Best of LinkedIn: ICT & Tech Insights CW 07/ 08

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about ICT and tech insights from CW seven in eight.

00:00:08: Frennes supports ICT enterprises with market and competitive intelligence decoding emerging technologies customer insights regulatory shifts and competitor strategies.

00:00:18: so product teams and strategy leaders don't just react but shape the future.

00:00:22: Welcome back to the deep dive, everyone.

00:00:24: Today we're looking at calendar week seven and eight of twenty-twenty six.

00:00:28: And I have say having reviewed this stack of posts The tone has shifted significantly.

00:00:33: It really has!

00:00:34: i spent a lot time going through updates This week...and the vibe on linkedin Has definitely moved away from.

00:00:38: you know.

00:00:39: look At this cool new shiny tech toy.

00:00:41: To something much more serious Right?

00:00:43: it feels like the industry is collectively asking Okay..the toys here now how do We actually guff in this thing?

00:00:49: More importantly How do we survive it?

00:00:51: Exactly We are seeing a very distinct move from experimentation to execution discipline.

00:00:58: The themes we're seeing our heavy, were talking about quantum readiness and not just in the theoretical sense... ...the shift into agentic AI and cyber resilience.

00:01:08: Yeah!

00:01:08: Resilience in the face of actual physical warfare and massive regulatory pressure?

00:01:14: Yes

00:01:14: it's less about the hype cycle than more about survival cycles.

00:01:19: Let's unpack this for you.

00:01:20: We have to start with the big one, which is quantum computing.

00:01:23: Quantum

00:01:23: computing from the lab to the board room?

00:01:25: Right!

00:01:26: For the longest time, quantum felt like sci-fi but looking at the Scretidia Horizons report that came across our feed it's clear that quantum has moved firmly onto the Board agenda.

00:01:35: Definitely

00:01:36: and frankly there was a specific threat driving us.

00:01:39: that sort of terrified me when I read about it.

00:01:41: You're

00:01:41: talking about the harvest now decrypt later concept.

00:01:43: Exactly.

00:01:44: Bosco Bellinghausen posted a deep dive on this.

00:01:46: that really just, it lays out perfectly.

00:01:49: The idea is that hackers or nation-states are stealing encrypted data right now.

00:01:53: Right they just grab it.

00:01:54: Yeah

00:01:54: They can't read yet because our current encryption works But they're just saving it Storing in server somewhere Waiting for quantum computers to mature enough To break the encryption.

00:02:05: And that's the Harvest Now part.

00:02:06: It reframes quantum from a future innovation topic to a present-day cybersecurity emergency.

00:02:13: Because if you have data that needs to be secret for ten or twenty years— I like

00:02:17: healthcare

00:02:18: records!

00:02:18: Healthcare record states secrets, long term IP... That data is already at risk today.

00:02:23: And Bellinghausen notes that RSA and ECC encryption which are the stuff we use basically everything right now Are essentially entering their end of comfort zone between which is literally right now.

00:02:36: It

00:02:38: isn't just fear-mongering, there are actual technical standards being rolled out to combat this.

00:02:42: The National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST has released new standards.

00:02:47: They're ML Chem, ML DSA & SLH DSA.

00:02:51: I always love when we get into the alphabet soup.

00:02:52: But seriously why do those specific standards matter for the listeners?

00:02:56: Well they redefine security baseline.

00:02:59: Jan McLaun made a very sharp point about this in his post.

00:03:02: He noted that we have moved past the question of, is quantuma threat?

00:03:06: To how fast do we need to be ready?

00:03:09: because the hardware's catching up

00:03:10: exactly.

00:03:11: The new architectures are breaking encryption with fewer qubits than we originally expected.

00:03:16: So timeline really compressing.

00:03:18: compressing

00:03:18: fast but it's not all doom and gloom right Because there's a massive business boom happening here especially Europe.

00:03:24: That is the flip side of The Coin.

00:03:25: It's not just science anymore, it's big business!

00:03:28: Yeah I saw news from Seb Johnson and Shayla Gallagher IQM quantum computers that are planning to go public via a SPAC merger And they're targeting evaluation at one point.

00:03:38: eight billion dollars...that is serious number.

00:03:42: It has massive validation in European deep tech thesis.

00:03:46: Owen Lozman noted this as major milestone for ecosystem.

00:03:50: It proves that you can build deep, hard tech in Europe and actually take it to the global public market.

00:04:12: Aesthetically incredible.

00:04:14: Oh, you mean the chapel?

00:04:15: I do mean The Chapel!

00:04:16: ...I have to share this visual with y'all.

00:04:17: Peter Dam posted about This in Barcelona...the Torres Girona Chapel which is this beautiful, nineteen forty stone chapel.

00:04:26: It now houses a quantum computer

00:04:29: it used To house.

00:04:29: them are not from supercomputer

00:04:31: right.

00:04:32: It's a stunning juxtaposition.

00:04:34: You have this ancient spiritual architecture housing the most futuristic computational architecture we Have.

00:04:40: it's a mix of high-tech and history that feels very uniquely European Quite literally a sanctuary for data, a

00:04:46: sanctuary For data.

00:04:47: I love that but moving from The Chapel back to the grindstone.

00:04:50: is anyone actually using This stuff today Or is it all just waiting for the future?

00:04:55: No, there are highly practical applications happening right now.

00:04:57: Eugenia Lenic at Kipu Quantum launched something called Remay.

00:05:01: Remay!

00:05:01: What does that

00:05:02: do?!

00:05:02: Yes, Remay... It's an app for quantum-enhanced machine learning and the key here is to work on tabular data in images.

00:05:10: Its designed for things like fraud detection.

00:05:12: Okay so its taking quantum processing and applying this to real world messy data problems we have today not just theoretical physics simulations

00:05:20: Precisely!!

00:05:21: Its making quantum useful NOW Not just in a decade.

00:05:24: And that bridges us perfectly into our next theme because if we are using advanced compute for things like fraud and automation, We run headfirst into the buzzword of the week.

00:05:33: agents

00:05:34: agents.

00:05:35: Theme number two is AI governance.

00:05:38: and you're right.

00:05:38: The conversation has entirely shifted.

00:05:40: A few months ago everyone on LinkedIn was talking about generative AI and LLMs.

00:05:44: Now...the posts from weeks seven and eight Are all talking about Agents.

00:05:48: Christopher Cook framed this perfectly.

00:05:50: He called AI agents Digital co-workers.

00:05:53: Which sounds cute until you realize what that actually implies, right?

00:05:56: If an agent can take action not just chat with You but actually go into your systems and do things it becomes a identity problem.

00:06:02: Ocon Yildiz had a term for this I thought was just brilliant.

00:06:05: He called it capability compression.

00:06:07: It's a great turn!

00:06:09: It describes What happens when an LLM has memory in access to tools.

00:06:13: Suddenly A bad prompt isn't Just the AI spitting out some offensive text its real incident.

00:06:19: Yeah, it could be changing firewall rules spinning up expensive cloud instances deleting data.

00:06:24: Exactly!

00:06:25: That is terrifying.

00:06:27: a typo or a malicious prompt?

00:06:28: Could actually break infrastructure.

00:06:30: so how do we manage that?

00:06:32: well Francis Odom broke down the ecosystem into three layers.

00:06:35: to handle this.

00:06:35: you have Governance, which is just visibility knowing the agents exist.

00:06:40: You have MCP or connectivity —which acts as a gateway— and then you've got the identity-centric layer.

00:06:45: that's the control

00:06:46: plane.".

00:06:46: And I noticed a comment in The Threads that visibility now is table stakes…

00:06:50: It IS!

00:06:51: Just knowing an AI agent running on your network isn't enough anymore...you need to control it exactly like you can control human employees' access.

00:06:58: Pooja Shimpie argued by AI governance is a mandatory survival requirement.

00:07:04: It's shifting from being a cool innovation project to a very boring but totally necessary enterprise risk domain

00:07:12: and that's where the maturity of the market comes in.

00:07:14: Stefano Pesco Salido highlighted, The new Microsoft security dashboard for AI.

00:07:19: it's trying to unify this view across defender Entra and purview because the reality is you cannot govern what?

00:07:26: You can not see

00:07:27: if you have digital co-workers running around your network.

00:07:30: He needed an HR department for them.

00:07:31: That's essentially with these.

00:07:32: tools are becoming

00:07:33: hr for robots.

00:07:34: I like that yeah, but let's talk about What happens when the governance fails or more accurately When the bad guys don't care about your governance.

00:07:42: this brings us to theme three cyber resilience.

00:07:45: This was probably the most sobering part of the research this week.

00:07:48: i completely agree.

00:07:49: The headline here is Prevention Is Dead, Long Live Resilience.

00:07:53: Marcel Velika listed nine patterns of resilient companies but the core idea simple you have to assume that breach will happen.

00:07:59: That's the ultimate mindset shift.

00:08:02: Resilence isn't about having a thicker wall.

00:08:05: it's how fast can stand back up after the wall was knocked down.

00:08:09: And we had this real world example from Ukraine.

00:08:13: You found post Michael Bjorkner at Private Bank.

00:08:16: Yes This is a masterclass from the front lines.

00:08:19: Private Bank processes sixty thousand transactions per minute, and since The Invasion they have faced thousands of cyberattacks daily.

00:08:27: Thousands a day!

00:08:29: And They're A bank.

00:08:30: if they go down people literally cannot buy food.

00:08:32: Exactly...and here's the resilience part.

00:08:35: When The invasion started they migrated their entire client data to the cloud in just forty five days.

00:08:42: They now use behavioral analytics on every single transaction.

00:08:45: It is the ultimate stress test.

00:08:47: That's

00:08:47: incredible speed, forty-five days to move a national bank into the cloud

00:08:51: And it not just banks!

00:08:52: Jesse N added another layer in this discussion regarding power grid.

00:08:57: When

00:08:57: lights go out Cloud concepts fail.

00:08:59: You can't reach the cloud if the router has no power.

00:09:02: Jesse talked about using AI agents as digital staff officers

00:09:05: A

00:09:06: military concept.

00:09:11: These AI agents can execute actions to protect or reroute the grid when human operators physically cannot connect due to blackouts, or shelling.

00:09:20: That is a very definition of resilience—it's high tech meeting the harshest possible reality!

00:09:25: But bringing it back into the boardroom for you listeners who hopefully aren't operating in a war zone... there's financial side to this resilience too….

00:09:32: Yes, Rami Al-Khafaj discusses Gordon Loeb model.

00:09:36: It's a cold hard calculation for cybersecurity spending.

00:09:40: The rule of thumb is don't spend more than thirty seven percent Of the potential loss on cyber security,

00:09:44: so if a breach would cost you a million dollars Don't spend More Than three hundred seventy thousand trying to stop it.

00:09:49: roughly.

00:09:50: yes because at A certain point that cost of protection exceeds the Costs of disaster.

00:09:55: It's a grim calculus, but businesses have to make it.

00:09:57: And Rob Ackershoek added a slightly lighter note to this financial talk.

00:10:01: he referenced his technical debt song.

00:10:03: Yes that was great!

00:10:04: But his point is very serious.

00:10:05: He calls tech-debt a portfolio of deferred investment.

00:10:09: If you don't manage it compounds like bad interest

00:10:12: and eventually That debt comes due in the form security breach or massive system failure.

00:10:17: Its all connected.

00:10:19: The tech debt makes you vulnerable, the AI agents increase attack surface and quantum computers are waiting to crack your old encryption.

00:10:28: It feels like a perfect

00:10:38: storm!

00:10:47: Boko Ray argues that technology shouldn't be seen as a separate policy domain anymore.

00:10:51: It is the very foundation of defense and energy.

00:10:54: He

00:10:54: said if Europe doesn't control the tech stack, it does not control its future.

00:10:58: That's a bold statement!

00:11:04: And your defense systems run on AI you didn't build, are you really sovereign?

00:11:08: But Florian Fries reminds us of the human factor here.

00:11:11: You can have all the sovereign secure tools in the world but if they're clunky and hard to use employees will simply work around them

00:11:17: Exactly.

00:11:18: Sovereignty fails If the user experience is bad... ...if a secure European alternative isn't possible to use people would just use the insecure convenient option.

00:11:28: Which

00:11:28: brings us into power source data.

00:11:32: Jeff Winter had a great take on the classic people process technology triangle.

00:11:37: The PPT framework, it's been around since the sixties but winter argues that in twenty-twenty six data is the lead actor.

00:11:43: It's the power source that connects to other three

00:11:46: and Marco Gaier had a provocative thought That I know you liked.

00:11:48: he said the data governance manager shouldn't exist.

00:11:51: You

00:11:51: did?

00:11:52: He argues the title should be Data Transformation Manager.

00:11:55: Why are they distinction though?

00:11:56: because words matter.

00:11:58: If you call it governance, the business thinks that's an IT problem or ad-bin problem.

00:12:03: Well...that is just compliance!

00:12:04: But if we call transformation becomes a Business Value Problem.

00:12:08: It signals this data will change how to make money and serve customers.

00:12:12: That makes total sense.

00:12:13: Governance sounds like breaks.

00:12:15: Transformation sound like engine.

00:12:17: I want end of section with final example.

00:12:19: proves isn't about making more money.

00:12:21: Noelle Zemboreen shared a perspective from the nonprofit world, specifically Junior Achievement Americas.

00:12:27: This was such a great story to find in this stack!

00:12:30: They reduced manual tasks by seventy-five percent...by standardizing their CRM across twenty six countries.

00:12:36: Seventy

00:12:37: five percent that is massive for any organization let alone non-profit.

00:12:41: And as Noelle pointed out digital transformation wasn't about software.

00:12:45: it's about expanding opportunity.

00:12:48: By saving that time they could spend it on their actual mission.

00:12:52: It proves the transformation is about outcomes not just code.

00:12:55: That's a perfect place to land.

00:12:57: whether we are talking about quantum decryption, AI agents or cyber warfare The goal always be outcome.

00:13:03: its keeping bank running Keeping lights on and helping kids get opportunities.

00:13:07: Absolutely technology is just vehicle.

00:13:10: deep dive here is really understanding how steer that vehicle safely through some very rocky terrain.

00:13:16: So what does this all mean for you?

00:13:18: I think the takeaway for this week is active defense.

00:13:20: Whether it's preparing your encryption for The Quantum Era, setting up identity rules to your AI agents or calculating you're cyber resilience budget... You cannot be passive!

00:13:31: The era of install and forget it completely over.

00:13:35: Active Defense?

00:13:37: Before we wrap-up…I want leave with one final provocative thought that builds on what was discussed earlier.

00:13:43: We talked about AI Agents as digital coworkers.

00:13:46: If your digital coworker makes a mistake, A bad prompt that changes firewall rules and cost the company millions of dollars in downtime.

00:13:54: Can you fire

00:13:55: it?

00:13:55: That's a great question.

00:13:56: And who is responsible for hiring at first place?

00:13:59: As these agents get more autonomous our organizational charts are going to look very strange.

00:14:04: Are we gonna have liability insurance For specific AI models?

00:14:07: It' something think

00:14:07: about.

00:14:10: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:14:13: Also check out our other editions on cloud defense tech digital products and services artificial intelligence sustainability in green ICT Defense Tech And HealthTech.

00:14:24: Thank You so much for joining us For This Deep Dive.

00:14:26: Stay Curious And Remember To Subscribe.

00:14:28: Thanks Everyone.

00:14:29: See Ya Next Time.