Google Cloud - Experts & Thought Leaders

Nutanix, a pioneer in hybrid multicloud computing, announced it has been recognised as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure. The recognition marks Nutanix’s third time in this Magic Quadrant, and its second time as a Leader. Lee Caswell, SVP, Product & Solutions Marketing at Nutanix, said, “We feel our positioning on both vision and execution in this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure is a direct reflection of our relentless focus on innovation and customer success.” Customers to deploy AI NCP solution enables organisations to run applications and manage data anywhere The Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) solution enables organisations to run applications and manage data anywhere, including through an expanded public cloud presence supporting Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and, most recently, the public preview of Google Cloud. It also supports external storage and Kubernetes®, and enables customers to deploy AI. Organisations worldwide, including across the financial services, healthcare, public, manufacturing, and retail sectors, are using NCP. Virtual desktop infrastructure California-based First Foundation Bank is an NCP customer and uses the platform to enable a hybrid environment for disaster recovery of its virtual desktop infrastructure. Adrian S. Darmawan, EVP and CTO at the bank, said, “The most valued feature of NCP is its scalability. If there is a disaster, more machines can be spun up quickly. With NCP, our capex is also lower since it is elastic, and we can turn on our disaster recovery solution during tests or when it is actually needed. We also benefit from licence portability because no matter where our machines or servers are located, we are able to licence the compute and storage.”

At the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025, Mr Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Digital Development and Information and Ministry of Health, and Patron of the GASA Singapore Chapter announced a new partnership between the Global Signal Exchange (GSE) and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore) to exchange scam signals. GovTech Singapore is the first government agency globally to join the GSE, signalling its commitment to strengthen global public-private partnership against online scams. Data and threat signals in real time Global collaboration is designed to make online scams less profitable and less effective Supported by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and powered by Oxford Information Labs (OXIL), the GSE brings together public and private sector organisations worldwide to share abuse data and threat signals in real time, enabling faster disruption of criminal activity. Tracking more than 380 million threat signals in real time, the GSE allows accredited members - including technology pioneers such as Google, Meta and Microsoft - to pool intelligence and act at speed and scale. This global collaboration is designed to make online scams less profitable and less effective. Advanced automation and human analysis As part of this partnership, GovTech Singapore, in partnership with the Singapore Police Force (SPF), will join more than 30 GSE members across industry that are sharing signals on scam-tainted websites. This will strengthen collective efforts to detect and disrupt scam activities. As part of this league, GovTech Singapore, in partnership with the SPF, will join more than 30 GSE members This builds on Singapore’s broader efforts to combat scams. GovTech Singapore and SPF co-developed the Scam Analytics and Tactical Intervention System (SATIS), an end-to-end platform that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning - including GovTech Singapore’s in-house rMSE classifier - to help the SPF prioritise, evaluate, and disrupt scam sites. Each day, the system reviews hundreds of thousands of websites using a combination of advanced automation and human analysis. Membership of the GSE Emily Taylor, CEO at the Global Signal Exchange, commented, “GovTech Singapore’s participation sets a leadership example for other governments around the world to follow. Their membership of the GSE will allow them to join a strong global coalition of both public and private sector organisations working against scams – and the opportunity to work with the world’s pioneering tech giants." "Turning the tables on the scammers is achievable but it involves businesses, governments and enforcement agencies worldwide to work much more closely together. Together we are stronger and together we can be the change that consumers and businesses need.” Part of a wider set of initiatives The announcement comes as part of a wider set of initiatives unveiled at the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025 Mark Chen, Director of the Government Anti-Scam Products team at GovTech Singapore, said, “Scams are increasingly borderless. By participating in GSE, GovTech Singapore can share intelligence with trusted partners and strengthen protection for our citizens, while contributing to the global fight against scam actors.” The announcement comes as part of a wider set of initiatives unveiled at the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025. New data released at the Summit showed that online scams cost Southeast Asia an estimated US$23.6 billion in the past 12 months, with Singapore recording the highest per person loss at US$2,132. A regional survey of 6,000 people also revealed that nearly 77% of Southeast Asian adults were exposed to a scam in the past year. APAC markets in 2026 Google has announced a US$5 million grant to expand scam prevention resources across ASEAN, including scaling the educational game “Be Scams Ready”, designed to help consumers build critical scam-spotting skills. The game will launch in Singapore in October and is planned to expand into more APAC markets in 2026. Jorij Abraham, Managing Director at GASA, who hosted the Summit, added, “Scams are no longer isolated incidents, they are a systemic, cross-border threat. As a founding supporter of the Global Signal Exchange, we are delighted that GovTech Singapore has joined the GSE and the world of collaboration it enables on a global scale and in real-time." "When governments get involved, we see a step-change that can turn the tide against online criminals. We hope other policymakers and law enforcement agencies around the world take note of GovTech Singapore’s participation and follow suit. The Global Signal Exchange is changing the narrative on online crime, but we need everyone to join GSE and be part of the movement for change.”

Claroty, the cyber-physical systems (CPS) protection company, announced a new strategic collaboration with Google Security Operations that brings greater threat detection and response capabilities to organisations looking to bridge the gap between IT and operational technology (OT) in order to secure mission-critical infrastructure. This integration will enhance security by feeding high-fidelity, context-rich alerts and vulnerability data from SaaS-powered Claroty xDome or on-premise Claroty Continuous Threat Detection (CTD) into Google’s cloud-native security operation platform. Security operation centres Security operation centres (SOCs) are in the trenches of converging IT and OT environments Security operation centres (SOCs) are in the trenches of converging IT and OT environments, creating a new set of unique security challenges compounded by legacy systems, limited visibility, and the proprietary protocols that come with OT specialisation. As a result, SOCs are left with a lack of visibility into the types of threats that impact physical operations, overwhelmed by unfiltered alerts and growing compliance demands, and plagued by slowing response times that expose organisations to risk. The integration builds on Google Security Operations’ existing support for Claroty telemetry by enabling organisations securing CPS environments to unify their threat detection, accelerate incident response, proactively manage and remediate exposures, enhance threat hunting, and simplify compliance efforts. Risk reduction By prioritising remediation, this new integration drives meaningful risk reduction and operational efficiency. Capabilities of the integration include: Ingesting Claroty Alerts and Vulnerabilities into Google Security Operations: Correlate xDome and CTD insights with broader enterprise data for enriched context and precision threat detection that focus on risk-based remediation. Earlier Detection of Critical Threats: Identify CPS-specific risks that traditional IT tools miss for recognition of threats targetting OT, IoT, and other CPS assets before they escalate. Faster, Risk-Based Incident Response and Remediation: Empower security teams to detect and respond to threats with actionable, OT-aware intelligence, enabling remediation of underlying vulnerabilities that significantly reduces mean time to resolution (MTTR). Threat landscape “The CPS threat landscape is quickly expanding and is a high-value target for bad actors looking to exploit potential vulnerabilities as digital transformation takes shape across enterprises,” said Tim Mackie, Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Alliances at Claroty. He adds, “By combining the verticalised expertise of Claroty and our deep understanding of CPS, from deep protocol expertise to complete asset context, with Google Security Operations’ ability to prioritise threats, automate response workflows, and correlate complex attack patterns across domains, we’re able to increase operational uptime, simplify compliance across hybrid environments, and above all else, reduce risk.” IT security “IT security teams are increasingly taking on the responsibility of securing physical assets, from IoT, to medical devices, to building management systems, to supply chain automation,” said McCall McIntyre, Head of Security Product Partnerships, Google Cloud. He adds, “They need a fully integrated solution in their SOC that leverages the unrivaled knowledge of CPS delivered by Claroty and the intelligence-driven workflows of Google Security Operations that together empower SOC teams with a unified view of threats across environments, enabling earlier detection of attacks and accelerating response times.”

For all the emphasis on cloud systems and centralised servers at ISC West, a lot of innovation in security video systems is happening at the edge. New advancements inside video cameras are boosting capabilities at the edge, from advancements in processing power to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms that can now be deployed directly on the cameras or edge devices. Advancements in AI algorithms The progress of video systems becoming smarter at the edge is driven by the need for real-time insights, lower latency, bandwidth efficiency, enhanced privacy, and improved reliability.  Advancements in edge computing hardware and AI algorithms are enabling a range of intelligent video applications across various industries, including physical security. Smarter functionality at the edge is a benefit of new computer systems-on-chips (SoCs) that are driving new heights of performance for today’s cameras.  Axis Communications’ ARTPEC-9   Axis Communications’ new ARTPEC-9 SoC offers advanced video compression to reduce bandwidth Axis Communication’s new ARTPEC-9 system-on-chip (SoC) offers advanced video compression to reduce bandwidth and storage needs. With a low bitrate, the SoC helps deliver high-quality imaging with outstanding forensic detail. ARTPEC-9 also offers enhanced deep learning capabilities to allow users to leverage the latest video analytics and accelerate the implementation of AI technology. Axis maintains control over all aspects of the chip’s development to ensure high quality and cybersecurity. Among the benefits of ARTPEC-9 are better AI and deep learning, better image quality, better cybersecurity, and AV1 license-free video compression (see below). Hanwha Vision’s Wisenet 9 Hanwha Vision has launched Wisenet 9, its most advanced AI-powered System on Chip (SoC). Wisenet 9’s enhanced edge AI capabilities increase performance as the volume and complexity of security threats demand real-time, accurate analysis. By elevating edge-device performance, AI empowers systems to quickly analyse vast amounts of video data and discern crucial patterns and anomalies. A key differentiator driving Wisenet 9 is deployment of two Neural Processing Units (NPUs), which improve performance three-fold compared to Wisenet 7, the previous SoC generation. While one NPU handles image processing, the other focuses on object detection and advanced analytics. This dual NPU concept was introduced to ensure video quality and analytics have independent resources, thus preventing one function from impacting the performance of the other. The latest from Ambarella Ambarella is a supplier of edge AI systems-on-chips to multiple video camera manufacturers Off the ISC West trade show floor in a nearby meeting room, semiconductor company Ambarella demonstrated how it will continue to push the envelope of what is possible with generative AI at the edge. Ambarella is a supplier of edge AI systems-on-chips to multiple video camera manufacturers and recently achieved the milestone of 30 million cumulative units shipped. The demonstrations highlight Ambarella’s ability to enable scalable, high-performance reasoning and vision AI applications across its ultra-efficient, edge-inference CVflow 3.0 AI SoC portfolio. The company’s DeepSeek GenAI models run on three different price/performance levels of its SoC portfolio. In addition to advancements in GenAI processing at the edge, Ambarella integrates image processing, encoding and system-level functions into all its AI SoCs. New standard for video encoding: AV1 AV1 compression is a next-generation video coding technology that offers significant improvements in compression efficiency and video quality, especially at lower bitrates. Its royalty-free nature positions it as a crucial codec for the future of internet video. AV1 compression is a next-generation video coding technology. Axis Communication’s ARTPEC-9 chip now supports the AV1 video encoding standard. By embracing this standard, which is new to the physical security market although it was introduced in 2018, Axis sets the stage for AV1 compression to eventually become the industry standard, replacing H.264 and H.265. Network video transmission AV1 is an open-source, license-free coding format designed mainly for efficient network video transmission AV1 is an open-source, license-free coding format designed specifically for efficient network video transmission. It delivers high-quality video at low bitrates, reducing bandwidth consumption and storage costs. The codec was developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), a nonprofit organisation founded in 2015 by Google, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and Mozilla (among others), to provide open-standard, next-gen video coding technology. AV1 is ideal for cloud solutions—making streaming applications more robust, scalable, and capable of delivering real-time insights. Now the ARTPEC-9 chipset brings these benefits to the surveillance industry, and AV1 is currently supported by AXIS Camera Station. Providers of major video management solutions (VMS) such as Genetec and Milestone will be adding support for AV1, with further developments already underway. More intelligence at the edge Intelligence inside video cameras comes from the processing power and algorithms that enable them to perform tasks beyond simply capturing and recording images. This "intelligence" allows cameras to analyse the video stream in real-time, identify objects, detect events, and make decisions or provide alerts based on what they "see." New and improved SoCs are driving performance improvements at the edge. The increasing power of embedded processors and advancements in AI are continuously expanding the capabilities of intelligent video cameras.

In the competitive world of physical access control, Big Tech companies are seeking to play a larger role. Physical access competition Apple Wallet continues to stake its claim on mobile credentialing. Amazon One Enterprise is pushing a palm-based identity service. Google/Nest offers smart locks for home access control, with identity and access management provided in the Google Cloud. The entry of these big companies in the historically fragmented physical access control market is causing disruption and foreboding new levels of competition.  Apple Wallet impacting credentialing trends  The popularity of mobile wallets and contactless technologies in general has grown, creating more demand At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2021, the company announced support for home, office and hotel keys, including corporate badges and student ID cards, in Apple Wallet. Later, the company announced Hyatt as the first hotel partner to support the technology. Since then, the popularity of mobile wallets and contactless technologies in general has grown, creating more demand for a seamless solution such as Apple Wallet. Easy access  In 2023, HID Global announced the availability of their employee badge in Apple Wallet, allowing staff and guests to easily access corporate spaces with their iPhone or Apple Watch, including doors, elevators, turnstiles, etc. Employees just need to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the reader to unlock.  Factors affecting the rate of adoption However, implementing and maintaining an Apple Wallet-based access control system can incur costs for hardware updates, software licencing, and ongoing maintenance. Factors affecting the rate of adoption include the need to upgrade existing infrastructures to accommodate the technology, and the necessity for access control manufacturers to develop and implement integrations with Apple Wallet.  Benefits of adoption Keys in Apple Wallet take full advantage of the privacy and security built into the iPhone and Apple Watch With larger companies leading the way, some smaller ones might take longer to catch up. There is also a need to educate building owners and administrators to see the value and benefits of switching to Apple Wallet-based access control. Convenience and greater security can accelerate adoption. Keys in Apple Wallet take full advantage of the privacy and security built into iPhone and Apple Watch. Sensitive data protection A compatible app, specific to the building’s access control system, is needed. Once added, credentials are securely stored in the iPhone's Secure Enclave, a dedicated hardware chip designed for sensitive data protection.  Holding an iPhone near an NFC-enabled reader enables transmission of encrypted credentials. In addition to Near Field Communication (NFC), some systems also utilise Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for added security, longer read range, and hands-free unlocking. Phones need sufficient battery charge to function.  Amazon One Enterprise Enables Palm-Based Biometrics  In November 2023, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) announced an identity service providing comprehensive and easy-to-use authentication for physical and digital access control. The system enables users to employ their palm as an access control credential, allowing organisations to provide a fast and contactless experience for employees and others to gain access to physical locations as well as digital assets.  Physical and digital locations Physical locations include data centres, office and residential buildings, airports, hotels, resorts Physical locations include data centres, office and residential buildings, airports, hotels, resorts, and educational institutions. IT and security administrators can easily install Amazon One devices and manage users, devices, and software updates using AWS’s Management Console.  Elimination of physical credentials An advantage of the Amazon approach is the elimination of physical credentials such as fobs and badges, and digital elements such as personal identification numbers (PINs) and passwords. AWS says security is built into every stage of the service, from multi-layered security controls in the Amazon One device, which is the same technology used in the Amazon Go retail stores, where shoppers can pay for purchases by scanning the palm of their hands. The devices combine palm and vein imagery for biometric matching and deliver an accuracy rate of 99.9999%, which exceeds the accuracy of other biometric alternatives, says the company. AI and ML The palm-recognition technology uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a “palm signature” that is associated with identification credentials such as a badge, employee ID or PIN. Boon Edam, a revolving door and turnstile manufacturer, offers Amazon’s palm biometric technology on its equipment, and IHG Hotels & Resorts uses the technology to provide employees a convenient way to identify themselves and gain access to software systems. Google and Nest Devices in Access Control  When the Nest × Yale Lock is connected to the Nest app, a resident can unlock a door from their phone Google’s Nest devices include smart locks for home access control. The Google Nest × Yale Lock allows access control via both physical keys and passcodes accessible through the Google Home app. When the Nest × Yale Lock is connected to the Nest app, a resident can unlock a door from their phone. Passcodes can be created for family, guests, and other trusted persons. Alerts can be provided whenever someone unlocks and locks the door. When Nest “knows” a resident is away, the door can lock automatically. Voice control, Google Home app Voice control, using Google Assistant integrated with various Nest devices, enables use of voice commands to lock and unlock doors, thus adding another level of convenience. Smart home devices from various manufacturers can be controlled through the Google Home app. SMART Monitoring ADT’s Self Setup smart home security systems integrate Google Nest smart home products with ADT security and life safety technology, including SMART Monitoring technology. Microsoft Azure is another company that could impact access control. The Microsoft Azure Active Directory is an identity and access management platform that could be extended to physical access control, leveraging existing user credentials. Long-Range Impact on the Security Marketplace  Big Tech companies are creating platforms for managing access control data, integrating with other security systems Increasingly, Big Tech companies are creating platforms for managing access control data, integrating with other security systems, and offering analytics for optimising security and building operations. Big Tech is also actively researching and developing new technologies for access control, such as facial recognition, voice authentication, and AI-powered anomaly detection.  Access control communication and integration As their involvement in physical access control grows, Big Tech companies could potentially gain more influence in setting industry standards for access control communication and integration, similar to how they have become dominant in other areas such as mobile platforms. Given their expertise in user interface design and data analysis, Big Tech companies could help to direct how future access control systems are managed and how users interact with them, including more intuitive and user-friendly operations. Future of physical access control Existing concerns about privacy, security, and potential dominance by a few Big Tech companies could spill over into physical access control. However, traditional security companies, startups, and industry consortiums are also actively developing innovative solutions. Ultimately, the future of physical access control will likely be shaped by a combination of many different players and technologies – large and small.