Tech Conversations with Grace Chng

Most enterprise AI projects fail because organisations bolt AI onto old workflows, said Mohamad Ali, IBM SeniorVice-President and Head of Consulting. CEOs must lead the way and staff should upskill to keep pace with technology development. By 2027, he predicts, companies that redesign their processes will start pulling away from those thatdon’t.”

Listen to the full conversation to hear why Mohamad thinks the 95 per cent fail, and what the other five per cent do differently.

AI bills are climbing even as token prices fall. NCS Chief AI Officer Edward Chen says most companies are measuring the wrong thing. He breaks down why “token oblivious” spending and agentic loops are quietly rewriting enterprise budgets, and why counting tokens used is a hollow proxy for value created. Chen explains how NCS reframes ROI around outcomes instead, and how NCS's Sunshine.core platform routes work to the cheapest model that'll do the job — with cost gaps between open-weight and closed models running as high as 10x.

The conversation turns to physical AI, where Chen warns the real budget trap is not compute: it is data. Robots that shine in a demo hit a wall in messy, real-world environments, and closing that gap means costly proprietary data collection most enterprises have not budgeted for.

AI bills are climbing even as token prices fall. NCS Chief AI Officer Edward Chen says most companies are measuring the wrong thing. He breaks down why “token oblivious” spending and agentic loops are quietly rewriting enterprise budgets, and why counting tokens used is a hollow proxy for value created. Chen explains how NCS reframes ROI around outcomes instead, and how Singtel's "Sunshine Core" platform routes work to the cheapest model that'll do the job — with cost gaps between open-weight and closed models running as high as 10x.The conversation turns to physical AI, where Chen warns the real budget trap is not compute: it is data. Robots that shine in a demo hit a wall in messy, real-world environments, and closing that gap means costly proprietary data collection most enterprises have not budgeted for.

AI anywhere and everywhere. Inferencing is moving to the centre stage as AI is beginning to generate business value. 

In this podcast with Sumir Bhatia, Chief Commercial Officer for Lenovo, Asia Pacific, he stresses that companies must deploy AI with clear objectives, strong governance and the right datasets. Organisations should start with focused use cases, scale gradually and ensure infrastructure can support continuous AI workloads, often through hybrid environments that combine cloud, on-premise and edge systems. 

A major consideration for enterprises is cost. Long-term inference can cost significantly more due to continuous queries and usage. Listen to Sumir’s perspective on how inferencing can be a profit driver, enabling productivity gains, stronger customer engagement and competitive advantage. 

Host Grace Chng talks with Teo Xiang Zheng of Ensign InfoSecurity about how cybercriminals are weaponising AI, from AI-generated phishing and deepfakes to automated reconnaissance and exploit prototyping, supercharging the underground economy and dramatically raising attack volume and believability.

They also unpack the cyber supply-chain risk, why Singapore’s hub status makes it attractive to adversaries, and what CEOs should do: treat cyber intelligence as business intelligence, join information-sharing communities, and invest in visibility and resilient supply-chain practices as AI-driven and state-level threats grow.

Cyber intelligence is both science and art: gathering scattered data, connecting the dots, and uncovering attacker behaviour before the next strike. Grace Chng speaks with Teo Xiang Zheng from Ensign InfoSecurity, who explains how the game has shifted from chasing fleeting threat indicators to profiling threat actors’ enduring patterns, a move from reactive to pre-emptive defence.

They unpack how today’s underground cyber economy operates like a business network, where initial access brokers, ransomware-as-a-service groups, and hacktivists collaborate for profit and power. As hacktivists evolve into organised crime groups, defenders are learning that understanding attacker behaviour, not just their tools, is the key to staying ahead.

Ben Tan, Senior Executive Partner at Gartner shares with Grace Chng about the firm’s Maverick Research, which looks beyond five years into the future of technology and society.

Tan outlines bold predictions: the UN may soon declare AI a basic human right to ensure equitable access; universities face major disruption as GenAI democratises and personalises learning; the job market will evolve with AI reshaping roles and creating new opportunities; and by 2035, society could face risks of AI-driven addiction and even AI-inspired belief systems. The conversation also highlights the need for responsible adoption, and the crucial role of leaders in treating GenAI, not just as a tool but as a powerful new workforce requiring guidance, governance, and cultural adaptation.

In this episode of Tech Conversations with Grace Chng, Grace speaks with Ben Tan, a senior executive at Gartner with over 30 years in the tech industry, about the rippleeffects of recent U.S. tariffs on the global tech landscape. Will tariffs reshape trade flows and increase costs for both companies and consumers. Ben outlines possible future scenarios and stresses the need for companies to rethink long-term planning, balance cost and risk, and adapt to changing political dynamics.

Peter Schwartz is still rehearsing the future - with AI at centre stage

Futurist Peter Schwartz sees AI as a potent ally inthe scenario planning toolkit. Generative AI can rapidly prototype dozens of scenario narratives, compressing what used to take months into days. But he cautioned: speed must not come at the expense of depth. AI excels at horizontaldata synthesis, but true strategic insight still demands vertical, human judgment.

As an MBA student in 2000, this book was requiredreading for the strategy module. I found the work fascinating as was my interview with the author. It opened a new world of how organisations and governments planned ahead. It was during his time at Shell that Schwartz began visiting Singapore regularly from the 1980s to update the late Prime MinisterLee Kuan Yew on developments in the oil industry and their consequences.

Currently the chief futures officer at Salesforce,Schwartz visited Singapore in early June as a speaker at the ATx tech event.

Listen to him as he discussed AI’s impact on work.AI is the biggest tech revolution the world has ever seen and it can be best harnessed for education and in healthcare. The most valuable application of AI today is as a decision-support engine not as a decision-maker. As an example, AI could function as the super tutor for the less fortunate anddisadvantaged, providing them with the best education.

Hitachi Vantara CTO Matthew Hardman on cybersecurity and advanced analyticsAI is transforming finance organisations, strengthening cybersecurity, and preparing for quantum-safe security, says Matthew Hardman, chief technology officer for Asia-Pacific of Hitachi Vantara. In the podcast, emphasises AI's role in improving cybersecurity by detecting anomalies and enabling real-time responses to threats like ransomware, shifting the focus from prevention alone to recovery and cyber resiliency.

He also explains that while GenAI offers an accessible entry point, the true value of AI lies in its broader applications like machine learning, advanced data analytics, and predictive capabilities for product development, recommendations, and sentiment analysis.Follow us for more:Website: https://newsontech.asia/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newsontechasia/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newsontechasia/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/news-on-tech X: https://x.com/newsontechasia