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Microsoft, AWS & Oracle: Why Big Tech is Investing in Japan – Technology Magazine

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AWS-commissioned research by AlphaBeta shows that cloud and cybersecurity skills will be the top two most sought-after digital skills by Japanese employers by 2025. AWS has trained over 400,000 individuals in Japan with cloud skills since 2017, providing them with in-demand cloud skills and best practices to help learners and organisations innovate in the cloud.

For over a decade, AWS has been committed to helping our Japanese customers access the latest cutting-edge technology, build digital solutions on highly resilient and secure cloud infrastructure, and adapt their businesses to maintain an edge in todays complex economic environment, said Tadao Nagasaki, President of AWS in Japan. Our investment into cloud infrastructure generates a ripple effect across the Japanese industries including the public and government sectors. It will help more Japanese organisations with the ability to access and adopt new, emerging and transformational digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are committed to and excited about the future of Japans digital economy.

Microsoft has also announced plans to invest in Japan over the next two years, aiming to increase hyperscale cloud computing and AI opportunities.

The company aims to do this by expanding its existing digital skills programmes with the goal of providing AI skills to more than three million people over the next three years. This follows a recent similar commitment to teach millions in India about AI by 2025.

Microsoft also plans to open its first Microsoft Research Asia lab and states it seeks to deepen its cybersecurity collaborations with the government of Japan.

The US$2.9bn commitment is Microsofts largest investment into Japan in the 46 years it has been present in the country. With this financial boost, Microsoft will be able to provide more advanced computing resources in Japan, including the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) to speed up AI workloads.

We are honoured to contribute to Japan and its future with our largest investment to date, technology and knowledge, says Miki Tsusaka, President of Microsoft Japan. In collaboration with our partners, Microsoft Japan is fully committed to supporting the people and organisations of Japan to solve social problems and achieve more.

Google Cloud has announced a US$1bn investment in digital connectivity to Japan, including the expansion of the Pacific Connect initiative and delivery of two new subsea cables, aimed at creating new fibre-optic routes between the continental United States and Japan in support of Googles Japan Digitization Initiative, while improving the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity between the US, Japan, and multiple Pacific Island countries and territories.

Subsea cables can bring economic and productivity gains to the places where they land. For example, in Japan, studies estimate Google network infrastructure investments drove an additional US$400m in GDP in the previous decade. With increased access to digital services, more people can take advantage of skill development and career opportunities, while businesses and public sector organisations can better serve their customers and constituents.

Were excited about the long-term benefits that these latest Pacific initiatives will bring to people, our users, and our customers, wrote Brian Quigley VP of Global Network Infrastructure at Google Cloud in an announcement. Well continue to share more as we continue working with partners to reduce the digital divide across the Pacific.

OpenAI meanwhile recently announced its first office in Asia, together with the release of a GPT-4 custom model optimised for the Japanese language.

The AI startup said it is providing local businesses with early access to a GPT-4 custom model specifically optimised for the Japanese language, offering improved performance in translating and summarising Japanese text and operating up to three times faster than its predecessor.

We are committed to collaborating with the Japanese government, local businesses, and research institutions to develop safe AI tools that serve Japans unique needs and to unlock new opportunities, the company said in an announcement blog. We chose Tokyo as our first Asian office for its global leadership in technology, culture of service, and a community that embraces innovation.

OpenAI says it is working with leading businesses like Daikin, Rakuten, and TOYOTA Connected who are using ChatGPT Enterprise to automate complex business processes, assist in data analysis and optimise internal reporting.

Were excited to be in Japan which has a rich history of people and technology coming together to do more, said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. We believe AI will accelerate work by empowering people to be more creative and productive, while also delivering broad value to current and new industries that have yet to be imagined.

In April Oracle Corporation Japan announced that it plans to invest more than US$8bn over the next 10 years to meet the growing demand for cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan. The investment will grow Oracle Cloud Infrastructures (OCI) footprint across Japan. In addition, to help customers and partners address the digital sovereignty requirements in Japan, Oracle will significantly expand its operations and support engineering teams with Japan-based personnel.

Oracle plans to increase local customer support of its public cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka and its local operations teams for Oracle Alloy and OCI Dedicated Region. This will enable governments and businesses across Japan to continue to move their mission-critical workloads to the Oracle Cloud and embrace sovereign AI solutions.

We are dedicated to meeting our customers and partners where they are in their cloud journey, said Toshimitsu Misawa, member of the board, corporate executive officer and President of Oracle Corporation Japan. By growing our cloud footprint and providing a team to support sovereign operations in Japan, we are giving our customers and partners the opportunity to innovate with AI and other cloud services while supporting their regulatory and sovereignty requirements.

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Microsoft, AWS & Oracle: Why Big Tech is Investing in Japan - Technology Magazine

GE Aerospace to invest $22M locally as part of increased production goals – Port City Daily

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General Electric Aerospace will make a $22 million investment to its Wilmington facility. (Port City Daily/File)

WILMINGTON General Electric Aerospace will make a $650 million investment in its manufacturing facilities and supply chain in 2024, with multi-millions coming to its local facility on Castle Hayne Road.

READ MORE: A big damn announcement: GE Hitachi to expand staff by 500, add joint-venture fuel plant

The money will fund increased production to support its commercial and defense customers. A spokesperson for GE Aerospace said its to help ramp up demand after the pandemic for customers looking for new, efficient engineswith greater range and capabilities.

GE Aerospace works toward modernizing jet and turboprop engines and other sustainable systems for commercial, military, business and general aviation aircraft. This includes LEAP engine production, production preparation for the GE9X, and supporting U.S. military and its allies.

Roughly $400 million in the investment strategy will be put toward new machines, inspection equipment, building upgrades, and new test cells and safety enhancements at 22 of its facilities in 14 states.

The $22 million infused into Wilmington will be for machines and specialized tooling to increase capacity. It also will help with facility updates.

These investments allow us to build on the strong 40-year history we have here in Wilmington to meet our customers needs and ensure a bright future for GE Aerospace as we become an independent company, Jackson Autry, site leader for GE Aerospace Wilmington, said in a press release.

GE announced three years ago it would split into three companies, to center on aerospace, healthcare and energy. The aerospace division is to be finalized this spring.

In addition to aerospace, in Wilmington GE has fuel manufacturing and training facilities. The county and city approved incentives for its energy sector in 2022, signing off on $1.9 million, with the county forking over $1.25 million and the city contributing $250,000, to be paid over five years. The money was to be used for hiring staff for the rollout of GE Hitachis small nuclear reactor and building a new facility to produce fuel for a different reactor.

GE Aerospace is investing $46 million overall in North Carolina, with $11 million to go to Asheville, $7 million in Durham and $5 million in West Jefferson.

Alabama, Massachusetts, and Ohio are also cumulatively set to receive more than $200 million. Internationally, the company is investing another $100 million at facilities in in North America, India and Europe.

An additional $100 million will go to supplier partners based in the United States that make castings and forgings and early-stage parts for commercial and military engines.

In addition to investments, GE Aerospace is hiring more than 1,000 employees for external positions at its U.S. factories. Locally, its looking to hire 20 more people, with the facilitys job openings here.

These investments are part of the next chapter for GE Aerospace, supporting cutting-edge equipment and safety enhancements that will help us meet our customers growing needs, chairman and CEO, H. Lawrence Culp Jr. wrote in a press release.

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GE Aerospace to invest $22M locally as part of increased production goals - Port City Daily

GE Aerospace in Huntsville to receive $16.8M for upgrades – WZDX

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$650 million total will be invested in manufacturing facilities and supply chains to increase production and quality for customers.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. GE Aerospace has plans to invest $650 million in its manufacturing facilities and supply chain this year. This move aims to ramp up production and enhance quality to better serve its commercial and defense customers. Of the $650 million investment, the Huntsville location is set to receive a significant boost. With an allocation of $16.8 million, the site will see upgrades in machinery for the production of narrowbody and widebody aircraft engines, as well as investments in quality testing equipment and facility enhancements.

As GE Aerospace prepares to become a standalone company this spring, we are making significant investments in the future of flight and in the dozens of communities and supplier partners helping us build it, said H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., Chairman and CEO of GE and CEO of GE Aerospace. These investments are part of the next chapter for GE Aerospace, supporting cutting-edge equipment and safety enhancements that will help us meet our customers growing needs.

Another Alabama site is set for upgrades with the investment. The Auburn facility will also get enhancements in manufacturing technology. This $54 million investment will introduce additional 3D printing machines and tooling to augment the production of military rotorcraft engine components, as well as engines for narrowbody and widebody commercial aircraft. It is expected to not only improve production but also create job opportunities.

This is an investment in the future of manufacturing, ensuring we can continue producing high-quality, cutting-edge engines and services while meeting customer demand,said Mike Kauffman, GE Aerospace Supply Chain Vice President.

The funds being sent to Huntsville is part of a larger investment plan that includes a plan for new machines, inspection equipment, building upgrades, and safety enhancements across GE Aerospace facilities nationwide.

"Materials changing the future of aviation start right here. GE Aerospace is investing significantly in Huntsville to produce more critical materials used in commercial and military engines and to build a strong future as we become a independent company," said Stephen French, site leader for GE Aerospace Huntsville.

In addition to these investments, GE Aerospace is actively recruiting over 1,000 employees for open positions at its U.S. factories.

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GE Aerospace in Huntsville to receive $16.8M for upgrades - WZDX

Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI – The Official Microsoft Blog – Microsoft

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AI is redefining digital transformation for every industry, including telecommunications. Every operators AI journey will be distinct. But each AI journey requires cloud-native transformation, which provides the foundation for any organization to harness the full potential of AI, driving innovation, efficiency and business value.

This new era of AI will create incredible economic growth and represent a profound shift as a percentage impact on global GDP, which is just over $100 trillion. So, when we look at the potential value driven by this next generation of AI technology, we may see a boost to global GDP of an additional $7 trillion to $10 trillion.

Embracing AI will help operators unlock new revenue streams, deliver superior customer experiences and pioneer future innovations for growth.

Operators can now leverage cloud services that are adaptive, purpose-built for telecommunications and span from near edge on-premises environments to the far edges of Earth and space to monetize investments, modernize networks, elevate customer experiences and streamline business operations with AI.

Our aim is to be the most trusted co-innovation partner for the telecommunications industry. We want to help accelerate telco transformation and empower operators to succeed in the era of AI, which is why we are committed to working with operators, enterprises and developers on the future cloud.

At MWC in Barcelona this week, we are announcing updates to our Azure for Operators portfolio to help operators seize the opportunity ahead in a cloud- and AI-native future.

AI opens new growth opportunities for operators. The biggest potential is that operators, as they embrace this new era of cloud and AI, can also help their customers in their own transformation.

For example, spam calls and malicious activities are a well-known menace and are growing exponentially, and often impact the most vulnerable members of society. Besides the annoyance, the direct cost of those calls adds up. For example, in the United States, FTC data for 2023 shows $850 million in reported fraud losses stemming from scam calls.

Today, we are announcing the public preview of Azure Operator Call Protection, a new service that uses AI to help protect consumers from scam calls. The service uses real-time analysis of voice content, alerting consumers who opt into the service when there is suspicious in-call activity. Azure Operator Call Protection works on any endpoint, mobile or landline, and it works entirely through the network without needing any app installation.

In the U.K., BT Group is trialing Azure Operator Call Protection to identify, educate and protect their customers from potential fraud, making it harder for bad actors to take advantage of their customers.

We are also announcing the public preview of Azure Programmable Connectivity (APC), which provides a unified, standard interface across operators networks. APC provides seamless access to Open Gateway for developers to create cloud and edge-native applications that interact with the intelligence of the network. APC also empowers operators to commercialize their network APIs and simplifies their access for developers and is available in the Azure Marketplace.

AI opens incredible opportunities to modernize network operations, providing new levels of real-time insights, intelligence and automation. Operators, such as Three UK, are already using Azure Operator Insights to eliminate data silos and deliver actionable business insights by enabling the collection and analysis of massive quantities of network data gathered from complex multi-vendor network functions. Designed for operator-specific workloads, operators tackle complex scenarios with Azure Operator Insights, such as understanding the health of their networks and the quality of their subscribers experiences.

Azure Operator Insights uses a modern data mesh architecture for dividing complex domains into manageable sub-domains called data products. These data products integrate large datasets from different sources and vendors to provide data visibility from disaggregated networks for comprehensive analytical and business insights. Using this data product factory capability, operators, network equipment providers and solution integrators can create unique data products for one customer or published to the Azure Marketplace for many customers to use.

Today, we are also announcing the limited preview of Copilot in Azure Operator Insights, a groundbreaking, operator-focused, generative AI capability helping operators move from reactive to proactive and predictive in tangible ways. Engineers use the Copilot to interact with network insights using natural language and receive simple explanations of what the data means and possible actions to take, resolving network issues quickly and accurately, ultimately improving customer satisfaction.

Copilot in Azure Operator Insights is delivering AI-infused insights to drive network efficiency for customers like Three UK and participating partners including Amdocs, Accenture and BMC Remedy. Three UK is using Copilot in Azure Operator Insights to unlock actionable intelligence on network health and customer experience quality of service, a process that previously took weeks or months to assess, is now possible to perform in minutes.

Additionally, with our next-generation hybrid cloud platform, Azure Operator Nexus, we offer the ability to future-proof the network to support mission-critical workloads, and power new revenue-generating services and applications. This immense opportunity is what drives operators to modernize their networks with Azure Operator Nexus, a carrier-grade, hybrid cloud platform and AI-powered automation and insights unlocking improved efficiency, scalability and reliability. Purpose-built for and validated by tier one operators to run mission-critical workloads, Azure Operator Nexus enables operators to run workloads on-premises or on Azure, where they can seamlessly deploy, manage, secure and monitor everything from the bare metal to the tenant.

E& UAE is taking advantage of the Azure Operator Nexus platform to lower total cost of ownership (TCO), leverage the power of AI to simplify operations, improve time to market and focus on their core competencies. And operations at AT&T that took months with previous generations of technology now take weeks to complete with Azure Operator Nexus.

We continue to build robust capabilities into Azure Operator Nexus, including new deployment options giving operators the flexibility to use one carrier-grade platform to deliver innovative solutions on near-edge, far-edge and enterprise edge.

Read more about the latest Azure for Operator updates here.

Operators are creating differentiation by collaborating with us to improve customer experiences and streamline their business operations with AI. Operators are leveraging Microsofts copilot stack and copilot experiences across our core products and services, such as Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Copilot for M365 and Microsoft Security Copilot to drive productivity and improve customer experiences.

An average operator spends 20% ofannual revenue on capital expenditures.However, this investment does nottranslate into an equivalentincrease in revenue growth. Operators need to empower their service teams with data-driven insights to increase productivity, enhance care, use conversational AI to enable self-service, expedite issue resolution and deliver frictionless customer experiences at scale.

Together with our partner ecosystem, we are investing in creating a comprehensive set of solutions for the telecommunications industry. This includes the Azure for Operators portfolio a carrier-grade hybrid cloud platform, voice core, mobile core and multi-access edge compute, as well as our suite of generative AI solutions that holistically address the needs of network operators as they transform their networks.

As customers continue to embrace generative AI, we remain committed to working with operators and enterprises alike to future-proof networks and unlock new revenue streams in a cloud- and AI-native future.

Tags: AI, Azure for Operators, Azure Operator Call Protection, Azure Operator Insights, Azure Operator Nexus, Copilot in Azure Operator Insights

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Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI - The Official Microsoft Blog - Microsoft