CIO Pulse News and Headlines
CIO Pulse News and Headlines
Telstra reported an 8.1% profit increase to $1.2 billion for the first half of FY26, with revenue edging up 0.3% to $11.6 billion and earnings rising 4.7% to $4.4 billion. The company achieved 3.1 percentage points of operating leverage by cutting $179 million in operating expenses and reducing roughly 600 roles across Enterprise and Consumer units. Growth was led by mobile services, where higher ARPU lifted services revenue 5.6%, while fixed‑line and NAS segments saw declines. Telstra’s Connected Future 30 strategy emphasizes AI, cloud, and a strategic partnership with Infosys to reshape its enterprise offering.
The Internal Revenue Service’s Chief Information Officer disclosed that the agency shed roughly 40% of its IT workforce and almost 80% of its technology leadership last year, marking the deepest attrition in two decades. The cuts stemmed from voluntary separations,...
The U.S. Department of Energy unveiled 26 artificial‑intelligence challenges that underpin its Genesis Mission, spanning nuclear systems, grid modernization, materials science, advanced manufacturing, microelectronics and national security. The announcement shifts AI from a purely analytical tool to the connective tissue...
Opkey introduced Design Studio, an AI‑driven module within its application lifecycle automation platform that streamlines ERP and HCM implementation planning. The visual canvas embeds more than 20 domain‑specific AI agents to automate discovery, requirements capture, process mapping, and configuration design....
Arista Networks announced extensions to its telemetry stack aimed at AI‑driven environments, adding host‑level data such as RDMA counters, NIC buffering, and flow‑control metrics to its CloudVision platform. The new capabilities will merge in‑network and host telemetry into a single,...
Albertsons announced four AI priorities for fiscal 2026—digital customer experience, merchandising, labor, and supply chain—backed by a full cloud migration and unified data platform. Chief technology officer Anuj Dhanda emphasized these are long‑term investments already delivering measurable impact, such as...
Forest Lawn Memorial Parks & Mortuaries has built a fully integrated procure-to-pay backbone by linking Vroozi’s procurement platform with NetSuite ERP and Shopify e‑commerce. The integration automates inventory replenishment, accounts payable, and even service procurement, allowing real‑time updates across systems....
Intel is launching "Ask Intel," an AI‑driven virtual assistant built on Microsoft’s Copilot Studio, to handle customer and partner support after scaling back phone and social‑media channels. The assistant can open cases, verify warranties and route complex issues to human...
Google Cloud and Alphabet’s moonshot project Tapestry have deepened their partnership with CTC Global to launch GridVista, an observability platform that embeds optical‑fiber sensors in transmission conductors. The system delivers real‑time strain, temperature and vibration data, feeding it into Google...
Sumo Logic announced the extension of its cloud‑native analytics platform into the AWS European Sovereign Cloud and an AWS data center in Switzerland. The move lets customers keep logs, telemetry, and security data within national borders, satisfying GDPR and other...
Spirent Communications, now part of Keysight, launched Luma, an agentic AI platform that automates network test case generation, root‑cause analysis, and knowledge retrieval. Built on a domain‑specific knowledge graph, deterministic rule engine and a suite of 10‑12 specialized AI agents,...
Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy told CRN that the company’s focus is on creating customer value, not merely selling AI. He highlighted the rapid expansion of Snowflake’s partner ecosystem to more than 14,200 global partners, a 22% year‑over‑year increase. Ramaswamy emphasized...
Snowflake’s ecosystem of solution partners says AI’s impact will endure despite concerns of a bubble. Executives from BlueCloud, RiskSpan, Viewnear and Slalom stress that solid data foundations and cost‑driven efficiencies are essential for sustainable AI adoption. They note a shift...
Solution providers are abandoning hourly billing in favor of outcome‑based models as AI automation turns software development into a commodity. Eduardo Ramos founded Viewnear to align pricing with measurable client results, leveraging Snowflake’s data platform and AI tools. RiskSpan and...
Sun Chemical, a global inks and materials producer, has chosen SNP’s Kyano platform to steer its worldwide SAP S/4HANA migration and shift to SAP Cloud ERP Private. The initiative will merge more than 60 regional ERP instances into a single,...
ECL unveiled FlexGrid, a power‑agnostic platform that lets modular data centers draw electricity from hydrogen, natural gas, renewables or diesel. The system is designed for AI training and inferencing workloads, allowing operators to start with modest 2‑10 MW grid connections and...
New Charter Technologies is reshaping the managed services provider (MSP) model by embedding AI into its core operations, turning reactive support into automated, self‑healing processes. The company recently hired Microsoft veteran Michelle Curtis as chief revenue officer to drive a...
Dataminr’s 2026 Cyber Threat Landscape Report shows a dramatic shift in cyber risk during 2025, with threat‑actor alerts soaring 225% year‑over‑year. Identity‑based intrusions now account for nearly 30% of attacks, driven by an 84% rise in infostealer malware and AI‑enhanced...
At the Digital Lounge in Davos, IT leaders highlighted a hidden crisis: data debt is draining human capacity more than technology. Legacy SAP systems and fragmented data require teams to spend countless hours cleaning and governing information, leading to transformation...
Finpace unveiled Halcyon, an AI‑driven layer integrated with its core banking platform, aimed at accelerating change management for African financial institutions. The solution interprets business intent, orchestrates actions across data and workflow systems, and embeds governance to ensure compliant, auditable...
CRN’s Security 100 list spotlights 20 security‑operations, risk and threat‑intelligence vendors that distinguished themselves in 2026. The roundup underscores a rapid shift toward AI‑driven, agentic SOC solutions that automate triage, investigation and response. Companies such as 7AI, Arctic Wolf, Google Cloud and...
AI pilots frequently stall between proof‑of‑concept and production, often due to outdated quarterly KPIs, governance vacuums, and slow feedback loops. Executives argue that linear metrics clash with AI’s dynamic nature, causing drift and delayed corrective action. To close the gap,...
Retail CIOs are confronting a growing "signal problem" as fragmented communication channels undermine customer experience and AI initiatives. Research shows 64 percent of retailers plan to modernize their communication systems to meet consumer expectations for instant, accurate information. Misaligned data streams...
1606 Corp signed a non‑binding term sheet to acquire roughly 132 acres in Lufkin, Texas, including a 55 MW natural‑gas power plant and a 50,000 sq ft warehouse for an AI‑focused data center. The transaction is priced at about $11.67 million, combining $7.5 million in...
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker plans to request a two‑year suspension of tax incentives for new data centers, pending a study of the sector’s impact on the state’s electricity grid and residential bills. Current incentives grant up to 20 years of...
InfraVia, Liberty Global and Telefónica, via their joint venture Nexfibre, announced a £2 bn acquisition of Substantial Group, the owner of altnet Netomnia. The deal adds roughly three million premises and 450,000 customers, targeting an eight‑million‑premise footprint by 2027 and a...
Enterprise storage in Ireland has evolved from a back‑end utility to a strategic engine that underpins AI, multicloud and data‑driven initiatives. Dell’s Innovation Catalyst Study shows 48% of Irish firms prioritize data readiness for AI, yet 66% remain in early...
The article argues that traditional security dashboards hide the true predictors of a breach, emphasizing metrics that expose process debt, access sprawl, and human behavior. It highlights four high‑impact signals: credential reuse and identity drift, stale access paths, alert‑fatigue ratios,...
Enterprise networks face unprecedented strain as AI workloads surge, generating unpredictable, high‑volume traffic across regions. A recent Broadcom study shows only 49% of organizations believe their networks can meet AI’s bandwidth and latency demands, despite 99% adopting cloud strategies. Retrieval‑augmented...
Edge computing can be delivered via purpose‑built edge data centers or through distributed edge devices such as gateways, sensors, and consumer hardware. Data centers provide consolidated compute, storage, and robust security for high‑throughput, latency‑sensitive workloads, while devices excel at mobile,...
5G standalone (SA) networks have moved from launch to execution, with global SA availability rising to 17.6% in Q4 2025 and delivering a 52% speed premium over non‑standalone (NSA) networks. The Gulf Cooperation Council, led by the UAE, now tops performance...
IntelliGenesis launched CYBERSPAN, an AI‑driven network detection and response solution tailored for managed security service providers. The platform offers a multi‑tenant, agentless architecture that can be deployed on‑premises or in the cloud, integrating with existing SIEM, SOAR and ticketing tools...
Enterprise AI is being deployed as core infrastructure that routinely infers personal identity attributes such as gender, voice, and facial characteristics. In Google Gemini Meet Notes, a non‑binary user who selected "Rather not say" was mis‑gendered as "she," illustrating how...
Lasso Security unveiled Intent Deputy, a runtime behavioral‑intent framework that secures autonomous AI agents by interpreting their decision flow and operational context. The solution claims 99.83% threat detection at sub‑50 ms latency and a 570‑fold cost advantage over cloud‑native guardrails. By...
Microsoft Defender now includes a Library Management feature that lets security operations centers (SOCs) organize, preview, and control the scripts and tools used in live response. Analysts can upload PowerShell, batch, and other response files ahead of investigations, making them...
AWS introduced Agent Plugins, a framework that equips AI coding assistants with native AWS capabilities. The initial "deploy‑to‑AWS" plugin lets developers issue natural‑language prompts to generate architecture recommendations, cost estimates, and infrastructure‑as‑code templates. It currently integrates with Claude Code and...
Routes Healthcare, a leading health and social care provider in northern England, adopted the BPA Platform to integrate its Sage 200 ERP with a wide range of SaaS applications. The low‑code integration layer unified data, automated workforce communication, recruitment, and...
SAP’s Customer Experience unit is pushing industry‑specific AI, tying CX tightly to ERP and supply‑chain data to deliver truly intelligent retail interactions. At NRF 2026 the company announced embedded AI for planning, fulfillment and commerce, and a partnership with N4XT for...
Cyber adversaries are moving beyond classic espionage to disrupt the defense industrial base (DIB), aiming to cripple production capacity and supply chains. Attackers now target everything from large primes to niche startups, especially firms with dual‑use technologies, using ransomware and...
MES platforms are moving to elastic, modular architectures, breaking the monolithic deployment model. Rockwell Automation’s elastic MES framework combines modular components, hybrid edge‑to‑cloud infrastructure, and industry‑specific templates, letting manufacturers add capabilities incrementally. The global MES market is projected to triple...
Enterprise security teams now rely on open source for core infrastructure, development pipelines, and production applications, yet patching cycles remain sluggish. TuxCare’s 2026 Open Source Landscape Report shows that 60% of recent incidents involved known vulnerabilities that were not patched...
Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency and the nation’s four major telcos (M1, Simba Telecom, Singtel, StarHub) launched the "Cyber Guardian" operation, expelling the China‑linked threat actor UNC3886 after an 11‑month campaign. The attackers breached critical network segments but did not steal...
NTT Data and the University of Melbourne have signed a memorandum of understanding to create an innovation ecosystem that blends the university’s research strengths with NTT Data’s global technical expertise. The partnership will focus on three pillars: cultivating digital talent,...
Australian firms are pouring money into AI, yet many projects stall in pilot mode, not because of the technology but due to weak experience design, unclear ownership, and poor integration into customer journeys. Cognizant’s AI‑native agency, Cognizant Moment, was launched...
Rich Miller, founder of Data Center Frontier, warns that 2026 will be the execution year for AI‑driven data‑center projects, separating viable builds from hype. Power availability, especially grid constraints, emerges as the primary gating factor, pushing developers toward on‑site generation....
CompTIA unveiled SecAI+, its first Expansion Series certification, aimed at securing AI systems and leveraging AI tools within cybersecurity operations. The credential builds on foundational certifications such as Security+, CySA+ and PenTest+, requiring three to four years of IT experience...
In a recent Palo Alto Networks webcast, experts highlighted that modern attackers compress breach timelines to under an hour, overwhelming traditional SOC processes. They argued that XDR platforms like Cortex XDR solve the data‑silo problem by unifying telemetry across endpoints,...
Dicker Data has expanded its telco business unit to include a broader unified communications (UC) portfolio, targeting both Microsoft Teams Calling and multi‑vendor voice solutions. The new offering adds Switch Connect, Symbio, GoTo and IPscape, while InTele delivers end‑user training...
Japanese telecom KDDI selects Oracle Cloud Scale Charging and Billing to replace its legacy billing system. The cloud‑native platform on OCI will handle real‑time charging for mobile, broadband and digital services, aiming to cut costs and boost agility. KDDI expects...
The AI boom has turned flash storage into a bottleneck, with demand far outpacing the limited capacity of fabs operated by Samsung, Kioxia, Micron, Solidigm and others. Prices for flash drives have jumped 50‑70% since 2023 as hyperscalers and AI...
