Tech Storyteller

Hello Reader, Earlier this week, I sat down for an informal chat with two gentlemen from the data centre industry in Singapore on a business trip. As with all good conversations, I shared freely but left with new perspectives and ideas. And one thing that I'm increasingly convinced about is this: Future data centres will need to run a mix of traditional and AI workloads. In short, they will be "hybrid" facilities. Why hybrid-AI is the future With all the news about the mind-boggling amount of...

Hello Reader, I was in Japan for a couple of days earlier this week. The occasion? A media trip to introduce Lenovo's "Aura Edition" of AI PCs. Also invited were several scores of analysts, journalists and influencers from other parts of the Asia Pacific, including a handful from further afield. You can read the stories I wrote in The engineering behind ThinkPad's legendary reliability and My first look at the 986-gram ThinkPad X1 Gen 13 laptop. Do media trips work? A media trip is an...

Hello Reader, Earlier this week, I spoke in Bangkok at a private gathering of just over 100 professionals from the data centre ecosystem. My topic? How to gain an unfair advantage over their peers. Read beyond the headlines When I was invited and given the first slot of the day, I thought long and hard about what to share. I finally drew inspiration from a comment last year by a technical director who told me he liked my writing. "What do you like about it," I've asked over the informal...

Hello Reader, It's been a tough week for me, so am keeping it short by highlighting a few interesting developments. Malaysia keeps popping up on the radar. This time, it's AirTrunk announcing a second data centre campus in Johor. At 270MW for JHB2, this adds up to a whooping 420MW footprint in Malaysia when completed. Of course, this won't happen for some time, given that JHB1 isn't fully built up yet. But if it actually develops the entire capacity, AirTrunk could well become the largest...

Hello Reader, Do you use AI? I use it every day, but even I am regularly surprised by the strides made by the latest AI models and services that leverage them. AI is getting scary good Earlier this week, I needed additional information to tweak an article for a client. After spending a quarter of an hour searching fruitlessly on Google and clicking through the company website, I decided to fire up Perplexity with the new DeepSeek R1 integration. A couple of prompts and around one minute...

Hello Reader, There is so much I want to write this week, but I'm keeping to just two points due to time constraints. I'm happy to discuss any of the stories via email, though, so feel free to hit "reply" to this email to reach me - I respond to every email. DeepSeek and its implications on AI We thought last week was exciting, but it turned out that things ramped up even further this week. Specifically, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek stirred up a hornet's nest with the release of its new R1...

Hello Reader, It is hard to miss the Stargate Project this week, a jaw-dropping plan to invest up to half a trillion dollars (US$500 billion) in developing and expanding a massive network of AI infrastructure across the United States. There is a lot to unpack from the announcement, though the criticisms sure came fast and furious - starting from Elon Musk, who publicly derided the new venture. Of course, given his bad blood with Sam Altman and how his own xAI venture is a competitor, what did...

Hello Reader, This week saw no small amount of trepidation over new GPU restrictions unveiled by the U.S. White House. I received several emails and messages about it; many expressed concerns that it would arrest Malaysia's data centre growth. I personally don't think it will stop Malaysia's data centre boom for the simple reason that there's a lot more than AI going on. Moreover, I see the latest regulations as a simple tightening of laws to ensure U.S. supremacy in AI. I explain more in...

Hello Reader, 2025 has been quite eventful for me so far. It started with a bang, in fact, as my car crashed into the back passenger door of the sedan that veered into my path. Thankfully, nobody got hurt. The aftermath brought the usual headaches: filing mandatory accident reports, taking time off work for vehicle repairs, and yes, the hours spent comforting our younger daughter whose anxiety got the better of her ("I don't want to sit in a car again!"). The best-laid plans That's why this...