Blockworks Exclusive: The latest capital-raising effort comes after the venture firm raised $200 million for an early-stage crypto fund last fall

The post Hack VC Hikes Fundraising Stakes, Targets $500M for New Crypto Venture Fund appeared first on Blockworks.

Describing the complex world of bonds with two distinct voices to set the stage for explaining why bitcoin is critical portfolio insurance.

TOKYO, Mar 10, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - SCSK Corporation (TSE: 9719) and NEC Corporation (TSE: 6701) today announced that they will strengthen collaboration in the data center and network business to accelerate customers' DX and grow their businesses. As part of this effort, the companies will establish SCSK NEC Data Center Management, Ltd., a joint venture in data center operations on April 1, 2022.

Background and purpose of establishing a new company

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the frequent occurrence of natural disasters, there is a need for the utilization of secure and safe data centers to further raise awareness of business continuity, and to ensure the safety of sensitive information such as personal information. Furthermore, due to the shift to remote work and the acceleration of digital transformation (DX), there is a growing need for using richly functional and highly flexible cloud services.

SCSK and NEC will jointly operate a data center in Inzai City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, scheduled for completion in April 2022, to accelerate DX for customers, and to attract ecosystem partners, including cloud providers. This will provide customers with significant benefits in terms of convenience and confidentiality in connecting to ecosystem partners when using jointly operated data centers.

Ecosystem partners will also install network connectivity points to jointly operated data centers in the future, giving both companies' customers the opportunity to leverage the services of the ecosystem partners.

To realize these environments, both companies will jointly own and operate data centers and establish a data center joint operating company with the aim of creating and providing new services with the ecosystem partners.

Role of the new company

The new company will hold the property of a data center in Inzai City, scheduled for completion in April 2022, and will provide data center services and network services to SCSK and NEC. In addition, the new company aims to operate an environmentally friendly data center by using renewable energy, and both companies will contribute to the achievement of virtually zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Future development

SCSK and NEC will continue to attract ecosystem partners to realize a high level of convenience and confidentiality in an environment that combines customer-specific systems within data centers and various cloud services. Going forward, both companies will continue to support the acceleration of customers' DX and business growth through collaboration in the data center and network business.

Profile of the new company

1. Company name: SCSK NEC Data Center Management, Ltd.
2. Business Activities: Provision of data center services and network services for SCSK and NEC from Inzai City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan
3. Date of Establishment: April 1, 2022
4. Representative: Hiroshi Ogasawara, Representative Director
5. Head Office: Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo
6. Capital: 200 million yen (including capital reserve)
7. Ownership ratio: SCSK： 62.5%　NEC： 37.5%
8. Number of employees: 10

About SCSK Corporation

SCSK provides a full lineup of services to support any area of IT solution required for businesses from consulting to system integration, verification services, IT infrastructure implementation, IT management, IT hardware and software sales, and BPO (business process outsourcing).
SCSK at new windowhttps://www.scsk.jp/index_en.html

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of "Orchestrating a brighter world." NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. For more information, visit NEC at https://www.nec.com.


Copyright 2022 JCN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.comSCSK Corporation and NEC Corporation today announced that they will strengthen collaboration in the data center and network business to accelerate customers' DX and grow their businesses.

As part of Finovate’s continued celebration of Women’s History Month and female-led fintech, we are taking a moment to showcase the women whose companies demoed their latest innovations at our Finovate conferences last year. Hanna Wu CEO and Co-Founder, Amplify Life Insurance, FinovateFall. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2019, Amplify helps people Read more...

The post Women First: Finovate Celebrates Fintech’s Female Leadership appeared first on Finovate.

Magic Leap 2's controllers will have onboard inside-out tracking cameras. That means tracking will work even when the headset can't see them, without the need for base stations.

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Conventional thinking may have led some businesses to center their supply chain strategy around obtaining the most profitable cost, even when doing so meant assuming additional risk or lower-quality service. A supply chain that’s optimized for price alone, however, doesn’t account for today’s market demands or the complexity that’s involved in multi-enterprise, multi-tier, multi-mode, and multi-direction order flows. Within a network, there are potentially dozens of different touch points and stakeholders, all of which may have distinct systems and processes in place. Without end-to-end supply chain visibility, information becomes siloed, creating unnecessary and corrosive segmentation.

The pandemic helped expose vulnerabilities in the global supply chain ecosystem, causing shortages across sectors, from medical supplies to automobiles. The recent acceleration of supply disruptions made international headlines, but the trajectory that led us here started years before COVID-19. According to survey information gathered by McKinsey & Company, “supply chain disruptions cost the average organization 45% of one year’s profits over the course of a decade,” historical context that helps demonstrate persistent challenges to supply chain planning and logistics. The same survey also showed almost 80% of respondents said they “need to improve, and to invest in digital planning to increase supply chain visibility.”

Why are executives so concerned about supply chain visibility, specifically? The answer varies, depending on who you ask, their definition of “end-to-end visibility,” and the nature of their business.

In Asia Pacific (APAC), the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has fueled demand for cross-border payment capabilities and embedded financial solutions as small, online businesses embrace digital technologies to broaden

The post Unlocking APAC’s Cross-Border Commerce Opportunity with Embedded Payments appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

DUBAI, UAE, Mar 7, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - The year 2021 has seen a significant acceleration in digital transformation programs. Lockdowns and quarantines in the Middle East have compelled businesses to adopt cloud-first strategies. Cloud adoption in the region has been slow and conservative, owing largely to a lack of cloud infrastructure. Applications are becoming more centralized within a cloud infrastructure, and businesses are quickly realizing that a traditional WAN approach is no longer compatible with a cloud-first approach.
Also, on the other hand, the Middle East is prepping to accelerate the improvement of fundamental and strategic development factors in all aspects of this future tech. At World SD-WAN & SASE Summit, the following experts and thought leaders will provide a major push and act as the main engines of development. These speakers include:
- Lt. Col. Dr. Hamad Khalifa Al Nuaimi, Head of Telecom, Abu Dhabi Police GHQ
- Dr. Salim Al-shuaili, Expert in Digital Transformation, AI, and Emerging Technologies, Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technology
- Ahmad Altarawneh, Senior Strategic Consultant, Dubai Police General HQ
- Burak Ertuna, CIO & VP BPO - MEA Region, DHL
- Sujit Nair, Director - Digital & Cloud Products, Moro Hub
- Mahmoud Yassin, Head of Infrastructure and Security Operation, United Arab Bank
- Sheeba Hasnain, Senior IT, and Digital Transformation Specialist, Government Entity
- Dr. Eng. Suaad Alshamsi, Senior Program Manager [Orat Leader], Etihad Airways, to name a few; these experts will discuss the latest trends and solutions regarding cloud adoption in the Middle East region.

For the first time in the Middle East, Trescon's World SD-WAN and SASE Summit is holding a unique event with the world's leading SD-WAN and SASE solution providers, industry experts, and service providers.

The potential of these technologies is far from being fully exploited thus making now the best time for the Middle East to sprint to the front of the race.

Taking place on 17 March 2022 at The Address, Dubai Mall, the summit will feature keynotes from thought leaders, industry experts, private networking sessions, private meetings, and more. The event will focus on topics such as, 'Best practices of SD-WAN; Evolution of SD-WAN to support the future network landscape; Technical requirements for SD-WAN Background & Architecture; How AI and ML will impact SD-WAN and SASE' and much more.

"Choosing the right SD-WAN provider can help enterprises in the Middle East and around the world provide a high-quality application experience with a networking model that is software-driven, automated, programmable, predictive, and with business intent. They no longer have to be concerned about networking that is hardware-centric, manual, closed, and reactive, resulting in poor performance and poor customer service. This initiative is also an unprecedented opportunity as we bring Cloud & Network related products and solutions that are affordable for businesses across," stated Mithun Shetty - CEO, Trescon.

World SD-WAN & SASE Summit - Middle East is officially sponsored by Gold Sponsor - CISCO; Bronze Sponsors - Nour Global and DTS Solution and Networking Sponsor - Gulf IT.

About World SD-WAN & SASE Summit

World SD-WAN & SASE Summit is a thought-leadership-driven, business-focused, global series of events that takes place in strategic locations across the world.

As part of the world tour, this Middle East edition is gathering pre-qualified C-Suite IT Leaders, Data Heads, Heads of Research, Industry Practitioners, IT Decision Makers and Expert service providers in SD-WAN and SASE Technology among others from cross-industry verticals across Middle East.

About Trescon

Trescon is a global business events and consulting firm that provides wide range of business services to a diversified client base that includes corporations, governments and individuals. Trescon is specialised in producing highly focused B2B events that connect businesses with opportunities through conferences, road shows, expos, demand generation, investor connect and consulting services.

For further details about the announcement, please contact:
Media, PR & Corporate Communications
+91 81059 75937
[email protected]

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.comThe year 2021 has seen a significant acceleration in digital transformation programs. Lockdowns and quarantines in the Middle East have compelled businesses to adopt cloud-first strategies.

TOKYO, Mar 7, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu and the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) today announced a new technology that uses AI to discover new causal mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer treatments from clinical data. Leveraging the world's fastest supercomputer "Fugaku,"(1) the new technology enables high-speed calculation of 20,000 variables of data within a single day and allows for the discovery of previously unknown causal relationships relating to drug resistance in cancer cells from 1,000 trillion different possibilities.
Fujitsu and TMDU applied this technology to gene expression level(2) data obtained from cancer cell lines in order to analyze drug resistance(3) against anticancer drugs, and succeeded in extracting a new causal mechanism of a previously unknown gene that suggests a cause of resistance to lung cancer drugs. The new technology is expected to contribute to the acceleration of drug discovery and the realization of cancer therapies individualized for each patient.
The technology was developed under the theme of "elucidation of the cause and diversity of cancer using large-scale data analysis and AI technology," an initiative supported by TMDU, Kyoto University and Fujitsu as part of the supercomputer Fugaku achievement acceleration program(4).

Background

Even if a patient receives a targeted cancer drug(5) therapy, the appearance of drug-resistant cancer cells represents an ongoing threat to full remission. The mechanism for how certain cancers become drug resistant remains unclear, however, and researchers continue to work on new methods of analysis that shed light on how cells that have multiple driver mutations(6) acquire drug resistance. In drug development and clinical trials involving drug repositioning(7), it is important to identify patients for whom drugs are anticipated to have an effect. However, the effectiveness of drugs may differ depending on the organ and the individual and variations in gene expression, and the number of patterns combining expression levels of multiple genes exceeds 1,000 trillion(8). A comprehensive search of all 20,000 genes in the human genome would thus take more than 4,000 years with a conventional computer and finding ways to accelerate the process represents a major challenge.

Newly developed technology

Fujitsu implemented parallel conditional and causal algorithms to maximize computational performance with the supercomputer Fugaku to analyze the human genome within a timeframe needed for practical research. By utilizing Fujitsu's "Wide Learning"(9) AI technology to extract combinations of potential genes relating to the emergence of drug resistance based on statistical information, Fujitsu developed a novel technology that makes it possible to conduct a comprehensive search within a day.

Results

As a result of running data of the Dependency Map (DepMap)(10) portal using this technology on the supercomputer Fugaku, Fujitsu and TMDU were able to search the entire human genome for conditions and causality within a single day and determine the genes that cause resistance to drugs used to treat lung cancer(11).

Comment from Prof. Seiji Ogawa, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University

Promising technologies like Fujitsu's AI technology for scientific discovery ("Wide Learning") may one day contribute to the discovery of biomarkers, which represent an area of growing interest in drug development. The key to the success of new drug development is to identify patients who are expected to benefit from new drugs and conduct clinical trials. If the marker that predicts who will benefit from the drug is known, the cost of clinical trials can significantly be reduced and the probability of success by conducting individual clinical trials can be increased. From this point of view, pharmaceutical manufacturers and others are expected to be very interested in this technology. The fact that it has been implemented using Fugaku has also raised expectations.

Future Plans

Moving forward, Fujitsu and TMDU will conduct a multilayered and comprehensive analysis that combines various data including time axis and location data with the aim of accelerating medical research, including in the field of drug efficacy, as well as to shed light on the causes of cancer.
Fujitsu and TMDU will also collaborate in experimental research in the fields of drug discovery and medicine. TMDU will further utilize the technology developed in this research to promote research on strategies for intractable diseases such as cancer.

In addition to medical care, Fujitsu will utilize the new technology to resolve challenges in a variety of fields, including marketing, system operations and manufacturing.

Acknowledgements
This research was conducted as part of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Fugaku Achievement Acceleration Program "Understanding the Origin and Diversity of Cancer through Large-scale Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence Technologies" (JPMXP 1020200102). A part of the research was conducted with the computational resources of supercomputer Fugaku (Issue #: hp 200138, hp 210167).

(1) Supercomputer "Fugaku":
A computer installed at RIKEN as a successor to the supercomputer "K." From June 2020 to November 3, it ranked first in 4 categories in the supercomputer rankings for 4 consecutive years. Full operation started on March 9, 2021.
(2) Gene expression level :
Amount of RNA copied from DNA (the same nucleic acid as DNA synthesized by transcription using some DNA sequences as templates).
(3) Drug resistance :
A phenomenon in which the effect of a drug weakens while the drug is being administered.
(4) Supercomputer Fugaku Achievement Acceleration Program :
Program started in May 2020 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology with the aim to achieve early results.
(5) Targeted drug :
A drug designed to act only on the molecule (protein, gene, etc.) that is causing the disease.
(6) Driver mutations :
A genetic mutation that directly causes the development or progression of cancer.
(7) Drug repositioning :
The application of existing drugs developed and approved for the treatment of one disease to the treatment of another disease.
(8) More than 1,000 trillion :
Even if the expression level of each gene is restricted to a combination of 50 major genes known to be related to cancer and the expression level of each gene is classified into 2 categories (e.g., "high" or "low" gene expression), the condition number is 2 to the power of 50, which exceeds 1,000 trillion.
(9) Wide Learning :
Official site "Hello, Wide Learning!"
(10) Dependency Map (DepMap) :
Data on the sensitivity and resistance of approximately 4,500 drugs to approximately 600 different cancer cell lines, provided by the American Broad Institute. Mutation information of cancer cell lines and expression data of all genes are included.
(11) Fujitsu and TMDU analyzed gene expression data from DepMap of approximately 300 cancer cell lines, sensitivity and resistance data of Gefitinib (molecularly targeted drug used to treat lung cancer and other cancer types), and comprehensively searched for conditions and mechanisms of cancer cell lines that do not respond to Gefitinib. Fujitsu and TMDU identified conditions under which the expression levels of three transcription factors (genes that control gene transcription (synthesis of RNA)), ZNF516, E2F6, and EMX1, were low. In lung cancer cell lines that meet these conditions, a mechanism triggered by the transcription factors SP7 and PRRX1 was discovered as further potential causes of drug resistance in cancer cells (see reference image).

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 126,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.6 trillion yen (US$34 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.
About Tokyo Medical and Dental University

Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) is Japan's only comprehensive medical university and graduate school, and has provided advanced medical treatment through a fusion of the medical and dental fields and worked to cultivate "professionals with knowledge and humanity." TMDU contributes to human health and the well-being of society by fostering outstanding healthcare professionals with a humane and global outlook.


Copyright 2022 JCN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.comFujitsu and the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) today announced a new technology that uses AI to discover new causal mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer treatments from clinical data.

The firm continues rapid growth with the addition of industry-recognized experts on cybersecurity, data privacy, and IT risk management talent.