News in Cloud Computing & Data Storage

Huawei Cloud: The first choice of multicloud provider for LATAM

On 17 March 2026, Huawei Cloud hosted COMPASS, its annual flagship event for Latin America in Shenzhen and Dongguan, China. The event convened more than 150 attendees including public sector decision-makers, business leaders, tech partners, and industry experts from Latin America. They explored cutting-edge Chinese technologies, witnessed AI's power in daily life, and discussed how cloud technologies can enable a better future. Named "COMPASS" to represent exploration and guidance, the summit brought together Huawei Cloud and its Latin American customers and partners to advance digital and intelligent transformation efforts. Latin America: A vital pillar of Huawei Cloud's global strategy Peter Zhou, CEO of Huawei Cloud, highlighted Latin America as a vital pillar of Huawei Cloud's global strategy during his keynote speech. He stated that Huawei Cloud leads the region with the most extensive cloud regions, broadest coverage, and fastest growth. Huawei Cloud has become the go-to provider for businesses adopting hybrid and multi-cloud solutions while supporting governments and organisations in major industries in their shift toward intelligent operations. In 2026, Huawei Cloud aims to drive customer transformation in Latin America by focusing on three strategic areas: 1. Continuous innovation: In line with the deeper AI adoption into production systems, Huawei Cloud plans to expand its AI compute service in Brazil and Mexico while ramping up investments in a full-stack solution that involves cloud computing, diverse AI models, and application platforms, combining public cloud flexibility and hybrid cloud security to meet a wider range of customer needs. 2. Deepened industry focus: Huawei Cloud will integrate AI best practices from both China and globally with regional insights in Latin America to assist customers in solving real-world business challenges. 3. A robust cloud foundation: Security and stability are the lifeline of Huawei Cloud. Huawei Cloud boasts 955 days of secure, uninterrupted operation. Moving forward, Huawei Cloud will converge its cloud foundation and data security centres into end-to-end security solutions, which ensure sound and efficient cloud migration. Strong local presence: The trusted partner for LATAM Daniel Zhou, President of Huawei Latin America, emphasised the company's strong, long-term dedication to the region during his keynote speech. By 2025, Huawei has had over 20 offices and employed more than 4,400 people across Latin America, with over 70% local hires. The company indirectly creates over 100,000 jobs and ranks as a top employer in several countries. Through its carrier business, Huawei reaches more than half of Latin America's population. It collaborates with thousands of partners and customers in areas like enterprise solutions, digital power, and consumer products. As a leading provider of digital infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei is a dedicated, trusted partner in driving Latin America's digital innovation and sustainable growth. Huawei Cloud has become the go-to cloud for Latin American businesses by focusing on five key strengths, as highlighted by Daniel Zhou: • Systemic AI capabilities: Huawei Cloud provides advanced AI infrastructure, a Model as a Service (MaaS) platform, and an agent platform to help industries across Latin America solve their unique challenges with AI. • State-of-the-art hybrid cloud: As the sole provider supporting complete AI deployment - from infrastructure to model services - on local data centres, Huawei Cloud ensures local access to powerful AI tools while keeping critical data secure within customer premises. • Trust by industry leaders: With deep expertise in Latin America and a strong grasp of industry needs, Huawei Cloud is the go-to multi-cloud solution provider for major players in government, finance, carrier, and retail sectors. • Reliable and compliant: Keeping a track record of zero major incidents for more than 900 days, Huawei Cloud fully complies with Latin America's security, privacy, and financial regulations. • Always-on support: 24/7 Spanish and Portuguese support with the fastest response times in the industry guarantees uninterrupted service for local customers. Enhanced performance, increased trust, and "1+3" solution Mark Chen, President of Huawei Cloud Latin America, shared key updates on the company's growth and plans: Huawei Cloud leads in public cloud revenue growth in Latin America, outpacing competitors and solidifying its position as the third-largest player in the IaaS market. Partner revenues grew over 50%. Major customers like SMU (Chilean retail leader), Claro (leading telecom provider), and Dataprev (Brazilian public sector IT company) trust Huawei Cloud for digital transformation in finance, retail, carrier, and government sectors. In addition, customer satisfaction rises to a new height: 92 points according to a third-party survey, with 83.4% of users recommending Huawei Cloud, reflecting the success of the company's customer-centric approach. Such achievements are backed by stronger localised service teams. Huawei Cloud has improved its team structure, increasing local hires by 10% and boosting bilingual Chinese staff proficient in Spanish and Portuguese by 15%. On behalf of Huawei Cloud Latin America, Mark Chen expressed the company's gratitude to customers for their ongoing support, emphasising collaboration with the saying: "Alone we go fast, together we go far." Over the past year, many new partners have contributed to this shared path towards sustainability and success. Huawei Cloud's "1+3" solution - featuring one cloud foundation and three key capabilities (AI, application modernisation, and big data) - empowers industry leaders in Latin America to achieve significant breakthroughs. Embracing AI transformation: Empowering quick actions on the right track Tim Tao (pictured above), President of Huawei Cloud Solution Sales, highlighted that AI now impacts nearly 90% of enterprise daily operations, evolving from a tool to a productivity partner. He stressed that enterprise intelligence must focus on core business requirements and deploying AI in high-value areas first. Huawei Cloud has helped customers in more than 500 scenarios across more than 30 industries achieve intelligent upgrades. With innovative products, technologies, and global experience, Huawei Cloud is poised to pave the way for enterprises towards greater business success. Tim showcased major use cases and proven practices across government, finance, and retail sectors. Governments focus on digitising services, enhancing information systems, and enabling smart governance. Financial institutions adopt distributed cores, data-driven operations, and intelligent innovations. Retailers leverage cloud to streamline promotions, omnichannel operations, and AI-powered customer service. Tim also presented innovative offerings - Huawei Cloud Foundation (HCF), AI DataLake, TaurusDB, ModelArts, AgentArts, and CodeArts - spanning cloud infrastructure, data, AI, and application enablement. Additionally, Huawei Cloud shared its success in supporting global customers, including those in Latin America, by building a reliable and secure cloud foundation, multimodal AI data platform, and one-stop AI development platform. These efforts empower businesses to thrive in the AI era. Success stories with Huawei Cloud from top customers • Latin America's top bank created an automated cloud foundation with Huawei Cloud and smoothly migrated 100% of its systems to the cloud, especially its core transaction system. • Dataprev, Brazil's premier public sector IT company, developed a national cloud platform using Huawei Cloud. The hybrid cloud architecture meets data sovereignty requirements, supports cross-cloud disaster recovery, and enables centralised O&M. By leveraging state-of-the-art AI technologies, Dataprev enables administrative organisations to deliver better public services to Brazilian citizens. • iFLYTEK, a top Chinese intelligent voice and AI company, collaborates with Huawei Cloud to combine its AI expertise with Huawei's compute resources. Together, they create industry-specific AI models and expand their global reach. • Stefanini, a leading technology consulting firm in Brazil, represents Huawei Cloud as a trusted advisor and solution provider. Via its extensive delivery network, Stefanini facilitates businesses across Latin America to adopt Huawei Cloud to accelerate digital transformation. COMPASS is not only an annual event of Huawei Cloud, but also a key indicator of Latin America's digital progress. Ready to shape a collaborative future, Huawei Cloud invites customers and partners to join forces today. For more from Huawei, click here.

NetApp launches new EF-Series storage systems

NetApp, a US provider of data storage and cloud infrastructure management, has announced new additions to its EF-Series storage portfolio, designed for high-performance workloads across AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and transactional databases. The latest models, EF50 and EF80, are intended to support increasing data demands in enterprise environments, including emerging applications such as sovereign AI clouds and AI-driven manufacturing. The systems are designed to work with parallel file systems such as Lustre and BeeGFS, supporting HPC simulations and GPU-intensive workloads through high-performance scratch storage. Performance and efficiency improvements According to NetApp, the new systems deliver over 110GBps of read throughput and 55GBps of write throughput, representing a 250% increase compared to previous generations. The systems also offer a power efficiency of 63.7GBps per kW, alongside storage density of up to 1.5PB within a 2U form factor. This is intended to support high-performance requirements while maintaining efficient rack usage. The EF-Series is positioned to support a range of use cases, including AI development, media production workflows, and large-scale data processing, with built-in data protection features. Clayton Vipond, Senior Solution Architect at CDW, says, “As we navigate the AI era, many enterprises are finding that they need to maximise their raw performance to extract the most value from their data. “The refreshed NetApp EF-Series deliver the throughput and capacity businesses need to scale high-powered workloads that transform data into insights and outcomes.” Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst at Omdia, adds, “By delivering a high-performance storage system that supports parallel file systems like Lustre and BeeGFS, NetApp is making its mark as emerging industries - such as neocloud - emerge to support the AI-Era.” NetApp states that the EF-Series platform builds on its existing installed base, with more than one million deployments globally. For more from NetApp, click here.

Datadog to launch new UK data centre presence

Datadog, a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, has today announced plans for a new UK data centre presence. The move aims to support UK organisations as cloud adoption accelerates across regulated industries and as data governance and security requirements continue to evolve. The launch adds to Datadog’s existing service locations in North America, Asia, and Europe. Datadog comments that the new UK data centre presence expands its ability to support its customers and partners that require local storage of operational data in the UK. By keeping data in-region, it says organisations can also reduce latency and use Datadog’s full observability and security platform from a single UK-resident environment. This capability, the company suggests, is crucial for companies operating in regulated environments such as government, banking, healthcare, and higher education. Increasing cloud adoption in the UK Cloud adoption continues to accelerate across regulated organisations in the UK. In financial services, 82% of firms surveyed by LSEG operate in multi-cloud or hybrid environments. In the public sector, annual digital technology spend exceeds £26 billion, with around 60% of IT systems running on cloud infrastructure, according to GOV.UK figures. Companies are also adapting to evolving UK data governance, including changes introduced under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which has increased focus on where operational data is stored and processed. Yanbing Li, Chief Product Officer at Datadog, says, “As more organisations modernise and run critical systems in the cloud and deploy AI, where operational data is stored has become a practical constraint, not just a compliance question. “This launch reflects our continued investment in building regional infrastructure to meet that reality. For the public sector and highly regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare, storing data locally is critical. "The UK data centre presence gives customers a way to adopt modern observability and security without compromising in-region data storage.” Steve Barrett, VP EMEA at Datadog, adds, “The UK is one of the fastest adopters of cloud and AI technologies in Europe. Organisations here are modernising quickly while facing increasing scrutiny around data governance and security. "Cloud adoption is now the norm and AI is becoming a second wave on top of it - exponentially increasing operational complexity. Expanding our regional footprint now ensures organisations have trusted, local data processing as they scale cloud and AI securely and reliably.” Datadog’s full range of products and services will be supported in the UK data centre, which is expected to open later in 2026. For more from Datadog, click here.

Kioxia hosts tour of flash memory plant

Memory manufacturer Kioxia has collaborated with Linus Media Group on a video tour of its Yokkaichi Plant in Japan, one of the world’s largest flash memory production facilities. The video, published by Linus Tech Tips, documents a visit to Kioxia Corporation’s manufacturing site, including its flagship Fab 7 facility. The plant operates as a smart factory, with more than three billion data points generated daily from production lines to support AI-driven manufacturing processes. According to the company, the video received nearly one million views within 24 hours of release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivLvsTnp9fI Inside the Yokkaichi smart factory Presented by Linus Sebastian, the tour follows the process from raw silicon wafers through to finished flash memory and solid state drives. It includes access to wafer and die processing stages before the components become BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory. The video also highlights the facility’s automation systems, process controls, and material handling technologies, as well as the packaging and final testing stages before memory components are assembled into SSDs. Terren Tong, CEO of Linus Media Group, says, “Bringing technology to our viewers is what drives us, and this tour inside Kioxia’s fab gives a rare, up-close look at what goes into the devices we use every day. We really appreciate Kioxia for letting us dive into the manufacturing of cutting-edge flash memory and SSDs.” Paul Rowan, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Kioxia Europe, says, “Our focus at Yokkaichi is on translating innovative engineering into dependable, high-performance storage at scale. "This unique, behind-the-scenes look with Linus Tech Tips allows a wider audience to see the engineering and technology, including our commitment to sustainability that is central to our flash memory and SSD products, while showcasing the latest solutions that power today’s consumer devices and tomorrow’s AI-driven data centres.” For more from Kioxia, click here.

OpenNebula validated with NVIDIA Spectrum-X

OpenNebula Systems has today announced that its cloud management and virtualisation platform, OpenNebula, has been validated by NVIDIA as an orchestration platform integrated with NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. OpenNebula is used as a multi-tenant platform for AI factories, providing isolation, governance, and lifecycle management for accelerated infrastructure. The company says the validation supports the deployment of AI-ready cloud infrastructure using Spectrum-X Ethernet. Spectrum-X Ethernet is designed for AI networking environments, where latency, congestion, and jitter can affect large-scale training and multi-tenant inference workloads. OpenNebula now integrates with the networking platform to provide a software-defined cloud environment for AI applications, with multi-tenancy across compute, GPU, and network layers on a shared Spectrum-X Ethernet fabric. Automated orchestration for AI workloads The integration allows OpenNebula to orchestrate tenant provisioning, network configuration, and device attachment through Spectrum-X Ethernet. The OpenNebula control plane also runs on NVIDIA Air, which provides a platform for testing, integration, and validation. Customers can use the environment to evaluate the integration, run simulations, and test automation workflows for AI factory deployments. Ignacio M. Llorente, CEO of OpenNebula Systems, says, “Through our collaboration with NVIDIA, we are extending OpenNebula to support the networking and performance requirements of modern AI infrastructures. "This integration allows customers to manage multi-tenant AI environments where NVIDIA Grace Blackwell and NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Ultra compute and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking are tightly orchestrated and optimised as a single platform.” Amit Katz, VP of Networking at NVIDIA, adds, “OpenNebula’s integration with NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet brings cloud-native agility to the AI Factory, enabling customers to orchestrate multi-tenant accelerated infrastructure with maximum performance and predictability. "NVIDIA Air enables OpenNebula and our ecosystem partners to validate and simulate large-scale AI Factory deployments, giving customers a powerful environment to evaluate and accelerate their AI cloud strategies.” For more from OpenNebula, click here.

DataVita secures £44.9m contract with Glasgow City Council

DataVita, a UK data centre and cloud services provider, has announced it has secured a major contract with Glasgow City Council to provide the city’s core compute and storage services. The initial agreement is valued at £44.9 million over five years and nine months and will see DataVita modernise the Council's digital backbone to underpin essential public services. The partnership includes options for the Council to extend for multiple periods and, should the contract run for its maximum permitted duration of over 10 years, the total projected value is estimated to be between £80 million and £110 million. Under the initial term, which began on 8 October 2025, DataVita will deliver a comprehensive suite of services from its Tier-III-certified Scottish data centres. These services will form the foundation of the Council's IT infrastructure, supporting over 400 applications that are critical to daily public services. The scope includes providing resilient primary and disaster recovery environments, managing virtual and physical servers, scalable storage, and "robust backup solutions" featuring immutable copies for maximum data protection. As part of the contract, up to 25 new roles will also be created, including several apprenticeships, which DataVita says reflects its "commitment to skills development and job creation within Scotland’s tech sector." Investments in Scotland's backbone Danny Quinn, Managing Director of DataVita, comments, "We are incredibly proud to be selected as a strategic partner for Glasgow City Council. We are focused on delivering exceptional value and innovation over the initial term and see this as the start of a long-term partnership. "Our mission is to provide a resilient, secure, and sustainable digital infrastructure that will not only meet the city's needs today, but also support its ambitions for the future. This award is a testament to our team's expertise and our commitment to investing in Scotland's technology ecosystem." As part of Glasgow's transition to a multi-source IT delivery model, DataVita will integrate with the Council's Service Integration and Management (SIAM) function, aiming to ensure efficient and collaborative service delivery alongside other partners. Paul Leinster, Chair of the Digital Glasgow Board from Glasgow City Council, says, “The essential services that we deliver to citizens and the value they add to people’s lives are always our first priorities. “Increasingly, though, we rely on a complex digital estate to deliver those services, and this contract will ensure we have a secure, resilient platform to support what is an incredibly diverse range of work. "DataVita brings proven capability here in Scotland, and their commitment to renewable, energy‑efficient operations aligns with Glasgow’s ambitions for a cleaner, greener city.” For more from DataVita, click here.

Integral triples capacity at Equinix SG1

Integral, a currency technology provider to the financial markets, has tripled the size of its presence at the Equinix SG1 data centre in Singapore to accommodate reported soaring regional demand. The company is also leveraging digital infrastructure company Equinix’s software-defined interconnection, Equinix Fabric, to establish private and direct connections to cloud services providers, as well as key partners and customers. This expansion comes amid increased transaction volumes and system load, with Integral now processing over one million tickets daily at Equinix SG1. Equinix operates a global network of over 270 International Business Exchange (IBX) facilities, providing infrastructure for advanced connectivity and colocation. Connecting clients in Asia-Pacific Integral’s SG1 data facility is employed to service clients not only based in Singapore, but across the Asia-Pacific. The news is directly correlated with the company’s growth in the region, with numerous client partnerships established in the past year. To service this expanding client base, Integral says it is committed to ongoing investment in infrastructure which "supports scalability, reliability, and optimal efficiency." Data is a crucial element of this dynamic and underpins the decision to triple infrastructure footprint at the SG1 data facility. The expansion aims to enable Integral to manage the increase in transaction volumes without a decline in speed or performance. Alongside Singapore (SG1), Integral also operates infrastructure within Equinix data centers in New York (NY4), Tokyo (TY4), and London (LD3). Yee May Leong, Managing Director, Singapore at Equinix, comments, "We are thrilled to support Integral in their significant expansion in SG1. This growth not only reflects Integral's commitment to meeting the soaring demand in the financial markets, but also underscores the trust they place in Equinix as a strategic partner. "Our robust finance ecosystem, combined with our global footprint and seamless access to leading cloud service providers, empowers Integral to deliver unparalleled performance and reliability to their clients across the Asia-Pacific region. "We look forward to continuing our collaboration and enabling Integral to thrive in this dynamic landscape." Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral, adds, “For over three decades, Integral has remained resolute in its support of the growing institutional and retail trading landscape across APAC, increasing our established customer base and strengthening the local liquidity ecosystem. "Singapore has been a key market for accelerating our regional presence, and the expansion of our SG1 data facility represents our commitment to ensuring our clients have access to the most sophisticated and agile cloud-based infrastructure possible.”

Telehouse Canada, Megaport partner to expand cloud options

Telehouse Canada, an operator of colocation data centres, has announced a strategic partnership with Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) provider Megaport, expanding cloud connectivity capabilities across its Canadian data centre portfolio. The agreement enables Telehouse Canada customers to access Megaport’s global ecosystem, which includes more than 280 cloud on-ramps and over 300 service providers. Through the integration, organisations can establish scalable, private connections to leading cloud platforms and global IT services directly from Telehouse Canada facilities. Customers can access the Megaport Portal from all Telehouse Canada data centres, allowing them to design flexible, high-performance network architectures that support hybrid and multi-cloud workloads, as well as more traditional enterprise use cases. Simplified networking and AI-focused connectivity By leveraging Megaport’s global platform, organisations can scale connectivity on demand and streamline network operations. Services available include Megaport Cloud Router, which enables direct data transfer between multiple cloud environments, and API-based integration to automate deployment and ongoing management. Atsushi Kubo, President and CEO of Telehouse Canada, says the partnership enhances the value of its data centre ecosystem, stating, “This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to delivering high-quality, efficient connectivity. "Alongside colocation, we are providing customers with access to a highly interconnected environment that supports growth and reduces complexity through Megaport’s platform.” The partnership also provides access to Megaport’s AI Exchange (AIx), a connectivity ecosystem designed to support AI-driven workloads. AIx enables organisations to interconnect with GPU-as-a-Service providers, neocloud platforms, third-party AI models, and storage and compute resources, supporting the rapid delivery of AI services at a global scale. Michael Reid, CEO of Megaport, notes, “As organisations operate across increasingly complex environments, connectivity and compute must work seamlessly together. "Partnering with Telehouse Canada allows us to extend our capabilities into a strong local ecosystem, giving customers the foundations required to support advanced workloads today and adapt as their needs evolve.” Telehouse Canada and Megaport say they plan to continue developing the partnership, with a shared focus on strengthening secure, high-performance digital infrastructure to support Canadian organisations and international connectivity requirements. For more from Telehouse, click here.

Enecom upgrades data storage with Infinidat's InfiniBox

Infinidat, a provider of enterprise data storage systems, has announced that Enecom, a Japanese ICT services provider operating primarily in the Chugoku region, has upgraded its enterprise data infrastructure using multiple InfiniBox storage systems. Enecom has deployed five InfiniBox systems across its environment. Two systems support the company’s EneWings enterprise cloud service, two are used for internal virtual infrastructure, and one is dedicated to backup and verification. The deployment is intended to support service availability, scalability, and resilience as data volumes increase. According to Enecom, the investment was driven by customer requirements for high system reliability, concerns around cyber security, and the rising cost and operational impact of legacy storage platforms. Masayuki Chikaraishi, Solution Service Department, Solution Business Division at Enecom, says, “When we were choosing how to upgrade our storage infrastructure, our customers told us that system reliability was particularly important and that the threat of damage caused by cyberattacks was a major concern. "We also had to address the rising costs of the legacy systems and the fallout when hardware failures occurred. For the longer term, we needed to be proactive to be able to handle the expected future growth in cloud demand and to strengthen the appeal of our EneWings brand.” Availability and cyber resilience focus Enecom says it is using an active-active configuration across two InfiniBox systems to maintain service continuity during maintenance and software upgrades. Takashi Ueki, Solution Service Department, Solution Business Division at Enecom, notes, “Many of our customers are concerned that even the slightest outage will affect their business. "By using two InfiniBox systems in an active-active cluster configuration, we can continue to provide services with higher reliability and peace of mind without interruption, even when performing maintenance or software version upgrades.” Cyber resilience was also a key consideration. Enecom is using InfiniSafe features within the InfiniBox platform, including immutable snapshots and recovery capabilities, to support rapid restoration following cyber incidents. Masayuki continues, “InfiniBox provides high-speed, tamper-proof, immutable snapshots creation as a standard feature to enable rapid recovery from a future cyberattack. Keeping data within Japan for data security reasons will become more important in the future.” For more from Infinidat, click here.

Europe races to build its own AI backbone

Recent outages across global cloud infrastructure have once again served as a reminder of how deeply Europe depends on foreign hyperscalers. When platforms run on AWS or services protected by Cloudflare fail, European factories, logistics hubs, retailers, and public services can stall instantly. US-based cloud providers currently dominate Europe’s infrastructure landscape. According to market data, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google together control roughly 70% of Europe’s public cloud market. In contrast, all European providers combined account for only about 15%. This share has declined sharply over the past decade. For European enterprises, this means limited leverage over resilience, performance, data governance, and long-term sovereignty. This same structural dependency is now extending from cloud infrastructure directly into artificial intelligence and its underlying investments. Between 2018 and 2023, US companies attracted more than €120 billion (£104 billion) in private AI investment, while the European Union drew about €32.5 billion (£28 billion) over the same period. In 2024 alone, US-based AI firms raised roughly $109 billion (£81 billion), more than six times the total private AI investment in Europe that year. Europe is therefore trying to close the innovation gap while simultaneously tightening regulation, creating a paradox in which calls for digital sovereignty grow louder even as reliance on non-European infrastructure deepens. The European Union’s Apply AI Strategy is designed to move AI out of research environments and into real industrial use, backed by more than one billion euros in funding. However, most of the computing power, cloud platforms, and model infrastructure required to deploy these systems at scale still comes from outside Europe. This creates a structural risk: even as AI adoption accelerates inside European industry, much of the strategic control over its operation may remain in foreign hands. Why industrial AI is Europe’s real monitoring ground For any large-scale technology strategy to succeed, it must be tested and refined through real-world deployment, not only shaped at the policy level. The effectiveness of Europe’s AI push will ultimately depend on how quickly new rules, funding mechanisms, and technical standards translate into working systems, and how fast feedback from practice can inform the next iteration. This is where industrial environments become especially important. They produce large amounts of real-time data, and the results of AI use are quickly visible in productivity and cost. As a result, industrial AI is becoming one of the main testing grounds for Europe’s AI ambitions. The companies applying AI in practice will be the first to see what works, what does not, and what needs to be adjusted. According to Giedrė Rajuncė, CEO and co-founder of GREÏ, an AI-powered operational intelligence platform for industrial sites, this shift is already visible on the factory floor, where AI is changing how operations are monitored and optimised in real time. She notes, “AI can now monitor operations in real time, giving companies a new level of visibility into how their processes actually function. I call it a real-time revolution, and it is available at a cost no other technology can match. Instead of relying on expensive automation as the only path to higher effectiveness, companies can now plug AI-based software into existing cameras and instantly unlock 10–30% efficiency gains.” She adds that Apply AI reshapes competition beyond technology alone, stating, “Apply AI is reshaping competition for both talent and capital. European startups are now competing directly with US giants for engineers, researchers, and investors who are increasingly focused on industrial AI. From our experience, progress rarely starts with a sweeping transformation. It starts with solving one clear operational problem where real-time detection delivers visible impact, builds confidence, and proves return on investment.” The data confirms both movement and caution. According to Eurostat, 41% of large EU enterprises had adopted at least one AI-based technology in 2024. At the same time, a global survey by McKinsey & Company shows that 88% of organisations worldwide are already using AI in at least one business function. “Yes, the numbers show that Europe is still moving more slowly,” Giedrė concludes. “But they also show something even more important. The global market will leave us no choice but to accelerate. That means using the opportunities created by the EU’s push for AI adoption before the gap becomes structural.”