Next up on the event calendar for Techerati is North-Asia’s largest and most-attended business technology event stack, Cloud Expo Asia HK and its co-located events May 22-23
This year’s event will host over 128 conference sessions covering the whole spectrum of enterprise IT, from hyperscale data centres to the thousands of connected devices powering the smart cities of the future.
What we enjoy so much about the two-day event is the variety of topics that echo around the Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Centre. Like an all-you-can-eat tech buffet, you can sample something new or just load up your plate with your favourite topic. This week we digested the conference programme in full and honed in on five must-see presentations. This should not be viewed as an exhaustive list, just five that you’d really have to have rock-solid reasons to miss.
Historically, NVIDIA GPUs were primarily used to power gaming. But in the age of AI, the same processors are the bedrock of next-gen AI applications. Just take a look at how the company’s latest GPUs transform two-second doodles into photorealistic landscapes. NVIDIA not only sells AI-chomping chips, but provides everything developers need to forge boundary-pushing AI applications. Dr Charles Cheung is tasked by NVIDIA to test the limits of its AI toolkit and will show attendees how it can be used to develop autonomous vehicle applications and VR simulation platforms. A rare chance to see a master in action.
Virtual banks are the talk of tech-town right now as the global financial powerhouse that is Hong Kong gears up for their arrival. The impact of branchless banks could be so huge that, by this time next year, the city’s banking landscape could well be unrecognisable. Through a range of presentations covering the topic, this year’s Cloud Expo Asia will sketch what Central District might look like once this digital wrecking ball of disruption has bulldozed its way through. As Chief Architect of Open Platform at China’s WeBank, Eric Chan knows a thing or two about fintech. Chan will share the success story of arguably the world’s most successful virtual bank, focusing on its distributed architecture, fintech capabilities and open banking vision. It’s a case study that will have MBA modules dedicated to it within five years; here’s a chance to drink a distillation direct from source.
What did it take to build an engineering organisation across three countries that delivered a unicorn–scale stack with less than 70 engineers? Like all successful tech endeavours, Indonesian ride-hailer Go-Jek will be the first to admit that it benefited from a little bit of luck throughout its nine-year history. On the afternoon of day two, the CTO of Indonesia’s fastest-growing startup will share how the company coded luck into its DNA. An opportunity to learn principles and philosophy that transfer across the tech stack.
Automotive giant Daimler is betting big on blockchain. Last year the firm released its own blockchain-based digital currency dubbed Mobicoin which rewards drivers for eco-friendly habits. Another project in the works is an open mobility system that hopes to tap into the changing way in which vehicles are being consumed: as a service, rather than owned. Even if you’ve never driven a car, the presentation will be an eye-opener into how an automotive veteran is shifting gears to deal with a revolution in customer demand.
Chinese behemoth NetEase, with revenues of over £6bn, is one of the largest Internet and video game companies in the world. The company’s portfolio is impressively wide-reaching: it not only develops and operates online PC and mobile games but also advertising services, email services, e-commerce platforms and a leading music streaming service. All of these endeavours stand on the shoulders of mammoth agile data analysis and Internet business data analysis platforms. Learn how the firm aggregates massive amounts of multidimensional data from NetEase products and integrates it into valuable assets to help the group harness the value of data. These insights are funnelled directly into its big data products – worth a look for any firm seeking to become data-driven.
