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Zycus Horizon SEA 2026: Zycus Bets on Autonomous Procurement Outcomes

Patrick Reymann — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Zycus Horizon SEA 2026 showcased its shift from traditional S2P to governed, outcome-driven agentic AI. The launch of Merlin Agentic Sourcing extends autonomy into strategic category work, while the company replaces isolated AI agents with integrated workflows spanning intake, negotiation, sourcing, and savings recovery. Zycus positions APAC as highly ready for adoption, emphasizing executive sponsorship, data quality, governance, and phased change management as prerequisites for scalable deployment.

Google Introduces Health Guardian for Wearables to Monitor for Emergencies and Potential Illnesses

Ramon T. Llamas — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At its Made by Google event in New York City, Google introduced Health Guardian, a feature built into Google Health that identifies changes from a user's baseline data that – if unchecked – could develop into more serious conditions. Health Guardian also acts as an emergency button for SOS-type situations and informs users of urgent episodes of elevated heart rate activity. In addition, Google introduced the new Pixel Watch 5, the debut of its Google Tags, and an improved Pixel Buds Pro 2.

The new devices show incremental gains, but it is Health Guardian that highlights Google's intentions to bring more health-centered features into its wearables line-up, connecting data with health to deliver actionable information. This is key as the competition attempts the same and Google strives to shape and guide the market.

Google Unleashes Gemini Intelligence on New Pixel Smartphones

Francisco Jeronimo, Ramon T. Llamas, Nabila Popal — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At its Made By Google event, Google introduced its new Pixel smartphones featuring the latest and top-of-the-line hardware. The real star of the show was the company's Gemini Intelligence aimed at saving users time and effort by taking over multi-step tasks involving multiple applications. In addition, the event marked the debut of Rambler, HiLight, and a peek at its solution for hearing-impaired users.

As impressive as these new features are, without greater distribution and promotion, Google will still trail the market leaders, overlooked as a household smartphone brand within the mass market. However, given its recent marketing push, Google is addressing that. With its position as a software and AI innovator working with numerous partners, coupled with its loyal base of Pixel smartphone users, the company has demonstrated its capabilities as a key player to push the market forward – especially in the markets it is present in today.

IDC TechScape: Worldwide Sustainable AI Infrastructure Management, 2026

Bjoern Stengel — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC TechScape evaluates 18 technology markers shaping sustainable AI infrastructure management — covering advanced cooling, power and grid integration, compute efficiency, measurement and accountability, and water and circularity. Global datacenter electricity consumption is forecast to grow from 397TWh in 2024 to 915TWh by 2028 (23.3% CAGR), as AI workload power density outpaces growth in low-carbon supply. IDC's 2026 AI and Sustainability Survey (n = 1,570) finds 83% of organizations rate AI as very or extremely important to their sustainable transformation and 82% plan to increase investment.

This report is designed for infrastructure and platform leaders responsible for the energy, water, and carbon performance of AI deployments, and for sustainability and operations executives whose ESG targets and regulatory disclosures depend on AI infrastructure decisions.

"AI's energy footprint is growing faster than the grid can decarbonize it. We are projecting datacenter electricity demand to nearly double by 2028, and carbon emissions will still rise even as clean energy supply expands — growth in demand is outpacing supply," said Bjoern Stengel, global sustainability research and practice lead at IDC. The good news is that the highest-leverage interventions are already available: the six Transformational markers in this IDC TechScape — power capping, inference optimization, carbon-aware scheduling, and AI-driven cooling — deliver measurable impact today, at the software and silicon layer, without waiting for the infrastructure cycle to catch up. Our data shows advanced organizations are already capturing sustainable AI business value at 26 times the rate of beginners. That gap will widen as regulatory pressure compounds market scrutiny — and the organizations that wait will face both the carbon liability and the competitive cost."

Orange Business' New Trust the Future Strategy, 2026

Masarra Mohamed, Jitesh Bhayani — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note examines Orange Business' Insights 2026 analyst event, where the company set out its Trust the Future strategy: a convergence of its transformation programs into a single AI-first platform business, anchored by a landmark partnership with Tech Mahindra and an increasingly product-level commitment to sovereignty that now spans cloud, connectivity, edge computing, IoT, and customer experience. IDC assesses the strategy as credible and differentiated, with execution risk concentrated in the Tech Mahindra transition and in converting trust and sovereignty into monetizable, at-scale revenue.

"Orange Business used Insights 2026 to show that Trust the Future is an acceleration of a strategy IDC has tracked since 2023, not a new direction, and one now backed by revenue, reference customers, and a coherent leadership narrative," said Jitesh Bhayani, research vice president, Worldwide Telecommunications Services at IDC.

Edge AI in 1H26: From Pilot to Production Across the Edge

Olga Yashkova — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines what changed in edge AI between January and June 2026, the barriers that remain, and the actions technology buyers should take now. Physical AI, memory cost pressures, and mature on-device silicon pushed edge deployments from pilots to production, while agentic AI reached industries from manufacturing to telecom. The main barrier ahead is not hardware; it is orchestration and governance, as regulation moves from theoretical to operational under the EU AI Act and Cyber Resilience Act.

“1H26 marked a shift from isolated edge devices to integrated deployments. Physical AI, memory economics, and agentic orchestration are converging to push intelligence to the device; the hardware is ready. The remaining challenge is ensuring governance and fleet management keep pace with the speed of deployment,” said Olga Yashkova, research manager, Worldwide Telecommunications Services at IDC.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Quantum Risk Has Entered the Identity Road Map — So Why Is Everyone Still Stuck at Pilot?

Emanuel Figueroa, Joel Stradling — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines results from IDC’s Digital Identity Services Survey showing that post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has moved beyond theoretical discussion and into active planning and implementation for many organizations. Nearly 60% of respondents report piloting or rolling out PQC initiatives, indicating that quantum preparedness is becoming a tangible component of identity security strategy. While awareness of quantum risks is widespread, the research highlights a growing challenge in moving from pilot projects to enterprise-wide deployment. Organizations increasingly view quantum resilience as a strategic security priority alongside AI and zero trust initiatives, reflecting concerns about future cryptographic vulnerabilities and long-term data protection. As a result, the conversation has shifted from raising awareness of quantum threats to establishing practical migration strategies that accelerate adoption at scale.

PC Processor Market Share and Forecast Charts 1Q26

Phil Solis — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation includes select charts of data from the pivot table Worldwide PC Processor Vendor Market Shares and Market Forecast, 1Q26. It includes 1Q25 and full-year 2024 shipment shares and revenue shares. It also includes a bar chart of historical quarterly shipments and shares by vendor with total market sizes and year-over-year changes. Finally, it includes historical and forecast shipments by processor architecture (x86 and Arm).

Quantinuum and Quanta: Borrowing from Classical Compute to Build the Future Quantum

Heather West, PhD — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Quantinuum's partnership with Quanta Computer highlights a growing "build, buy, or borrow" divide in how quantum vendors are addressing the engineering and manufacturing complexity required to move from laboratory-grade processors to deployable enterprise systems. As enterprise adoption moves toward production, IDC expects the ability to integrate quantum computing with existing AI, HPC, cloud, and data infrastructure to become an increasingly important competitive differentiator, making the strength and execution of a vendor's partner ecosystem as important to technology buyers as the performance of the underlying quantum processor.

Thales' Luna 8 HSM: A Platform Consolidation Play Wearing a Quantum-Safe Badge

Cathy Huang — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AI and quantum computing are changing the threat environment, but the underlying security principle remains unchanged: Digital trust begins with cryptographic keys, and the most important keys should be protected by a hardware root of trust. Thales launched Luna 8 HSM at a recent Singapore media and analyst briefing framed around two converging pressures: AI-accelerated cryptanalysis and regulator-set PQC migration deadlines.