International Women’s Day is here, a time for all those who care about women’s equality to celebrate the achievements of women both contemporary and historical and to focus on gender equality in our society. The tech sector still has a sizable gender divide, with only around one quarter of all tech roles held by women. Tech leaders need to enter into open dialogue over how to make tech careers more attractive to women and to empower women within their workforce. In this episode, Rory speaks to E...
Mar 07, 2025•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast February is the shortest month of the year – but that hasn’t stopped this month from being packed full of dramatic tech news. Microsoft has made waves with Majorana 1, a first of its kind quantum chip that the tech giant says could open the door to usable quantum computers in years, not decades as previously thought. Elsewhere this month, Sam Altman made a series of public rebukes of Elon Musk, following an offer by a Musk-led consortium to purchase OpenAI for over $97 billion. And could the tec...
Feb 28, 2025•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The cybersecurity landscape gets more complicated every year, with emerging technologies such as AI and the shifting geopolitical landscape bringing extra chaos to any CISO’s desk. Though automated defense systems are a welcome feather in cap for any company, it’s not just the good guys who have access to the latest tools. Off-the-shelf frameworks to launch attacks are becoming more common and businesses can’t rely on any single service to be a silver bullet. What are the individual forces at pl...
Feb 21, 2025•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Years after first identifying the potential risks of AI systems, world leaders are having to balance concerns with an acknowledgment of the gains achievable through certain AI systems and nowhere is this more true than the EU. The Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris has seen a number of high-profile announcements made on EU AI investments, on both a continental and regional basis. But it’s also highlighted the distance the EU has yet to go for true international AI competition – up ag...
Feb 14, 2025•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast As the dust settles on DeepSeek, we’ve had the chance to see who walked away from the impact it had on the stock market unscathed. Apple and Meta did not undergo the same rapid stock shocks as Nvidia, Microsoft, and others in the immediate aftermath of the DeepSeek R1 launch – the latter has actually seen a healthy surge in the past few weeks. Why is this? And who actually wins thanks to DeepSeek? In this episode, Rory speaks once again to ITPro’s news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to ana...
Feb 07, 2025•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every business has a bright future in the cloud, which is scalable and flexible to suit the needs of the modern enterprise. But rapid cloud adoption and data protection regulations, as well as emerging new regulations tied to AI, have been set on a collision course in recent years, with enterprises held to stringent regional laws that oversee how sensitive data can cross borders. One solution to this problem is sovereign cloud. But how do sovereign clouds actually work and how can firms such as ...
Jan 31, 2025•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen, so the saying goes, and that is certainly true of the final week of January 2025 with the widespread impact of DeepSeek. To say the Chinese large language model has caused an upset in the market would be an understatement. Within days of its release, it wiped more than a trillion dollars off the US stock market, and sent big tech into a public spiral. But where did DeepSeek come from? And what does it mean for the...
Jan 31, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode was first published 12 July 2024. Every business will, at some point, be impacted by cyber attacks. Companies task security teams to prepare the first line of defense against cyber attacks, and most have plans in place for the damage they leave behind – be it data loss, encryption by ransomware operators, or large-scale service disruptions. But something that often goes unremarked upon in the wake of cyber attacks is the psychological, human effects of cyber attacks. When the dust s...
Jan 24, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Consumer Electronics Show has blown through Las Vegas, bringing – as always – a flurry of futuristic tech launches, promises, and some prototypes that will never see the light of day. But among the giant TVs and robotaxis, there were also some big moments for business tech. From the dependable rollouts of AI PCs to novel – and more powerful – devices, a number of announcements will have caught the eye of business leaders. In this episode, Jane and Rory talk to ITPro’s reviews editor Bobby He...
Jan 17, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 g...
Jan 10, 2025•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast January is a time for planning, goal-setting, and looking to the future and here on the ITPro Podcast things are no different. While there are sometimes unexpected developments – take ChatGPT in 2022, for example – it’s nevertheless possible to tease out trends from the year gone by that can influence the new one. For this new year’s edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory are joined by Dr John Honchell, IT industry analyst at Future B2B, to unpick the top trends from this year that will shape 202...
Jan 03, 2025•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's now a Christmas tradition on the ITPro Podcast to look back at trends that were expected to dominate the year but then fizzled out. What predictions have gone the way of flying cars and the Metaverse? Which are delayed, perhaps permanently? In this episode, Jane is joined by Bobby Hellard, ITPro’s reviews editor, and Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to discuss three of the trends that failed to materialise this year: Intel’s AI dominance, a nuclear solution to data center energ...
Dec 27, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the last week before Christmas but while everyone else may be winding up for the festive season, the news never sleeps. In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Jane is joined by news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to look back at some of the biggest stories from the month of December. Included in this episode: The US charges 14 members of a North Korean IT worker scam Ireland has become a ‘data dumping ground’, says Friends of the Earth Is virtual reality the next frontier in software develop...
Dec 20, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Google announced that it had made a major step forward in quantum computing with its new quantum chip Willow. The AI and search giant stated that it had successfully completed calculations that would previously have been impossible using its new piece of hardware. In doing so, Google has taken shots at existing supercomputer infrastructure and driven excited chatter on social media – as well as worried posts about how the end of encryption is just around the corner. But how significan...
Dec 13, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast If one company can be said to have walked away the winner of the generative AI boom of the past few years, it’s OpenAI. The startup, which was founded as a non-profit with a mission to drive progress toward artificial general intelligence – aka a conscious machine – has led the pack of generative AI developers since it launched ChatGPT in 2022 and quickly became a household name. But in recent months, more and more questions have been raised about the viability of OpenAI in the long term. As som...
Dec 06, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast November has come to a close, and the depths of winter are just around the corner. But that doesn’t mean events in tech are slowing down at all – nor that attackers are taking an early Christmas break. In the past month, we’ve seen a slew of cyber incidents, ranging from high-profile exploits of Microsoft vulnerabilities to a ransomware attack on a supply chain software company integral to high-street brands. Elsewhere, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has hailed the strides his company has made with us...
Nov 29, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast HPE’s annual European conference took place this week in Barcelona and the company’s focus is still firmly on AI. This is bolstered by its supercomputing credentials – El Capitan, the latest supercomputer to come online in the US, was awarded the title of fastest supercomputer just a day before the conference kicked off. In this episode, Jane sits down with Gerald Kleyn, vice president of customer solutions for HPC and AI at Hewlett Packard Enterprise at HPE Discover Barcelona 2024 to discuss wh...
Nov 22, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to be secure in your sector? While every organization has its own cyber security policies, numerous pieces of legislation also set out minimum requirements for security that firms must reach or else be held accountable through fines. The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act – which came into force in 2023 and applies from 17 January 2025 – aims to do just this for financial entities within the region. But what does being DORA-ready mean in practice? And how will the legislat...
Nov 15, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's that time of year when the clocks change and the nights draw in, the familiar starts to take on a new aspect as the shadows lengthen, and in the world of IT, trends that have been taken for granted are also starting to take on a new shape. As countries battle productivity problems, can they replicate the success of Iceland's four-day working week? Elsewhere, developers have started to question just how useful AI coding tools really are, and OpenAI has had another successful funding round – ...
Nov 08, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s All Hallows’ Day, and we’ve still got Halloween on the brain. It’s that time of year when we tell the scariest stories we can – and for those in tech, there are none scarier than that of major cybersecurity incidents. In this episode, Rory and Jane talk to Solomon Klappholz , ITPro’s cybersecurity reporter, about some of the spookiest cyber incidents of 2024 and what businesses can learn from these ghoulish tales. Footnotes CrowdStrike CEO confirms update "defect" as the source of mass disr...
Nov 01, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every organization has to prepare for the future to the best extent possible, whether that means modernizing one’s infrastructure or adopting cutting-edge technologies like AI. In every sector, leaders are faced with the task of keeping their business up-to-date and competitive by integrating AI workloads within their environment. But getting a project underway and ensuring it delivers sufficient ROI can be a challenge. In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Dell Techn...
Oct 30, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode was first broadcast 4 August 2023. As the economy has become increasingly dependent on data, companies have sought to make more profit from mining user actions such as through loyalty schemes or social media interactions. But individual rights also have to be respected, and businesses have to follow strict data protection procedures. Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) are one method for companies to securely search through data to derive value – for example, a bank could search t...
Oct 25, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s not every day that cybersecurity marketing professionals get to speak to one another, compare notes, and come up with innovative solutions for getting their voices heard. Despite being a cornerstone of the tech industry, cybersecurity is in need of constant marketing on its behalf. Developers need individuals willing to enter the boardroom to advocate for their product and cybersecurity marketers have to arm themselves with the right storytelling skills to get their message across. The Cybe...
Oct 18, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast To fully embrace the benefits of the cloud, businesses have to distribute existing workloads across hybrid and/or multi-cloud environments. While the benefits of this digital transformation are undeniable, it’s not a process without its challenges. This can be particularly true for firms with sprawling environments, perhaps as the result of mergers and acquisitions over the years, or those looking to get data in the right shape to be used for machine learning or AI. How can businesses reconcile ...
Oct 11, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to the companies leading the way in AI development, Salesforce might not be the first name that springs to mind. The veteran CRM provider launched its flagship ‘Einstein’ AI in 2016, which relied on traditional machine learning methods to improve customer experience, but hasn’t sought to go head-to-head with major AI developers. With several years of generative AI hype at its back, the company is trying to carve a out a place for itself as the purveyor of trusted AI tools that live...
Oct 04, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast How much do you know about open banking? The practice allows companies to share choice information with third parties for the benefit of businesses, but it has yet to be taken up by every bank on the market. NatWest is a frontrunner in this regard. Its Payit service allows businesses to process customer payments quickly and easily, all alongside the ability to securely share customer data with added data insights But how does Payit work? And what are its standout benefits? In this special editio...
Oct 02, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Energy usage in data centers is an increasingly Hot Topic, particularly with AI applications becoming more popular and widely used. While some organizations have talked up their commitment to renewables, such as solar or hydro, others have this month started to discuss a different, perhaps more controversial low carbon path. Elsewhere, a new rebellion against home working is beginning – and this time it's not CEOs or ministers leading the charge. In this episode, Jane is once again joined by Ros...
Sep 27, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 am...
Sep 20, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s the biggest cybersecurity threat your business faces right now? Hopefully, an answer springs to mind, along with a list of the solutions you have in place to keep attackers at bay. But ask yourself this: do your employees know? And if the worst did happen, how confident are you that your workforce would know exactly how to respond? Cybersecurity education and training is one of the cornerstones of any enterprise security strategy, keeping companies looped in on the latest attack methods a...
Sep 17, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cybersecurity teams face a constant battle of ensuring their company is shored up in the right places. Facing down increasingly sophisticated and persistent threat actors, there’s every reason to focus on one’s perimeter to shield oneself against external threats. But insider threats – attacks carried out from within an organization’s environment – must also be part of any business’s security strategy. When the call is coming from inside the house, either via a hacker who’s secretly gained acces...
Sep 13, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
