Jane live on the ground to unpack all things HPE.

As a business leader, you'd like to believe that your staff are entirely trustworthy. Effective enterprises run on workforce confidence – but in some cases, that trust can be misplaced.In November, CrowdStrike admitted one of its own employees had provided screenshots of internal systems to hackers in exchange for a sizable payout. Industry experts have told ITPro the incident should act as a wake up call to the all-too-serious risk of insider threats.Earlier in the month, websites all over the world went offline after a major outage at the content delivery network service provider Cloudflare. What was the cause of the incident: had Cloudflare fallen victim to the kind of DDoS attack it's famous for preventing?In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore some of November's biggest stories.FootnotesIf you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up callNearly 700,000 customers impacted after insider attack at US fintech firmAI means cyber teams are rethinking their approach to insider threats‘Insiders don't need to break in': A developer crippled company networks with malicious code and a ‘kill switch' after being sacked – and experts warn it shows the huge danger of insider threatsEverything you need to know about CloudflareThe Cloudflare outage explained: What happened, who was impacted, and what was the root cause?Cloudflare says AI companies have been “scraping content without limits” – now it's letting website owners block crawlers and force them to paySecurity experts issue warning over the rise of 'gray bot' AI web scrapersCloudflare is fighting back against AI web scrapersNearly half of all digital initiatives still fail – here's how you can learn from the ‘digital vanguard' and deliver successSubscribe to the IT Pro newsletter

It seems that everywhere you look these days, businesses are implementing AI features, tools, chatbots, and pilots. But researchers keep coming to the same conclusion about the benefits of enterprise AI adoption – that return on investment is slim to none.While this isn't the case for every business, it's certainly a worry that hangs over discussions of the technology. The secret to making AI projects succeed is knowledge that every leader is after right now – and knowing what not to do is just as important.Where are businesses going wrong with AI adoption? And how can they apply the learnings of the past few years to ramp up return on investment?Today, we're joined by Alan Trefler, founder and CEO at Pegasystems, to unpack the main hurdles businesses face when it comes to AI adoption – and why AI failure is becoming such a widespread concern.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Alan Trefler, founder and CEO at Pegasystems, to unpack the main hurdles businesses face when it comes to AI adoption – and why AI failure is becoming such a widespread concern.

The dream of every small-to-medium business is to harness one's success and turn it into sustainable growth – expanding operations, hiring more workers, and delivering more value to a wider customer base.But achieving this in the modern enterprise environment requires as much focus on IT strategy as business strategy. Without the right approach to cloud, technology, and cybersecurity, businesses will struggle to scale past a point. Camp Australia knows this better than most. When the leading provider of Outside School Hours Care in Australia came to the conclusion that its decades-old IT and cloud processes were holding it back from unlocking its full scalability, it partnered with SoftwareOne to migrate to Microsoft Azure and adopt the benefits of a unified cloud environment.How did SoftwareOne help Camp Australia achieve these goals? And what are the key lessons to be taken away from this successful transformation project?In this episode, in association with Hyland, we're speaking to Justin Itin, Sales Lead at SoftwareOne and Peter Lane, CTO at Camp Australia, to explore Camp Australia's digital transformation project and how SoftwareOne helped facilitate it.Read more:Find out more about SoftwareOneFind out more about Camp Australia

This episode was first published on 10 January 2025.Anyone who works outside of a major city, or has ever tried to get work done while on a trip to a more rural location, knows that rural connectivity can be patchy. Despite the UK's high population density and relative lack of difficult terrain, rural connectivity remains an uneven picture. Many rural businesses are still struggling to receive fiber optic cables, let alone leverage 5G signals to keep up with the demands of modern business.Is UK connectivity improving? And how far have we still got to go?In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to David Happy, non-executive director at JET Connectivity and non-executive chairman for transport at Wales Fiber, and Colin Wood, innovation lead at Dorset Council, to better understand the state of rural connectivity in the UK.Read more:UK rural businesses set for broadband improvementsInvest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategyUK gov has ramped up broadband roll-outs to tackle 'hard-to-reach' areas in 2023BT and OneWeb succeed in "game changer" satellite connection trialThe battle for space broadband dominance is hotting upUK government to run Starlink trials in Snowdonia, Lake District

The end of October was punctuated with a series of major cloud outages, first at AWS and then at Microsoft, bringing a wide range of websites and business applications offline.In the previous episode, we spoke about this in a reactive sense – the immediate customers impacted and the likely causes.But it's also important to break the problem down at a strategic and technical level. Just how do outages at this scale occur – and what's it like as an insider, fighting to bring services back online?In this episode Rory speaks to James Kretchmar, SVP & CTO of the cloud technology division at Akamai Technologies, to get an insider's perspective on cloud outages and how businesses can navigate these incidents.Read more:Amazon Web Services outage live: Hundreds of apps including Slack, mobile carriers, banking services downThe AWS outage brought much of the web to its knees: Here's how it happened, who it affected, and how much it might costThe Microsoft Azure outage explained: What happened, who was impacted, and what can we learn from it?Australia internet banking outage blamed on DDoS mitigation serviceWhy the CrowdStrike outage was a wakeup call for developer teams

The global services market is expected to grow at 8% compound annual growth between now and 2028, representing a $1.7 trillion opportunity.But partners looking to seize on this opportunity face a slew of challenges. Establishing a services offering for customers demanding the scale of the cloud and complex technologies like AI is difficult without the right service provider, for example.Whether you're already offering cutting edge IT services or just scaling within your region, it's a huge benefit to get a helping hand with pre-sales, managed services, and ongoing support.What does this look like in practice, and who can partners turn to? In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with TD Synnex, Jane and Rory speak to Stephen Ennis, VP of Technology Acceleration at TD Synnex.

It's Halloween! And what better way to mark the day than discuss one of the biggest horror stories of October?We are of course referring to the AWS outage, which on 20 October took down some incredibly notable websites and caused global disruption. It's the latest, most severe example of why data centers are considered critical infrastructure – and acts as a stark reminder to IT administrators that even big tech can fall foul of technical errors.Of course, October hasn't just been defined by negative stories. At the end of the month, the US Department of Energy has revealed a slew of supercomputer announcements. What are they for, and when can they be expected to be up and running?In this episode, Jane and Rory once again welcome Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to the show to discuss the biggest developments of the month.

Business software is evolving faster than ever before, with advancements such as AI spurring developers to introduce new ways of working and interacting with the software layer.But by and large, business hardware has stayed much the same for the past decade. With a few notable exceptions, the laptops, desktops, and portables we use for work today are simply evolved versions of what we were using in 2015.Is this set to change? And what could the hardware of the future look like?In this episode Rory speaks to Bobby Hellard, ITPro's reviews editor, to explore some of the latest advances in business hardware and ask – is this the best it gets?Read more:The Huawei MateBook Fold Ultimate Edition is a unique take on what it means to be a laptop – but good luck getting it outside of ChinaE-ink is on-trend and I'm all for itReMarkable Paper Pro review: The e-ink color tablet that lets you thinkThe ReMarkable Paper Pro Move gives you e-ink in a pocketable package – but it's not without faultSupernote A5 X2 Manta review: A premium e-ink tablet that's still somewhat SpartanThe Amazon Kindle Scribe is no bullet journal – it is, in fact, a fairly basic E Ink tablet

San Francisco has played host this week to one of the biggest tech conferences of the year, Salesforce Dreamforce. The stalwart event has seamlessly transformed from being all about cloud for the best part of 20 years to being heavily AI focused in the past two years.What can we learn from the pronouncements – and contradictions – being delivered on stage this year?In this episode Jane speaks to Rory, who has been on the ground this week reporting from Salesforce Dreamforce 2025.Highlights"This year is part two of the hard turn into AI agents. Ross wrote a great piece last year on how Agentforce is kind of intended to be Salesforce's Chat GPT moment. So this is Salesforce's dedicated AI agents platform – platform kind of undersells how extensive it is. It's not just like a marketplace for agents, for example. It's kind of a marketplace, slash fabric, slash agent builder.""Slack is more and more becoming the front end for interacting with your Salesforce data. So CRM data from Salesforce will now be directly accessible in Slack. You can pull data through from Tableau, from HR, IT from sales, by just invoking it through agents"Footnotes"Do not sacrifice your entry-level jobs" says UK Salesforce CEOSlack is now the key to Salesforce's agentic AI plansMarc Benioff is bullish about Salesforce's agentic AI leadSalesforce just launched a new catch-all platform to build enterprise AI agents

The rise in popularity of generative AI has been centered largely around cloud AI, with popular chatbots and models accessed via API or dedicated websites. But with the right hardware, AI models can also be run on-device – and PC manufacturers are rushing to fill this niche.AI PCs are quickly becoming the norm for new product lineups, with specialized hardware to run certain AI processes on-device, alongside integrated AI assistant software.But what are the main benefits of this technology to businesses – and how far can we expect AI to transform the PC?In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, to explore the impact of AI on PCs and how it's already being deployed at the edge.What is an NPU and what can they do for your business?Dell says Windows 11 migration is a prime opportunity to overhaul ageing PC fleets – and AI devices are in the spotlightAI PCs will ‘become the norm' by 2029 as enterprise and consumer demand surgesAI PCs are becoming a no-brainer for IT decision makersAI PCs are paying dividends for HP as firm reports sales surge“It's almost mind boggling” – Dell is betting big on AI PCs, but customers are less enthusiastic

As developers have embraced AI to a greater degree, many have hailed the rise of so called vibe coding, in which broad prompts are given to AI models to produce refined code that's actionable and in many cases deployable.But vibe coding also comes with risks, because by its very nature it's more of a hands-off activity. It decreases the degree to which developers can explain what their code is doing, and may lead to them overlooking vulnerabilities. How serious is this risk, and what are the potential benefits of vibe coding in the future?In this episode, Rory speaks to Simon Black, director of evangelism at Mendix, to unpack what vibe coding is and why it comes with such high risks.

In modern businesses, your data is your value. This is not a new concept, but it can be a struggle to understand where to start when it comes to harnessing your data effectively.Unstructured data, which can be generated in massive quantities before it ever produces value, can be especially difficult to handle. But if this task is completed correctly, businesses can future-proof their operations and lay the groundwork for future AI deployments.What solutions are available to turn unstructured data into machine-readable content? And how does this feed into implementing in-demand tools such as AI agents?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Hyland, Rory and John explore how businesses can harness their structured and unstructured data to generate value and enable AI tools.Read more:Structured vs unstructured data managementA quarter of firms still don't have a formal data strategy – and it's hampering AI adoptionData quality worries are holding back AI adoption among manufacturers, despite optimism over its growth potentialAI is causing a data storage crisis for enterprises

The UK has immense AI potential, according to some of the biggest names in tech, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang having described the region as being in a “Goldilocks circumstance” due to its strong AI ecosystem and rich academic history.This month, the US tech ecosystem made its first significant contribution to recognizing this reality with tens of billions invested in the UK ecosystem. Will it pay off? And what does this investment mean in practical terms?In this episode, Rory welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to unpack this bumper investment in the UK tech ecosystem.Read more:Google opens doors on UK data center ahead of Trump visitMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella says UK ties are 'stronger than ever' as tech giant pledges $30bn investmentUK to host largest European GPU cluster under £11 billion Nvidia investment plansIs the ‘British firm' at the heart of Britain's AI plans actually British?UK is going to be ‘AI superpower', says Nvidia boss as he invests £500m‘This is the largest AI ecosystem in the world without its own infrastructure': Jensen Huang thinks the UK has immense AI potential – but it still has a lot of work to do

Identity management in security has been a difficult issue for many years, but the arrival of AI and AI agents has only complicated this picture. In addition to human and machine identities, cybersecurity professionals now have to handle potentially 1000s of AI agent identities across MCP and API endpoints. How can businesses handle all of these complications while maintaining their cybersecurity?In this episode, Rory speaks to Art Gilliland, CEO of cybersecurity firm Delinea, to discuss the thorny issue of identity attacks, and how IT leaders can get a grip on digital identities.

Artificial intelligence has made data more useful and accessible to businesses than ever, but if businesses want to get the most from their data they have to get it in a fit state to use.There's a significant disconnect between IT specialists, CEOs, and other parts of the business when it comes to understanding what this means and how ready they are, however. Research from Informatica found 69% of IT teams rate their data quality as excellent or very good, barely half of business leaders say the same at 51%. The same survey found 57% of business professionals and 30% of IT workers don't know what it means for data to be ‘AI ready'.In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Informatica, we explore what data excellence is, why it's important to companies, and how they can achieve it.

The flow of data is core to businesses all around the world – how much can be transmitted, and at what speed, is a fundamental aspect of IT systems ranging from cloud computing to the frontier of AI models.In data centers, the tech sector is focused on reducing latency, improving bandwidth, and reducing energy consumption to improve AI performance and lower operating costs. But achieving these goals by shifting about current technology can only go so far. Increasingly, firms are looking to cutting-edge technologies and approach such as all-photonics networks, which use photons for all processes including data transfer and storage, rather than electronic components. How close are we to achieving this technology? And how could it benefit every business.In this episode, Rory is joined Chris Wright, SVP global engineering and CTO at Red Hat, to discuss the potential benefits of all-photonics networks and how they could upend current network architecture.

Digital sovereignty is an issue that has been bubbling away in the background of IT for some time but doesn't often see the limelight. In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, we've decided to change that.From sovereign clouds to AI, Jane McCallion and Ross Kelly dig into what digital sovereignty is, how it's being used, and its relationship with AI, cloud, and national data regulations.Highlights“The World Economic Forum describes digital sovereignty as the ability to have control over your own digital destiny andI think that's a really great way of describing it. And when you look at how the EU has positioned itself in recent years, that certainly is the key focus there – it's all about … maintaining control.”“You can't understate the impact of regulatory compliance in the EU – that's the huge driving factor, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Google Cloud, they wouldn't be bending over backwards if they didn't know the risks there. And for individual organizations as well as customers of these providers, they're the ones that are pushing for this because they're conscious of their compliance as well.”Related linksSovereign cloud services are now the “bare minimum” expected by customers, and hyperscalers are scrambling to meet demandWhat the new Microsoft Sovereign Cloud push means for European customersAWS says only Europeans will run its European Sovereign Cloud serviceWhat is a sovereign cloud?SAP wants to take data sovereignty to the next level with new 'on-site' infrastructure optionsHPE launches exclusive sovereign cloud offering for the channel

In a recent episode of the podcast, we discussed the potential for AI to actually replace developer jobs. This is a complicated issue, as one has to consider both the accuracy of outputs – how well LLMs can code – as well as what execs think it can do.Well, AWS CEO Matt Garman has weighed in this month, calling replacing devs with AI “the dumbest thing” he's ever heard.Elsewhere in August, Cisco has engaged in a round of layoffs, despite healthy figures in its recent financial report. What does all this mean for tech jobs at large?In this episode Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explain why tech jobs have become such a hot talking point this August.

This episode was first published on 13/10/23.The role of chief information security officer is among the most important in any firm. CISOs shoulder a heavy burden, with responsibility for protecting their company's data, infrastructure, and associated assets.As the tech stack has grown, so too has the pressure on those in the role. CISOs have to shepherd technologies including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and edge computing.Gartner predicts that nearly half of all IT leaders could leave their roles by 2025, and CISOs are subject to the same talent shortages as the rest of the sector amidst a constant need to maintain oversight of a growing IT estate.In this episode, Jane is joined by Andrew Rose, resident CISO for EMEA at Proofpoint, to expand on how to be an effective CISO, and how the role is changing.For more information:Work-related stress “keeps cyber security professionals awake at night”CISO job description: What does a CISO do?Gartner: Nearly half of cyber leaders to leave roles over mounting stressFighting the ‘always on' culture that's savaging mental health in cyber securityGartner urges CISOs to adopt new forms of trust and risk management for AIWhat is ransomware?What is business email compromise (BEC)?96% of CISOs without necessary support to maintain cyber securitySix generative AI cyber security threats and how to mitigate them

Every now and then, international law enforcement announces a stunning takedown of a cyber crime group.Typically realized in the form of website shutdowns, in which the National Crime Agency logo is emblazoned across the dark web site of would-be hackers, these are powerful PR moves to show that cyber crime doesn't always pay – and the seriousness with which law enforcement approaches these crimes.But the truth is, hackers continue to operate. And sometimes, the very groups that have been billed done and dusted simply reemerge under a new site, new servers, or with a fresh coat of paint.What can we learn from this cycle – and does the industry need to take a different approach?In this episode, Rory is once again joined by Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore some of the most prominent cyber crime gang takedowns we've had recently and what it means for the sector.Read more:BlackSuit ransomware gang taken down in latest law enforcement sting – but members have already formed a new groupCobalt Strike abusers have been dealt a hammer blow: An "aggressive" takedown campaign by Fortra and Microsoft shuttered over 200 malicious domains – and it's cut the misuse of the tool by 80%Hundreds of Cobalt Strike servers have been taken offline in a major law enforcement stingRansomware victims are refusing to play ball with hackers – just 17% of enterprises have paid up so far in 2025, marking an all-time lowAverage ransom payment doubles in a single quarter75% of UK business leaders are willing to risk criminal penalties to pay ransomsCan the UK ban ransomware payments?LockBit could be done and dusted after NCA operation gained access to admin environments, source code, and affiliate infoLockBit ransomware group falls victim to hackers itselfThe Zservers takedown is another big win for law enforcement‘I take pleasure in thinking I can rid society of at least some of them': A cyber vigilante is...

For years, we humanities graduates have been told variations of the following message: you're better off learning to code, because we'll always need developers but writers will go the way of the dodo.But advances in AI since 2022 have put this to the test. While human writers are no doubt being forced to compete with AI-written content, developers are also being asked to outsource more and more of their work to large language models in a bid for improved productivity.While AI-generated code can be quick to produce and efficient to run, it also comes with associated risks such as overlooked vulnerabilities.Are developers actually going to lose their jobs to the machine?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the extent to which developers are already using AI to generate code and the potential risks associated with the practice.

As the old saying goes, it never rains but it pours. And, seeing how we're based in the UK, it would be fitting that the month this most accurately described in 2025 so far has been July.In the past four weeks, two almighty security stories have broken, with far-reaching implications for the tech sector and beyond. First, we learned that the China-backed hacking group Salt Typhoon had critically breached the US National Guard for more than a year – and has potentially gone undetected in other US military networks.Later in the month, Microsoft revealed a major vulnerability in on-premises Sharepoint servers, sounding the alarm for users to patch with urgency – but the days after have seen attack after successful attack carried out.In this episode Jane welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore what happened to make July such a bad month for cybersecurity.Read more:‘All US forces must now assume their networks are compromised' after Salt Typhoon breachFCC orders telcos to sharpen up security after Salt Typhoon chaosUK cyber experts on red alert after Salt Typhoon attacks on US telcosSalt Typhoon hacker group recorded conversations of ‘very senior' US political figures300 days under the radar: How Volt Typhoon eluded detection in the US electric grid for nearly a yearMicrosoft's new SharePoint vulnerability – everything you need to knowNCSC says ‘limited number' of UK firms affected by SharePoint attack as global impact spreadsSharePoint flaw: Microsoft says hackers deploying ransomware

Ransomware payments could soon be a thing of the past in the UK – at least that's the hope of new controls and mandatory reporting requirements to prevent ransomware from inflicting damage on UK businesses.Under government proposals, public bodies and operators of critical national infrastructure would be banned from paying up when they're hit by ransomware – and other businesses would have to be transparent when they decide to cough up the cash.But can we really put a lid on ransomware? And might the new rules have unintended negative consequences?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the UK government's new ransomware payment ban and what it could mean for the sector.Read more:Nearly half of MSPs admit to having a ransomware kittyA ransomware payments ban risks criminalizing victimsThe end of ransomware payments: How businesses fit into the fightBuilding ransomware resilience to avoid paying outUK government officials consider banning ransomware payments

Cyber attacks can feel a layer detached from the real world. Yes, businesses frequently see IP stolen, get frozen out of systems, or have data wiped by malicious actors. But if you haven't got your finger on the pulse, cyber attacks can also fail to register in your day to day.But there are instances where cyber attacks come crashing into the lives of everyday people, and become impossible to ignore: when attackers go after critical infrastructure and operational technology.Breaches and malware attacks at power and water plants, against core supply chain organizations, or against transport networks can all cause catastrophic damage, enormous financial losses – and even lead to deaths.What are some of the groups leading the charge against critical infrastructure, how are groups targeting operational technology – and what can we do to protect that infrastructure we hold most dear?In this episode, Rory speaks with Magpie Graham, technical director of intel and services at Dragos, to discuss attacks on operational technology, critical infrastructure, and the future of large-scale cyber attacks.

As organizations race to train more and more advanced AI models, as well as deploy existing models at scale, an enormous amount of time and money is being invested in expanding AI infrastructure.All around the world, data centers are becoming more and more important, bringing data and computing power together to get the most out of AI workloads.But this is far from a simple process. Without the right data center architecture, assembled with rigorous testing, organizations can't achieve the full speed and performance of AI.In this episode, in association with Keysight Technologies, Jane speaks to Ben Miller, product manager at Keysight Technologies, to learn more about AI infrastructure and how Keysight can optimize it for the best performance possible.Read more:Keysight Introduces AI Data Center Builder to Validate and Optimize Network Architecture and Host DesignWhat is a GPU?

The level to which firms are already using AI varies according to technological maturity, strategic focus, and on an industry by industry basis.But what's clear is that from the smallest to the largest businesses, the landscape is already shifting. We've spoken about AI agents on the podcast before – the promise of autonomous AI activity – but it's only now that businesses are beginning to put more faith in these tools.How is AI already being used to improve business processes? And what will progress in the sector look like?In this episode, Rory speaks to Oliver Parker, VPAI GTM at Google Cloud, to explore some of the practical ways AI is changing organizations from startups to the enterprise.Read more:The UK government is teaming up with Google Cloud to kill public sector legacy techGoogle Cloud announces new data residency flexibility for UK firms, accelerator for regional startupsEnterprises are worried about agentic AI security risks – Gartner says the answer is just adding more AI agentsHow effective are AI agents?IT leaders are less AI-ready than they were a year ago, says Cisco report

This episode was first broadcast on 20 September 2024.When people talk about the environmental impacts of data centers, normally the discussion focuses on energy usage. It's something we've talked about at several points this year already, with reference to growing efforts to house AI workloads in green data centers that run on renewable energy to reduce their carbon impact.But while we can generate nearly limitless amounts of green energy, there is a decidedly finite amount of water in the world – and unfortunately, most data centers need vast amounts of fresh water to cool hardware. Without care, big tech could push already drought-stricken communities to breaking point.In this episode, Jane and Rory unpack the growing problem of data center water use, how operators can tackle this, and how it will exacerbate environmental tensions in the near future.Read more:Data center water consumption is spiraling out of controlGoogle data centre soaks up a third of Oregon city's water supplyWhat is a green data center and why are they attracting big investment?Data center waste energy to heat homes in 'UK-first' schemeOVHcloud just open sourced its data center liquid cooling system — here's whyAWS plans to be 'water positive' by 2030Microsoft lays out water-positive plans for next decade

If you're looking to adopt AI right now, you'll likely have heard the term ‘AI agents'. These systems can complete complex tasks autonomously, without user input.But no doubt some of the audience will be thinking: “haven't we heard this before?” Indeed, robotic process automation and software robots have been available since the turn of the century, completing multi-step, repetitive tasks for businesses without human oversight.How have we evolved from robots to agents? And how can both be used by businesses to boost their productivity?In this episode, in association with UiPath, Jane and Rory are joined by Edward Challis, head of AI strategy at UiPath, to discuss the foundational role robotic process automation has played in getting us to advances such as AI agents, and how both fit together in the modern enterprise.

June has been another busy month for IT and technology news. Whether it's new naming conventions for cybercriminal groups, Britain's big tech potential, and national security concerns over lost government devices, we've got a lot to unpick. ITPro's news editor Ross Kelly and reviews editor Bobby Hellard step in for Jane and Rory this week to chew that fat on some of the biggest IT news stories of June.

AI reasoning models have emerged in the past year as a beacon of hope for large language models (LLMs), with AI developers such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic selling them as the go-to solution for solving the most complex business problems. However, a new research paper by Apple has cast significant doubts on the efficacy of reasoning models, going as far as to suggest that when a problem is too complex, they simply give up. What's going on here? And does it mean reasoning models are fundamentally flawed? In this episode, Rory Bathgate speaks to ITPro's news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to explain some of the report's key findings and what it means for the future of AI development.

Any modern enterprise generates reams of data, which can be difficult to correctly store, process, and use without the right approach.This has become even more important in the face of AI. Before any leader can begin implementing AI across their workflow, they must first ensure they've prepared data at the right scale – and across its entire lifecycle.Data integration, in which data from across a business is combined into a single stream, can be a huge help here. But where do you start with this? And where do open data formats fit into this mix?In this episode, in association with Informatica, Jane and Rory are joined by Eric Ho, senior director product management at Informatica, to discuss data integration at scale and explore the evolution of open table formats for modern data architectures and data warehousing.Read more:Structured vs unstructured data managementOnly a handful of generative AI projects make it into production – here's whyA quarter of firms still don't have a formal data strategy – and it's hampering AI adoptionWhat is Delta Lake in Databricks?Why your business needs data protection policies

In the fast-changing world of cybersecurity, IT leaders have to keep up with evolving threats and new technologies to stay ahead of attackers.With nation states lending a hand to threat groups with more pointed aims than ever before, alongside the double-edged sword of greater AI adoption in cybersecurity, there's never been a more worrying – and exciting – time to specialize in the field.This episode was recorded live at RSAC conference in San Francisco by Scott Becker, director of Webinar programs at ActualTech Media and Alan Liska, threat intelligence analyst and ‘ransomware sommelier' at Recorded Future. Together, the pair discuss the future of the sector, how threats like ransomware compare to emerging concerns such as quantum decryption, and why AI is the topic on everyone's agenda.

We're past the peak cloud hype of the 2010s and now well into the era of cloud maturity. But even as businesses have come to terms with multi-cloud and hybrid cloud models, new considerations have arisen, such as the growing push for cloud sovereignty and regional data center demand.AI has put additional pressure on firms to figure out exactly what they're running in the cloud – as agentic AI drives organizations to consider ‘always on' workloads and whether this is feasible in a public cloud model.How can leaders navigate this changing cloud landscape and what is on the horizon?In this episode, Rory speaks to Alex Grimshaw, CTO at Microsoft Azure UK, to explore what he sees as the key trends for the cloud and how AI will shape it in the coming years.

May has been a busy month for news in the IT world, with cyber attacks hitting retailers across the UK and Microsoft laying off over 800 developers.In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Jane is joined by news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to discuss three of the most significant news stories of the past month and wish Java a happy 30th birthday.Highlights“A significant portion of [the redundancies] are in Washington state, in the US, the heartland of Microsoft headquarters. It comes at quite an interesting period for Microsoft – they've been performing well, they're really bullish on their AI investments at the moment. But again, another round of layoffs and it must be really demoralizing for people not only at Microsoft … but across the tech industry to see this still continuing.”“[For] developers and engineers specifically, I think the writing has been on the wall. We've spoken about this a couple of times over the last year, when you look at big figures in the tech industry like Marc Benioff specifically on agentic AI talking about the fact that they might not have to hire any engineers in the second half of 2025 … you have to wonder where they're all going to go.”“Last week, on the 21st M&S said hackers were able to essentially access systems by social engineering techniques at a third party contractor, [which] allowed them to circumvent M&S defenses and caused an absolute disaster, and again, it underlines the dangers of an increasingly interconnected software supply chain.”“[Java's] a programming language that's had remarkable longevity, still very popular. We covered something on this last year around the fact that … its popularity is still there very much. It's having somewhat of a renaissance, so to speak, in terms of organizations really scrambling to get Java developers.”FootnotesMicrosoft workers face a fresh round of layoffs – here's who could be impactedMicrosoft expects 1.3 billion AI agents to be in operation by 2028 – here's how it plans to get them working together‘Developers will need to adapt': Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reveals the scale of AI-generated code useAgentic AI is coming for customer service jobsCrowdStrike layoffs to hit 500 staff as firm targets strategic AI shiftMore than a third of UK tech leaders admit they've cut staff in favor of AI – but now they regret making hasty redundanciesWhy DragonForce is growing in prominence – with retailer attacks boosting its reputation

Dell Technologies World has just come to a close in Las Vegas and there is no doubt that the company is – in its own words “all in on AI”. From laptops to services, data center infrastructure and partnerships, everything is being led by AI.What this means in practice for IT decision makers and business leaders can sometimes be hard to divine, however. This week, Jane sits down with John Roese, chief technology officer and chief AI officer at Dell Technologies, to dig into the practical effects of this, from how businesses will think about endpoints and devices to the potential end of HCI.Read more:Dell Technologies World 2025 live – all latest news and updates live from the Venetian Conference Center, Las VegasDell brings new cybersecurity features to PowerStore, Data Domain, and PowerScale product linesMichael Dell talks up the power of human and AI collaboration – but not everyone's singing the same tuneDell Technologies Global Partner Summit 2025 – all the news and updates live from Las VegasJensen Huang joins Dell Technologies World virtually to talk servers and AI factoriesNew Dell AI Factory partners debuted at Dell Technologies World 2025Dell Technologies wants to cut infrastructure costs – here's how it plans to do itDell grows AI laptop line with Dell Pro Max Plus at Dell Technologies World 2025

This episode was first broadcast on 22 March 2024.As technological innovations happen, it can be easy to forget that even the most complex systems rely on large networks of basic infrastructure to operate. At the most fundamental level, all tech products rely on effective data storage But this is easier said than done. Each byte of data has to be stored somewhere, on a rack, disk, tape, or flash device. As the world embraces hardware and software that creates data at an even faster rate, businesses will be forced to push the frontiers of data storage and evaluate their data management strategies.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Tom Coughlin, president and CEO of the IEEE, to learn more about how data storage will continue to evolve and what organizations can do to keep up with innovation in the space.Read more:​​​​Best SSDs 2023: The top NVMe and SATA drives around10 things to consider when buying an external hard disk-based storage deviceWhat is machine learning and why is it important?What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?Who owns the data used to train AI?How to choose the right storage medium for your organization's backup strategyThree keys to successful data managementStructured vs unstructured data management5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage providerHow close is glass data storage to scaled enterprise use?