A Challenging Year Ahead for IT
A challenging year ahead per this article in the Wall Street Journal. How are you going to meet the challenge?
Revolutionizing the World of Chips: The Latest Developments in US Manufacturing
TSMC, one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers, has been expanding its operations to the United States as reported in the Wall Street Journal (“TSMC’s U.S. Chip Gambit Has Powerful Backers”). As I previously reported, there is a high concentration of chip manufacturing suppliers in Asia that has created geographic supply chain risks (see “How Secure Are We?”). TSMC’s expansion into the United States has several benefits.
First, having facilities in the United States will allow TSMC to better serve its American customers, who make up a significant portion of its revenue. This will reduce the need to rely on long-distance shipping and other forms of transportation, which have been disrupted during the pandemic.
Second, having facilities in the United States will also provide TSMC with a greater degree of flexibility and control over its supply chain. For example, the company will be able to adjust its production levels and respond to changes in demand more quickly and easily. This will help the company to avoid bottlenecks and other disruptions that can impact its ability to deliver products on time.
Third, having facilities in the United States will also provide TSMC with a more secure supply chain. The United States has a more stable political and economic environment than many other countries, which can reduce the risk of disruptions to the company’s supply chain. Additionally, the United States has a strong legal system that protects intellectual property, which is critical for a company like TSMC that relies heavily on technology and innovation.
Overall, TSMC’s expansion into the United States is likely to reduce the geographic supply chain risk for the company, by providing it with greater access to its American customers, greater flexibility and control over its supply chain, and a more stable and secure environment for its operations.
Advances in Automated Distribution Centers
Johnson Conley has recently provided advisory services to Accelerate360 to establish one of the most highly automated distribution centers in the world. This article in the Wall Street Journal describes the operation and a key feature of the automated distribution center – an ant inspired system designed by Attabotics. (Please let us know if you’d like a copy of the article)
AI in the news: Intelligence Agencies Face Challenges with AI and Developments in AI Ethics
This week’s The Economist reports on the challenges facing the use of AI in intelligence agencies. One of the issues cited in the article, “Spy Agencies Have High Hopes for AI”, is the dearth of adequate sets of information that can be ingested. AI depends on massive sets of data to be effective and in a number of intelligence settings there is limited available data.
Fast Company published two articles in its March / April 2021 issue on the subject of AI ethics, “AI Has a Big Tech Problem”, and “AI Ethics: Taking Stock and the Way Forward”. (Sorry the online links aren’t available – please contact us if you’d like copies of these articles) The overriding message in these articles is that the thought leadership in AI is concentrated in a limited number of firms and institutions. The risk reported is that ethical decisions made by this small cohort may be influenced, however subtly, by other demands – and not necessarily in the best interest of society as a whole. Something to consider.
Chief Information Officers are Becoming Accountable for Business Operations
This article in the Wall Street Journal, “Coronavirus Pandemic Helps Speed More CIOs Toward Business Operations Accountability,” confirms what we’re seeing across our clients. Woe to the CIO who doesn’t rise to the occasion (something that we’ve also witnessed).
Amazon Enters a Regulated Market
As reported from several new services, Amazon’s entry into the pharmacy business follows along the line of their well used playbook with one major exception. See Amazon Launches Online Pharmacy, Why The New Amazon Pharmacy Could Pose A Real Threat To Drugstores and Amazon Shakes Up Health Care The healthcare marketplace is highly regulated and Amazon needed a way to quickly gain entry into this market. It’s no surprise that they purchased PillPack two years ago to obtain the proper licensing to operate in all of the states. As a result of today’s actions, the traditional drugstore model will be under siege by Amazon. They’ve already advertised two day delivery for common prescriptions such as insulin, cholesterol lowering medications and other drugs. Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina said he was “not particularly worried” about the move. It remains to be seen whether or not Amazon will succeed, but the advantage is with Amazon.
What other regulated industries might Amazon be interested in? Life insurance companies have been in fear of Amazon entering their marketplace. It is well known that the life insurance business model is very inefficient. What about health insurance? Real estate? Others?
Only time will tell.
Artificial Intelligence’s Impact on Debates
A fascinating AI development in the world of debates that leverages crowdsourcing, natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), sentiment analysis, idiom understanding and language generation. See Project Debater.
Here are the results from the first debate hosted by Bloomberg and IBM that featured former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Allison Schrager.
Automation Déjà Vu?
One facet of digital transformation that is currently under intense discussion is the utility of citizen development technologies such as low-code, no-code, RPA, etc. The argument against using these technologies is that these tools and products lack the industrial strength of other technologies. The best way to automate is not to use these easy-to-use technologies or at best use them in a transitional fashion. We find this argument reminiscent of the early days when advocates of low level languages, like assembler, dismissed the high level languages, like COBOL, as inefficient and not suited for high volume work. All of us from that era knew how that worked out – improved compute performance and the ease-of-use of high level languages led to the first digital transformation across industries. The focus of the current arguments are misplaced. Firms should employ technologies that are fit for purpose. Citizen developed solutions may be the perfect solutions in a variety of situations. The important decision has always been to determine the needs and map those needs against the near-term and long-term use of any technology. If it works today, but does not scale – and scale is a requirement, that is a problem. If the solution adds unacceptable complexity or severe maintenance risks, that is also a problem. If the technology will not deliver results to market-based timelines, you may not be using the correct technology solution. If the technology does not have the required flexibility, that is a problem. This all boils down to making informed decisions when deploying technology. There’s nothing new here. It’s also important to note that in some cases not using technology at all is the right course of action!
State of Intelligent Automation
A great report on the state of Intelligent Automation by Barbara Hodge of SSON. The report includes some very useful information no matter where you are on your Intelligent Automation journey.
Way to go Microsoft!
Kudos to Microsoft for launching a program to provide education and other resources to help individuals develop skills for the digital economy. As can be seen in the chart, the demand for digital talent is and will be huge. As part of the Microsoft program, training will be offered for free and certifications will be offered at dramatically reduced prices.