Green computing: IT sustainability can help to deliver business growth

The trickbot virus has infected millions of computers worldwide – Copyright AFP Yuichi YAMAZAKI

As we approach the end of the year, SGH CEO Mark Adams, who has led the company to consistent growth since assuming the role in 2020—despite a pandemic and the resulting economic downturn – sees AI as being the technology that businesses most need to become familiar with into 2024.

Adams explains to Digital Journal why AI at scale, IT sustainability and the economic outlook are each fundamental to the coming year.

Sustainable IT

Sustainable IT covers the manufacturing, use, management and disposal of information technology in a way that minimises its impact on the environment.

On the subject of IT sustainability, Adams says: “In 2024, sustainability will increase its prominence and become a core consideration for IT solutions, with companies intensifying their focus on energy-efficient data centres, eco-friendly hardware, and carbon-neutral cloud services. What was once a mere aspiration will now become a non-negotiable business imperative, driven not only by environmental consciousness but also by the growing expectation from consumers and stakeholders. 2024 will serve as the inflection point in the pursuit of these ambitious sustainability objectives and will set the stage for a greener and more sustainable IT landscape in the coming year and beyond.”

AI @ Scale

This is built around ensuring companies have correctly planned AI implementation and integration to allow them to build effective models.

Delivering AI is something many firms needs to achieve. If 2023 was about learning the technology, 2024 is all about delivery. Adams predicts: ““As the enterprise AI imperative only gains momentum in 2024, many organizations in highly regulated industries will find the public cloud limiting or prohibitive for AI and ML agendas, and we will see a surge in data repatriation and management.”

In terms of specifics, Adams continues: “These regulated industries (such as financial services, healthcare, etc.) must consider data sovereignty and security policies when devising their AI/ML workloads and may require hybrid cloud or on-prem deployments. In addition, for high performance workloads, latency from cloud-based applications just won’t be acceptable. For accelerating time-to-value, many will present opportunity to partners experienced in designing, building, deploying, and managing enterprise solutions (inclusive of software, compute/GPU, data technologies, and infrastructure) which support advanced workloads with optimal performance and stability at scale.”

Economic Headwinds

Whatever technology is introduced, things can become derailed through economic factors outside of the control of the firm. To prepare for this possibility, Adams suggests: “Navigating an unpredictable global economy poses some challenges. Although there are concerns with high-interest rates and US debt, GDP remains resilient. This environment underscores the importance of businesses investing in their IT strategies, as investments into AI capabilities continue. Companies who focus on short term fundamentals while creating opportunities to invest for the long term will win!”