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Paige Bailey on AI |
The second day at the Tech Summit has been quite intensive. Microsoft, like the competitors, invests a lot in AI and today the development life-cycle in Azure is straightforward. The application of AI in the industries is quite common for example to solve clustering problems. One of the interesting business cases is to use AI for recognizing defects in PCB assembly production. Paige Bailey has demonstrated this case with Jabil, a giant EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Service) provider.
Another valuable point has been the support of Azure for IoT Devices. Here you can see how the platform and the related services can support enterprises that operate in the IoT space. The platform supports device twins and massive data exchange (e.g., 2 Million devices that send telemetry data every 2 minutes).
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Azure IoT Device Hub |
The last presentation that I find important to mention is about blockchain support in Azure. Stefano Tempesta made a good presentation highlighting some of the issues that this technology is facing right now: the GDPR-Paradox. The new regulations will create additional complexity. Microsoft is developing additional features and technologies to support the development of "blockchain 3.0".
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Blockchain Evolution |
The blockchain community has thought about some workaround (e.g., store transaction and links in the blockchain, while retaining the data off-chain). A possible architecture that may solve the compliance with the new regulation and, with other regulation in countries where the data need to stay within the national borders, can be the one shown in the picture.
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Proposed architecture in Azure |
You can see that there is the traditional centralized database combined with the blockchain that plays the role of "auditable transactions tool".