Industry experts feel that Google won’t experience buyer’s remorse from its recent $32 billion purchase of Wiz after it reaps the benefits from its big buy.

Last week, the tech giant announced an agreement to acquire the Israel-based cloud security platform, valued at $12 billion, after an initial deal to purchase the company for $23 billion fell through late last year.

Living large. Wiz is Google’s largest purchase to date, topping its previous $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2012—which it sold to Lenovo for $2.91 billion just two years later. But security leaders who spoke with IT Brew claim the hefty price tag is worth it. Anetac security platform co-founder and CEO Timothy Eades called Google’s latest buy a “tactical win” for bolstering its security stance. However, Eades said the real gain is the telemetry capability the tech giant will acquire, an advantage he said makes the $32 billion price tag look like a steal.

“You now have incredible telemetry sources about how applications interact with cloud infrastructure,” Eades said. “Roll that into an AI model and then you can transform your cloud and…maybe even build applications better and stronger as a result.”

Read the rest here.—BM

If you make sure you’re connected, the writing’s on the wall. But if your grid’s neglected, stumble, you might fall.

Grid connectivity issues are a challenge for hyperscalers placing outsize demands on existing infrastructure, motivating some energy providers and tech giants to pursue new (and old) sources of power.

David Wilson, CEO of Energy Exemplar, told IT Brew that part of the problem is that there’s not a huge level of capacity built into existing infrastructure. And the AI revolution has meant that data centers need far more capacity.

“Grids get built out slowly, you tend to build them out just as you need them,” Wilson said. “These data center loads have come a little out of nowhere—there were data centers, but AI has meant these large loads are trying to find their way into the existing grids that really weren’t planning for that sudden increase in load.”

Delays in grid connectivity are making it more difficult for businesses and utilities alike to manage the demand, according to a Mar. 17 article at Data Center Knowledge. Delays are largely due to power complexity, capacity, permitting, and supply-chain issues. In some states, like Virginia, connecting a data center to the grid can take as long as seven years, Bloomberg reported in August 2024, up from around four years.

Read more here.—EH

When Adolfo Rodriguez, Guitar Center’s CTO and CIO, was learning to play the six-string some two decades ago, he wanted to get his instrument to imitate the crunchy power-chords of AC/DC’s lead guitar player, Angus Young. He’d turn the knobs on his Gibson SG, yank the gain way up on his amp, and try pedals—only to figure out that Young rarely used pedals.

Now he wants to help rockstar hopefuls find their sound quickly. In the coming months, Rodriguez said, an in-store large language model, trained on musical data and developed in partnership with an AI-service provider, will assist customers. He tested out the AI model recently.

“I told it, ‘Hey, I play this ’83 Les Paul Studio, and I have a Boss ME-70 pedal. How do I sound like Angus Young?’ And it spits out to me all of the settings that I need to do to approximate Angus Young’s sound, as close as possible with that equipment…That’s amazing,” he said. Rodriguez imagines patrons using the capability in-store, with the help of a QR code.

Guitar Center—a place where you grab any guitar off the wall and play it—also wants to bring digital tech like GenAI into its store to help employees and customers. As CTO, Rodriguez must find the right balance of adding a “generative” component that, at times, feels at odds with the creative process, generating ideas for the creator.

Keep reading here.—BH

From Y2K (2000) to cloud computing (2006) and the rise of streaming (2007), IT has transformed the world. This 25-year project dives into pivotal moments like the Slammer virus (2003) and AWS’s launch, shaping today’s digital landscape. Discover the past to navigate the future of IT.