Dell Technologies World has just come to a close in Las Vegas and there is no doubt that the company is – in its own words “all in on AI”. From laptops to services, data center infrastructure and partnerships, everything is being led by AI.

What this means in practice for IT decision makers and business leaders can sometimes be hard to divine, however. This week, Jane sits down with John Roese, chief technology officer and chief AI officer at Dell Technologies, to dig into the practical effects of this, from how businesses will think about endpoints and devices to the potential end of HCI.

Read more:

• Dell Technologies World 2025 live – all latest news and updates live from the Venetian Conference Center, Las Vegas
• Dell brings new cybersecurity features to PowerStore, Data Domain, and PowerScale product lines
• Michael Dell talks up the power of human and AI collaboration – but not everyone’s singing the same tune
• Dell Technologies Global Partner Summit 2025 – all the news and updates live from Las Vegas
• Jensen Huang joins Dell Technologies World virtually to talk servers and AI factories
• New Dell AI Factory partners debuted at Dell Technologies World 2025
• Dell Technologies wants to cut infrastructure costs – here's how it plans to do it
• Dell grows AI laptop line with Dell Pro Max Plus at Dell Technologies World 2025

This episode was first broadcast on 22 March 2024.

As technological innovations happen, it can be easy to forget that even the most complex systems rely on large networks of basic infrastructure to operate. At the most fundamental level, all tech products rely on effective data storage 

But this is easier said than done. Each byte of data has to be stored somewhere, on a rack, disk, tape, or flash device. As the world embraces hardware and software that creates data at an even faster rate, businesses will be forced to push the frontiers of data storage and evaluate their data management strategies.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Tom Coughlin, president and CEO of the IEEE, to learn more about how data storage will continue to evolve and what organizations can do to keep up with innovation in the space.

Read more:

• ​​​​Best SSDs 2023: The top NVMe and SATA drives around
• 10 things to consider when buying an external hard disk-based storage device
• What is machine learning and why is it important?
• What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?
• Who owns the data used to train AI?
• How to choose the right storage medium for your organization’s backup strategy
• Three keys to successful data management
• Structured vs unstructured data management
• 5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage provider
• How close is glass data storage to scaled enterprise use?

What do you do when you want to get your enterprise data into a usable format? And how can you make better use of the data you already use, through the likes of analytics, AI, and even quantum computing?

All these questions and more have been front and center at SAS Innovate 2025, the data and analytics veteran’s annual conference held in Orlando, Florida.

As the week has pressed on, what have we learned about SAS’ view of its place in the rapidly changing world of business technology? And what sets it apart from its competitors?

In this episode, Jane once again speaks to Rory, to learn more about his SAS Innovate 2025 coverage and the key themes and announcements.

Read more:

• SAS wants its AI agents to supercharge workers, not replace them
• SAS leans on synthetic data and digital twins to support business data demand
• SAS thinks quantum AI has huge enterprise potential – here's why
• “Public trust has become the new currency for AI innovation”: Why SAS is ringing the alarm bell on AI governance for enterprises
• SAS Innovate 2025 live: All the updates from day two
• What to watch out for at SAS Innovate 2025

RSAC Conference 2025 has been full on, with cybersecurity experts from all over the world descending on San Francisco to share trends, data, and announcements.

This year, ITPro has been providing both remote and on the ground coverage from the event, across talks covering topics such as AI security and threat actor methodology.

In this episode, Jane speaks to Rory about some of his RSAC coverage and key takeaways from the event.

Read more:

• RSAC Conference 2025 was a sobering reminder of the challenges facing cybersecurity professionals
• RSAC Conference Day One: Vibe Is 'All In' on AI for Security
• “Governance is an irreplaceable role”: Microsoft Security VP on why diversity and sector expertise will keep security workers relevant in the age of agentic AI
• RSAC Conference day two: A focus on what attackers are doing
• "There needs to be an order of magnitude more effort"": AI security experts call for focused evaluation of frontier models and agentic systems
• Cyber defenders need to remember their adversaries are human, says Trellix research head
• RSAC Conference day three: using AI to do more with less and facing new attack techniques
• "China has almost doubled their aggression in cyber’: Kevin Mandia and Nicole Perlroth warn organizations aren’t waking up to growing APT threats

April has been a busy month for tech news – we recorded this episode with a week left in the month, but there’s already so much to discuss.

A major upset in the international database for tracking vulnerabilities had some in the cybersecurity field stunned – until a last minute U-turn.

Elsewhere, AWS is the latest hyperscaler to roll back on data center plans, but what does this mean for the market?

In this episode Jane and Rory speak once again to Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack some of the most noteworthy April news.

Read more:

• MITRE CVE program handed last minute reprieve amid funding lapse concerns
• Third time lucky? Microsoft finally begins roll-out of controversial Recall feature
• Microsoft's Recall delayed once again as roll-out fiasco continues
• New Microsoft Recall feature is a 'security nightmare' and could make Copilot+ PCs a top target for cyber criminals
• First Microsoft, now AWS: Why tech giants are hitting the brakes on costly data center plans
• Analysts think Microsoft's data center rollback is bad news for the AI boom – but the company says not to worry

We’ve spent the past few years discussing large language models, the huge AI models that power a lot of the generative AI tools that have dominated the headlines.

But small language models are also possible – and rapidly growing in popularity.

What benefits do these tiny AI models offer, and how much use will they get in the coming months and years, and how do they differ from other lightweight, ‘low latency’ models?

In this episode, Jane and Rory take a look at some of the smallest AI models on the market, asking what they're for and if they could be the future of the technology.

Read more:

• Small language models are growing in popularity — but they have a “hidden fallacy” that enterprises must come to terms with
• Small language models set for take-off next year
• Google’s new ‘Gemma’ AI models show that bigger isn’t always better
• Microsoft wants to take the hassle out of AI development with its ‘Models as a Service’ offering
• Three open source large language models you can use today
• Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has Silicon Valley flustered

Las Vegas has been taken over by Google Cloud this week, with Google Cloud Next 2025 in full flow.

There have already been a number of headline grabbing announcements: we've seen the launch of a powerful new AI accelerator chip by the name of Ironwood, huge updates to Google Cloud's security capabilities, and new agentic AI development kits for enterprises. But there's been much, much more on top.

In this episode, Ross Kelly, news and analysis editor at ITPro, speaks to Rory about Google Cloud's messaging at its annual conference and what the mood on the ground is at Google Cloud Next 2025.

Read more:

• Google Cloud Next 2025: All the live updates from the day two keynote
• Google Cloud wants to tackle cyber complexity – here's how it plans to do it
• Google Cloud announces major computing boost with Ironwood chip, new hypercomputer upgrades
• Foreign AI model launches may have improved trust in US AI developers, says Mandiant CTO – as he warns Chinese cyber attacks are at an “unprecedented level”
• Google shakes off tariff concerns to push on with $75 billion AI spending plans – but analysts warn rising infrastructure costs will send cloud prices sky high
• Google Cloud Next 2025 is the hyperscaler’s chance to sell itself as the all-in-one AI platform for enterprises

When something goes wrong with IT at work, chances are you’ll be asked to submit a service ticket. This is a tale as old as time – see a problem, submit a ticket, wait for the service desk to come to your help.

But all this could be set for change. Advances in technology have opened the door to software problems being detected and remediated automatically, while internal learning platforms could also provide employees with the information they need to fix issues themselves.

How will all this come together, and is it really just around the corner?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Samuele Gantner, chief product officer at Nexthink, to get a better understanding of the direction IT support is headed and why the service desk might soon be a thing of the past.

The rule that your AI is only as good as your data is now well understood, with businesses all over the world looking to modernize their data sources and infrastructure to make the most of AI products and services. 

But something that can be easily lost in these discussions is consideration of the exact format your data exists in at rest. Unstructured data is especially important for AI and knowing where it fits into your AI strategy is essential. This doesn’t just mean knowing where it resides and capturing it, but also storing it in architecture that makes it searchable, secure, and accessible whenever you need it.

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Nasuni, Jane and Rory are joined by Jim Liddle, chief innovation officer of data intelligence and AI at Nasuni, to discuss using unstructured data in the most effective way possible.

March is very nearly at an end and it’s been quite a month for diverging views in the industry.

Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, has spoken out against the tech sector’s apparent fixation on achieving AGI while comparing the potential for AI to the rise of Excel spreadsheets in business. The Microsoft chief has turned his attention to the material benefits of AI, as we enter a crunch year for AI developers.

Elsewhere this month, UK tech firms are being offered support with adopting a four-day week, which could have major benefits for staff and a major security blogger has fallen victim to a classic cyber attack.

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to discuss some of the most noteworthy news from across the month.

Read more:

• ‘The entire forecasting business process changed’: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Excel changed the game for enterprises in 1985 – he’s confident AI tools will do the same
• OpenAI says it’s charting a "path to AGI" with its next frontier AI model
• 'Digital hide-and-seek': Workers are wasting hundreds of hours a year sourcing the information they need to carry out their role
• Agentic AI investment is putting the cart before the horse
• 200 UK firms have now adopted a four-day working week – and Brits are convinced it will become the norm within five years
• UK tech firms have a chance to trial a four-day week this year – here's how other pilot schemes fared
• Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt’s mailing list compromised in phishing attack
• What is phishing?