2024 milestones: October

Tech highlights for October 2024 included: 

- Apple announced the initial set of Apple Intelligence (AI) features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users through a free software update with the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

- China smartphone shipments grew 3.2% year over year (YoY) to 68.8 M units in Q324, the 4th consecutive quarter of expansion according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. Reports zeroed in on Huawei's 42% YoY growth, putting it in 3rd place and with market share extremely close to Apple's.

- Dubai Internet City marked its 25th anniversary. The venue hosted over 4,000 businesses and 31,000 professionals in the 1st nine months of 2024.

- Google broke ground on its 1st data centre and cloud region in Malaysia, a US$2 B investment.

Source: PM's Office of Malaysia. Malaysia's PM Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim unveiled the National Cloud Policy during his official remarks at Google’s groundbreaking ceremony for its US$2 B data centre and cloud region in Malaysia.

- Intel launched its 1st AI PC Core Ultra desktop processors. The Core Ultra 200S series processors deliver excellent gaming and compute performance with less power consumption.

Intel and AMD also announced the creation of an x86 ecosystem advisory group to shape the future of the world’s most widely used computing architecture. Other members include Broadcom, Dell, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Lenovo, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat.

- Intelsat lost the Intelsat 33e satellite. The company said at the time of the announcement that it is coordinating with the satellite manufacturer, Boeing, and government agencies to analyse data and observations, and that migration and service restoration plans are under way.

- Malaysia has launched its National Cloud Policy, which emphasises public service innovation and efficiency; economic competitiveness and growth; fuelling economic expansion by enabling businesses, strengthening user trust and data security, as well as empowering citizens through digital inclusivity.

- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to John J. Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey E. Hinton from the University of Toronto “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks."

- OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Search. "You can get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources, which you would have previously needed to go to a search engine for," the company said. Media reports also said OpenAI is working with Broadcom and TSMC to build its a chip to support its AI systems. The company currently uses NVIDIA chips and is adding AMD chips as well.

- Oracle announced plans to invest more than US$6.5 B to open a public cloud region in Malaysia. The cloud region will enable Oracle customers and partners in Malaysia to leverage AI infrastructure and services and migrate mission-critical workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

- Smart Nation 2.0, Singapore’s refreshed vision for a society where everyone can thrive in the digital age, was launched. The vision focuses on the three goals of trust, growth, and community.

The Cyber Security Agency (CSA) of Singapore introduced Guidelines on Securing AI Systems to help "protect AI systems against classical cybersecurity risks such as supply chain attacks, and novel risks such as adversarial machine learning", the government agency said.

At the same time, CSA has collaborated with AI and cybersecurity practitioners to develop a Companion Guide on Securing AI Systems. While not prescriptive, CSA stated that it "curates practical measures, security controls and best practices from industry and academia".

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) introduced the Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) for phishing scams, to be implemented on 16 December 2024. Under the SRF, financial institutions or telcos are expected to provide payouts to consumers under the SRF only if there is failure to discharge their specified duties. These duties include fraud surveillance, a way to detect unauthorised transactions on customers' accounts.

Imperial College London, and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop digital technologies, including smart port systems, and cybersecurity solutions for maritime Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, industrial control and operational technology systems, over five years.

Another UK-Singapore MoU was signed between Health Data Research UK and the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF) to focus on trustworthy data use that powers improvements in healthcare, research and innovation. 

- SunCable was granted conditional approval by the Singapore Energy Market Authority (EMA) to import green electricity sourced from solar and wind power via its flagship project, the Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink). The company plans to supply up to 1.75 GW (15%) of Singapore’s total electricity needs in addition to a planned 4 GW in Australia to power future green industries in Darwin. 

- VAST Data, the AI data platform company, launched Cosmos, a community built by AI practitioners for AI practitioners to help democratise the benefits of AI.

- Western Digital unveiled the Ultrastar DC HC690, the industry’s highest-capacity ePMR drive with up to 32 TB of storage, with no change to device size. This is also the industry’s first 11-disk HDD.