Hello Reader,

It's the school holidays in Singapore this week, and as is wont to happen when one is busy, lots of things decided to happen.

This week, I'll stick with a quick overview of my favourite stories.

From 6kW to 600kW racks in 4 years

This week is a huge one for AI, as Nvidia made a plethora of announcements and unveiled multiple new products at its annual GTC conference. What caught my attention was Nvidia's next-generation Rubin Ultra NVL576 system, which it says will require 600kW of power per rack.

For those not in the data centre space, the average power consumed by a data centre rack was just 6kW in 2023, according to an annual survey by Uptime Institute. With Rubin Ultra expected to arrive in the second half of 2027, we are looking at a 100x increase in four years - a truly extraordinary jump.

Liquid cooling isn't optional at such insane densities, so I wrote a quick primer about how direct-to-chip liquid cooling works in the data centre. Read about it here or if you prefer to check out the over 150 comments - the post took off on social media - you can read on LinkedIn here instead.

Killing a city via cyberspace

When I interviewed Schneider Electric's CISO, Andre Shori, in 2023 for an article on GovWare titled "Not If, But When: The Hidden Threat to Smart Cities," I vividly recalled his warning about how hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in Operational Technology (OT) systems to cause massive disruption.

I was reminded of it this week when Heathrow Airport went dark after a power substation caught fire. This affected a staggering 200,000 passengers at Europe's busiest airport, raising the question about its contingency plans. And while no foul play is suspected at this point, this perfectly highlights how a successful cyberattack on power infrastructure can cripple a city.

Indeed, Andre shared a hypothetical attack on power distribution networks or power generation plants, noting how cascading failures could lead to a national catastrophe. I wrote then:

[The] very interconnectedness of OT systems could well culminate in a national catastrophe due to the potential for cascading failures. Shori shared the extremely unlikely – but not implausible – scenario in which the entire nation of Singapore loses power for a week from a cyber-attack on electrical generation plants or its electrical distribution network.

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Though emergency services can probably run for a while without power, they will eventually run dry. The result is a city that is out of energy, out of clean water, and without the ability to respond to emergencies.

You can read the full article here.

The next phase of content

Can social media amplify your business growth? On Thursday morning I attended a community event graciously hosted by Xero, where they engaged Benjamin Loh, an executive and communication coach to share his strategies to help SMBs grow.

Having posted on LinkedIn daily for close to two years and having seen the fruits, I agreed with much of what Benjamin said. For instance, he shared the axiom about how people buy from people, and the importance of being "top of mind" when potential customers are ready to buy.

Still, I cannot help but wonder. Is social media dominance the be-all and end-all? I don't think so. But if LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube aren't it, then what is? The common denominator I see is content, while social media platforms are just that - platforms.

In the age of AI, as we increasingly switch from Google to ChatGPT or Perplexity for search, as we skip the morning papers in favour of AI-curated digests or our favourite newsletters, the way we consume content will change. The question is, how can businesses adapt their strategies to remain relevant in this evolving landscape?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

PS: As quite a few of you signed up for this newsletter this week, wanted to quickly say that you can reach me directly by simply replying to this e-mail.

Regards,
Paul Mah.

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