WekaIO's President sees the company as the Tesla of storage suppliers, and says OEM Hitachi Vantara is making inroads into the Dell EMC Isilon customer base as Weka crosses the chasm between it and general enterprise use. WekaIO's scalable, parallel and high-performance filesystem software has made its name in high-performance computing and become popular in enterprises that have HPC use cases -- such as AI, machine learning, and genomics. It's now set to cross over into more general enterprise file workloads. BMW motorcycle-riding Jonathan Martin became WekaIO's President this month. He had previously been the Chief Marketing Officer at Hitachi Vantara, serving from March 2019 to May 2021.

Of course, each business will be at a different stage of adoption. Some will have only just started to dabble in AI-enabled services, like chatbots or Robotic Process Automation. But many midsized or large enterprise customers are already using AI as an engine to power transformation, leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning techniques to optimise their operations and refresh their business model. For those customers, the way they're using data is fundamentally changing and therefore so too must the way they store and manage it. And for channel partners, that means the way they talk to customers about data storage is going to have to change in step.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you read the words'artificial intelligence'? Do you think of an algorithm that could solve climate change, or of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey? My point is: AI has become a loaded term, as has data. People are weary, even fearful, of new technology – but then, that's nothing new. According to one study, 47% of people believe the rate of technological innovation is happening too fast.

Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure and solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, is applying new artificial intelligence technologies to help airlines and airports solve some of their greatest challenges. The Silicon Valley-based company's technology aims to eliminate travel delays caused by congestion at check-in, security, retail and aircraft boarding areas. Hitachi Vantara has developed solutions that combine computer vision with video analytics and machine learning to help airline and airport staff identify when and where congestion and delays are occurring and take action to address them. The solution is already being piloted by a major US airline, and Hitachi Vantara hopes to implement the technology at more US airports in time for the 2020 holiday season. The Lumada Video Insights solution uses lidar to produce a 3D visual model of the airport and the movement of travelers, equipment and luggage in real time.

Integrating DataOps, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Hitachi Vantara is touting big data technology in a Tuesday announcement of its Lumada Manufacturing Insights, a suite of Industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT) products. DataOps, which is an "automated, process-oriented methodology, used by analytic and data teams," according to a Wikipedia article, appears to be a major emphasis for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Hitachi, Ltd. "We know DataOps," pops out in large white letters on the first page of the company Web site. After asking if the Web visitor knows about the methodology, the site proclaims: "You know there's value in your data. But you've only scratched the surface. To get the full value out of your data, you need to get the right data to the right place at the right time. DataOps helps you do that."

Sprint (NYSE: S) today announced the launch of Curiosity Smart Video Analytics. The highly adaptable solution delivers automated alerts and advanced video analytics technology, helping to make smarter decisions, respond faster to potential emergencies, and improve efficiency while keeping people and property safe. "Together with technologies from Hitachi Vantara and Ericsson, our Curiosity Smart Video Analytics technology is enabling the transformation of critical security operations – from government to enterprises – with the power of AI and IoT to generate intelligence that can be acted upon faster and with more accuracy," said Ivo Rook, senior vice president of IoT and product development at Sprint. "According to research, humans miss out on more than 90 percent of video activities after manual monitoring. We're automating workflow and enabling the visualization of distinct events with unprecedented precision to improve public safety and overall security for a variety of entities."

The team here at 4 Roads are pleased to announce we have been shortlisted for an award by BIMA in the Technology Above £70k category for our work with Hitachi Vantara on the development of an AR/AI Interactive Digital Display. Hitachi Vantara is part of the Hitachi Group, the 38th biggest business in the world. Every year, Hitachi Vantara runs a conference where it demonstrates to customers and partners what the next 12 months will hold. Ordinarily, Hitachi Vantara would ship and physically erect hardware racks to demonstrate its new solutions and their possible configurations at the conference. However, it wanted a new way to showcase its entire portfolio that would surprise and delight delegates.

FPGAs and object storage systems. IoT edge computing and converged server infrastructure. It would be a big understatement to say that Hitachi Vantara has a lot going on, but it also might be why the company is so interesting to watch, and why you might want to keep an eye on it, too. Last week, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese industrial giant swung through San Diego, California, where it hosted its Hitachi NEXT 2018 user conference. The show served as the one-year anniversary of the creation of Hitachi Vantara, which emerged from Hitachi Data Systems in late 2017 (you'll remember that it bought big data analytics firm Pentaho in 2015).

Organizations around the globe understand the importance of IoT. In fact, in a recent Forbes Insights/Hitachi survey of more than 500 executives worldwide, over 90% said IoT will be important to the future of their business. What's more, of all emerging technologies, executives said IoT would be the most critical, ranking it above others like artificial intelligence and robotics. While executives acknowledge the importance of IoT, 49% remain in the early stages of planning or are only operating pilot programs. While executives acknowledge the importance of IoT, 49% remain in the early stages of planning or are only operating pilot programs.

Information technology in 2018 is expected to be more exciting as technologies that were just a concept or in the trial stages in the past years will become a reality, according to technology companies. Commentaries submitted by technology companies had five common predictions related to artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, cloud computing, and IT security. According to IDC, revenue growth from information-based products will double the rest of the product and services portfolio for a third of Fortune 500 companies by the end of 2017. "AI became mainstream with consumer products like Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, and Hitachi believes that it is the collaboration of AI and humans that will bring real benefits to society," said Hitachi Vantara's Hubert Yoshida, chief technology officer, and Russell Skingsley, chief technology officer of Asia Pacific. "Through tools like Pentaho Data Integration, our aim is to democratize the data engineering and data science process to make Machine Intelligence – a combination of Machine Learning and AI – more accessible to a wider variety of developers and engineers. Zakir Ahmed, General Manager of Asia at Oracle NetSuite, notes that to date, AI has mostly been following simple rules. If A B then C else D. This proved to be sufficient for powering devices like smart fridges or cars. On the downside, this predictability also meant that people could easily outsmart AI, often with dire consequences. "Thankfully, in 2018 we will reach a pivoting point, where deep learning will fast become an integral component of AI," said Ahmed, noting that these new intelligent AI 2.0 systems will learn, suggest and automate processes by analysing business patterns and behaviours. "For example, banks can provide tailored financial services based on their customers' investment portfolio and risk appetite.