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The company is currently executing on a computer-assisted maintenance management system (CMMS) and material requirements planning (MRP) in the factory, with the aim to optimize and automate production and maintenance processes. “We’ll soon begin implementing Business Central, which will mark an important step in updating and modernizing our business management system, further strengthening our operations and improving decision-making at a corporate level,” he says.   These projects affect all departments of Guzmán Minerals since they cover everything from the manufacturing and processing of products to their sale. Furthermore, tools such as CMMS, MRP, and soon Business Central, directly impact areas such as production, logistics, maintenance, and administration, ensuring more efficient and connected management throughout the company.   In the factory area, the company is in the final stages of configuring and testing a CMMS and MRP to improve planning and maintenance. Plus, the CRM is already in full use by the sales team, facilitating the management of clients and opportunities. As for Business Central, the project is in its early stages and represents a major transition from its current Dynamics NAV 2017 ERP solution.  source

Despite predictions about its demise, the enterprise data center is alive and well, as strategic on-prem use cases remain and data center tech modernizes. source

The European Commission relied heavily on the PCLOB in the agreement, although it functions only as a supplementary supervisory mechanism. Weakening the PCLOB would endanger the stability of the TADPF, even if short-term vacancies do not immediately cause the framework to collapse. Max Schrems criticizes the EU Commission for relying on uncertain monitoring mechanisms and wishful thinking instead of on stable legal protection. A possible end within 45 days The TADPF is in danger of collapsing under the Trump presidency, as Trump signed an executive order on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. It provides for all decisions made by his predecessor Biden on national security to be reviewed and possibly repealed within 45 days. This could overturn the basis of the agreement in a matter of weeks. This would result in illegal data transfers between the EU and the US, said Schrems, who also criticizes the dependence of EU companies on such a politically unstable system. If the US government repeals key elements of the TADPF, it could become illegal for EU companies to use US cloud services. Although data transfers will remain legal for now until the agreement is formally repealed, Max Schrems warns that companies should urgently develop contingency plans such as “Host in Europe” to prepare for potential legal uncertainties. source

Last year’s Evolve conference showcased practical use cases for AI, an area where Trace3 has developed significant expertise. Key themes included how AI can help companies grow; charting the AI landscape for the future; and assessing the impact of AI on specific industries, from financial services to healthcare. Expert presentations as well as insights from many of Trace3’s partners, including Microsoft, Cisco, and Dell Technologies created a compelling, forward-thinking deep dive on cutting-edge IT solutions and emerging technologies. “We recognized that GenAI would have a tectonic effect on the technology and digital landscape, so Trace3 made a sizeable investment to develop our expertise,” said Rich Fennessy, Trace3 Chief Executive Officer. “We’re a company well versed in innovation and forward thinking, and our DNA is centered around helping our clients and vision and realized tomorrow.” The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) engaged Trace3 to implement Microsoft CoPilot and develop an AI governance framework to help manage risk. During the conference, CISO David Gahagan discussed how these moves have helped UTIMCO manage and secure confidential information. Sean Sims, assistant vice president for digital incubator and advanced analytics at insurance company Unum, talked about how his organization leveraged Trace3’s expertise to improve its use of AI. Unum takes a domain-centered approach to harnessing AI that is tailored to the business by having domain experts work with AI experts to align to strategic goals and operational realities. Currently, Unum is working on incorporating AI client and sales management. Trace3’s comprehensive approach to AI Over its 20+ year history, Trace3 has built a deep well of expertise around major enablers, from cybersecurity to cloud computing and data analytics. The firm focuses on bringing emerging trends to bear and helping clients evolve. As part of that effort, Trace3 has entire divisions dedicated to research and innovation in areas including data, management consulting, and more. During the past several years, that specialized expertise has been extended to AI, helping organizations realize the benefits of AI and launch effective AI projects. Its comprehensive approach encompasses AI strategy, governance and risk, architecture and operations, and solutions. “As time goes on, AI will keep getting smarter and better. This matters because AI is helping humanity reach new levels of what we can achieve. AI isn’t just a tool — it’s what’s driving us to rethink what we believe is possible,” said Fennessy. To learn more, visit https://www.trace3.com source

Over the past couple of years, AI has infiltrated virtually every aspect of digital infrastructure, with an initial focus on storage and compute servers. Now, as organizations move from proofs of concept to deployment of AI projects, interest is growing in the potential that the AI PC holds. Attendees of recent CIO Roundtables have provided their insights into what to expect from this new class of device. First, though, what is an AI PC? These devices are PCs that incorporate modern technologies that allow them to run AI models and efficiently perform AI-based workloads. Like any PC, AI PCs have a CPU and a GPU, but they also typically have a neural processing unit (NPU) and far more RAM and much larger storage than an ordinary PC. Naturally, they don’t come cheap; these more powerful devices are expected to cost 10% to 15% more than non-AI PCs. From comments made during recent CIO Roundtables, it is clear that adoption will be slow. That isn’t surprising, given that most current AI efforts are not PC-centric. Most CIO Roundtable participants also still have questions about the use cases for AI PCs and how they will deliver greater business benefit. Some are concerned as well that the software that will make it possible to take advantage of the NPU is still lacking. The IT leaders said they are sure the apps are coming, but they are in no rush to buy the new PCs before they arrive and are ready for evaluation. source

Knowledge graphs reduce hallucinations, he says, but they also help solve the explainability challenge. Knowledge graphs sit on top of traditional databases, providing a layer of connection and deeper understanding, says Anant Adya, EVP at Infosys. “You can do better contextual search,” he says. “And it helps you drive better insights.” Infosys is now running proof of concepts to use knowledge graphs to combine the knowledge the company has gathered over many years with gen AI tools. “We’re identifying those use cases where they can make a bigger impact,” he says. They include automated knowledge extraction, budgeting, procurement, and enterprise planning. “But it’s very early,” he adds. “It’s still not in production.” One company that’s deployed a knowledge graph to improve gen AI performance, and wrote about, is LinkedIn. In a paper published in April, LinkedIn reports that combining RAG with a knowledge graph helped it improve the accuracy of a customer service gen AI application by 78%. And, over the preceding six months, the combo was used by LinkedIn’s customer service team, reducing the median per-issue resolution time by 29%. source

One of the oldest and largest oil and gas companies in the world, bp is in the midst of a major transition as it pivots toward becoming an integrated energy company. As part of this transition, the company is aiming for a net-zero carbon footprint by 2050. The scope of its efforts so far is demonstrated by its shift into lower-carbon businesses, power trading, and convenience stores, which represented just 3% of its investment in 2019 but 23% in 2023. This change in business focus is accompanied by an ongoing digital transformation. A key part of this is to use AI to help improve its operations. From COBOL to EVs: The scope of bp’s digital initiatives As the energy industry goes through multiple mergers and acquisitions over the years, it deals with a wide spectrum of digital apps, legacy systems, and business processes across its functions. While some of these are modern, cutting-edge elements of the tech stack, they also carry the load of outdated technologies that require transformation. In bp’s case, the multiple generations of IT hardware and software have been made even more complex by the scope and variety of the company’s operations, from oil exploration to electric vehicle (EV) charging machines to the ordinary office activities of a corporation. Historically, AI use has been focused on machine learning in operations such as exploration and drilling in the initial phases of energy production. Now, however, generative AI (genAI) and other forms of digital innovation are helping drive efficiencies closer to the end customer. The reality for a company of bp’s size and history is that there are different levels of technology maturity in different areas of the business. This reflects both the diversity in the technical infrastructure as well as the readiness to experiment of different operating units. Focusing on business value before AI Mariza Fotiou, VP for digital product management at bp, emphasizes the importance of focusing on the business value that is being sought, whether AI is involved or not. “The first thing to look at,” she says, “is the problem I’m trying to solve, and the solution I can create to generate value with the least complexity.” In that context, she adds: “We’re not looking at AI use cases [per se]. We are looking at bp problems or customer problems that we need to solve that AI can accelerate.” Fotiou draws on her background in product development and digital transformation—first in the finance sector and then in bp’s upstream operations—to help solve downstream challenges in the B2B space, especially in mobility and fleet operations. With such a wide variety of products in development across the company, finding the best ones for AI requires prioritization. Fotiou and her colleagues particularly look to “parts of the business that have an intense amount of data that we’re trying to manage, because that’s where AI can drive the most value.” Engagement with leadership and upskilling for personnel help “develop the conditions for AI innovation and experimentation to take place,” she says. Along the way, the company decides whether to build or buy a solution for each use case. To guide that decision, bp applies consistent design governance principles to find the solutions—always grounded in safety—that are most competitive, optimal in terms of cost, and likeliest to provide the company with a differentiating advantage. “If it makes sense for us to create and maintain the IP,” Fotiou explains, “then we will go off and build something. If we are lagging and just playing catch-up, we might as well buy it. But cost is always a big part of the equation that we need to consider.” Fotiou has found that in some cases open-source tools can help especially with cost considerations. For example, her team is leveraging open-source AI product management tools to help define thousands of product requirements as they replace their fleet management system. “We’re leveraging AI as much as we can around product development,” she says, “and it seems to be quite helpful.” How bp Is putting AI to work “We have found ways to use AI across all these value streams,” Fotiou says, “from helping produce energy to trading the energy, all the way to supplying and distributing the energy.” AI has helped bp identify the best locations for placing EV charging stations for customers to use them, and it has enhanced the company’s award-winning safe2go fuel data platform, which uses computer vision to ensure that aircraft receive the correct fuel. Like many companies, bp is also using genAI to extract information from documents, summarize meetings, and so on, freeing up office workers’ time for more strategic activities. And it uses AI to automate code testing and other aspects of the digital development lifecycle. In 2023, Infosys became bp’s main partner for end-to-end application services, helping to transform bp’s digital application landscape. Infosys, among other partners, is helping bp implement a variety of AI projects across different areas of its operations, and is working with Fotiou and her team on several legacy applications in bp’s fleet management suite. These apps have millions of lines of code; Infosys is using genAI to help analyze this code and deliver precise recommendations for refactoring, code conversion, documentation, automated test cases, and test scripts. The work accelerates feature development on the codebase and creates a robust knowledge management repository to reduce artifact creation efforts by more than 70%. This refactoring helps to set the base for digital transformation. Solving problems for many kinds of customers It is evident from these examples that bp is leveraging AI across many facets of its business. Whether in production management, application modernization, fleet fueling, or retail store operations, AI can help improve efficiency in delivery and help support the business transformation that drives value creation. “This is our IT strategy: to help bp transform into an integrated energy company,” Fotiou says. “We try to focus on priorities that make sense for different areas of the company—always with a customer-centric outlook. Every area has their

00:00 Welcome to CIO Leadership Live. I’m Lee Rennick, executive director of CIO communities for cio.com, and we’re here right now at the CIO 100 Symposium and Awards. And I’m with Bob McCowan, senior vice President and Chief Information Officer, Regeneron. Thanks so much for joining me here today, Bob. It’s been a really active few days here at the conference.00;00;30;07 – 00;00;55;07UnknownCould you please introduce yourself and maybe tell us a little about your current role? Yeah, absolutely. It’s great to meet you, Lee. So Bob McCowan, I’m the CIO at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and, I’ve been in the role six years. My role there is fairly traditional for CIO. But unlike the title, it’s, covering things from data to transformation to, technology.00;00;55;07 – 00;01;18;49UnknownSo it’s a pretty all encompassing role. I actually joined the company prior, so I was promoted to CIO from within Regeneron, which has its advantages. Right? Some disadvantages. Right. But having run the infrastructure, we had started on a whole modernization program. So going in CIO, I was really able to pick up on that and move forward.00;01;18;54 – 00;01;38;24UnknownYeah. And a lot of CIOs talk about the relationship they have the C-suite, the other C-suite and the board of directors. So certainly it seems like you had that knowledge base come in into the company that’s been put up into the role of the CIO. Yeah, absolutely. It definitely helped. And I think, Regeneron’s a founder led organization.00;01;38;24 – 00;02;00;25UnknownRight. They’re still there. Right. And a terrific job. Yeah. And it creates a culture, I think, where, there’s a little bit more risk taking than other organizations I work for because of the science based approach and the whole, approach is now you do well by doing good, right? That creates, type of excitement that I just didn’t see in some other organizations.00;02;00;30 – 00;02;23;03UnknownOh, fantastic. Well, congratulate to Regeneron for winning the CIO 100 Award. We’re having the gala tonight. It’s going to be fantastic to celebrate all of this amazing technology that people like yourselves are really embracing and pushing forward in their organizations. Could you tell me a little bit about the award winning project? It’s called Centralized Data Platform Using Data to Uplift Science, so I’d love to learn more about it.00;02;23;08 – 00;02;52;39UnknownYeah, absolutely. And, the centralized data platform is, I guess, the result of a lot of investments in the past few years. But, it’s at the simplest level, what we do is we research and find drug candidates. We, then go to what we call PMP, which is, pre manufacturing, and they learn how to scale it up, but they then have to transfer it into, tech transfer to manufacturing at large scale.00;02;52;50 – 00;03;16;36UnknownRight. And so there’s a whole process from how you take it from research to the, to what we call AIOps industrial operations. And we have 12 FDA approved products. Right. Clearly, this group know what they’re doing. Yeah. But the opportunity arose to really go back and look and look at the process and how they engaged and what this does.00;03;16;36 – 00;03;36;41UnknownIt creates a essentially a data platform that takes all the data from those processes. Provides it in a way that, each person in the step of the process can get access to it. Yeah. And in doing that, we started to see that those groups sometimes spoke a different language. They talked about the same data, but in different ways.00;03;36;42 – 00;03;57;18UnknownRight. The way they transferred data was now legacy based, PowerPoint slides. Excel. Yeah, yeah. Or you needed to know who to talk to. And so by capturing this data in the platform, we simplified that process and made it much smoother. And, and and the biggest success, to be honest, was bringing those individuals and subject matter experts together.00;03;57;23 – 00;04;17;10UnknownAnd it was able help them. Yeah. Able to help them, empower them to put this program in place. It sounds fantastic. Now, a lot of great outcomes as a result of this. Yes. And, we’re looking at other areas we can take. Well, it sounds fantastic. And congratulations. Well, I do speak with a lot of CEOs.00;04;17;10 – 00;04;34;21UnknownI interview them and we have roundtables, and we talk a lot about cloud and edge to cloud computing and just managing the data. Right. Making sure it’s in the right place. Sometimes, you know, people are talking to me about bringing data back on prem. I spoke to one person who said to me, we just don’t do that at all because of the way our business has been structured.00;04;34;26 – 00;04;55;29UnknownBut, you know, I would love to learn some of your process. And looking at central, this centralizing data and then, you know, looking at that productivity and process, any insights you could provide to other CIOs are tech leaders listening in. So not everyone might want to hear this, but it takes a long time. Yeah. And I mentioned earlier I was helping, modernize the infrastructure.00;04;55;29 – 00;05;20;08UnknownYeah. And a big part of that was actually transition to cloud. Right. We took a native cloud approach and moved probably 60, 70% of everything we do to cloud. But we did that very thoughtfully. So we identified what made sense to stay on premise. And then in the move to cloud, we also, refactored it and redesigned it to make sure we took the benefits.00;05;20;12 – 00;05;41;24UnknownSo once you get it into the cloud, you suddenly realize that you can deal with much bigger data sets. You can connect to data, right? This idea of connected data comes into play. And so when you start building on that and in fact this is our fourth CIO 100 award in five years. Wow. And when you go back and look at them all the same is data.00;05;41;24 – 00;06;04;26UnknownData right. Right. And so the approach we took was we’ve got to have that, data platform that is