Tech Storyteller

Hello Reader, I had a number of very interesting conversations since I wrote the last newsletter that really got me thinking. I share one of them today. And yes, you can now leave comments on TechStories.co - more on that later. The shifting edge of plagiarism Last weekend, someone posted a note on a work-related chat group. It contained screenshots of two surprisingly similar LinkedIn posts with the same photo. The question, of course, was whether the latter post plagiarised the earlier one....

Hello Reader, We're almost in May, the month when Singapore announced 300MW of new data centre capacity at last year's ATxSummit. Back then, IMDA said it would make up to 300MW available "in the short term." As we approach the one-year mark with no new updates - and no fresh DC-CFA to allocate additional data centre capacity, I have a haunch. All signs point to another shift in Singapore's data centre policy, and AirTrunk's rumoured 80MW data centre might be part of it. ("Signs point to...

Hello Reader, The past two weeks have brought an avalanche of headlines around geopolitical developments that have likely stirred dismay or concern in some of you. What might all this mean for the technology landscape? And amid the noise, a quieter voice may be whispering a more personal fear - that the ripple effects of these shifts could slowly percolate into our own roles, threatening job security and casting uncertainty over our career paths. What the tariffs mean I don't usually write...

Hello Reader, To the over 100 of you who signed up for my newsletter this week - welcome! In addition to putting together a weekly digest of the stories I've written, I also try to write short introductory notes that are a little different from my usual LinkedIn post here. These notes might range from me sharing my thoughts on recent key developments, to something I came across during the week, or even new insights that came to mind as I started writing - strangely, that does happen quite...

Hello Reader, If you live in Singapore, Malaysia, or Indonesia, this is a long weekend for you. As you spend time with your family and loved ones, I hope to leave you with some ideas to mull over. Data centre bubble, or not? Earlier this week, Alibaba's Joe Tsai, speaking at the HSBC Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong, warned of a potential AI bubble. In this case, he was referring to plans by US tech giants to pour hundreds of billions into building multiple massive data centre campuses....

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...

Hello Reader, I had a most intriguing call this week with the founder and former CEO of a unicorn firm that got me thinking more about AI and the future of work. At the cusp of the discussion is the rapid advancements in AI, and what the future bodes. More specifically, can AI be harnessed to produce content with human-like nuance with the inexhaustible output of large language models? AI writing Pfft, AI writing as well as humans? When it comes to using AI to write, journalists I've met fall...

Hello Reader, Earlier this week, I sat down for an informal chat with two gentlemen from the data centre industry in Singapore on a business trip. As with all good conversations, I shared freely but left with new perspectives and ideas. And one thing that I'm increasingly convinced about is this: Future data centres will need to run a mix of traditional and AI workloads. In short, they will be "hybrid" facilities. Why hybrid-AI is the future With all the news about the mind-boggling amount of...

Hello Reader, I was in Japan for a couple of days earlier this week. The occasion? A media trip to introduce Lenovo's "Aura Edition" of AI PCs. Also invited were several scores of analysts, journalists and influencers from other parts of the Asia Pacific, including a handful from further afield. You can read the stories I wrote in The engineering behind ThinkPad's legendary reliability and My first look at the 986-gram ThinkPad X1 Gen 13 laptop. Do media trips work? A media trip is an...