Welcome to our latest round-up of news from the technology and hosting world. Here’s what we’ve discovered this month.
UK Cyberattacks Rise
Businesses in the UK experienced a large increase in cyberattacks during 2024. According to ISP Beaming, the average number of malicious attempts per firm was 753,341 – one every 42 seconds. The biggest targets were IoT devices, particularly security cameras, printers and industrial controls, which received an average of 161 attacks per day. At the same time, web apps, remote desktop software and corporate databases experienced more than 20 daily attacks.
ISP Beaming’s analysis detected over a million unique attacking IP addresses, more than a quarter of which were traced back to China. Significant numbers were also found in India and the US. The rise in IoT-related attacks has been attributed to botnets like Flax Typhoon, operated by the Chinese state-sponsored Integrity Technology Group, which was eventually dismantled by the FBI in 2024.
IoT devices remain targets of attacks due to the lack of comprehensive industry standards and the presence of remote vulnerabilities.
Data Centre Spending
A report from the Synergy Research Group showed global expenditure on data centre hardware and software grew to £226 billion in 2024, up 33% on the previous year. The public cloud sector was a key contributor to the growth, with spending rising 48% from 2023 and accounting for £125 billion of the overall total. Enterprise spending also experienced substantial growth, increasing by 21%.
According to the report, the huge adoption of generative AI has prompted cloud service providers and businesses to invest quickly in GPUs, particularly those designed to handle AI workloads, such as Nvidia, a key supplier for AI infrastructure. The biggest spending, 85%, went on hardware, such as servers, storage and networking, with Dell earning the most revenue from servers and storage and Cisco from networking.
Rural Broadband
As part of Project Gigabit, some of the UK’s most remote regions are set to receive improved broadband connectivity, thanks to new government contracts worth £289 million. Following agreements with Openreach, the project will provide much-needed coverage to remote areas in North and Southwest Wales, Shropshire, Devon and Somerset.
At present, more than 85% of the UK receives gigabit coverage, however, the government aims for full coverage by 2030 in order to enhance business productivity and provide communities with greater social and environmental benefits. To achieve this, a total of £2.2 billion has been allocated to the UK’s broadband suppliers.
In addition, Amazon’s satellite broadband project, known as Project Kuiper, is expected to offer an alternative solution, especially for the most remote areas. Project Kuiper is designed to connect devices to the internet directly by using satellites, thus removing the need to install fibre cables and terminals. Although there have been delays, Amazon intends to launch its satellites during 2025, offering services for households, businesses and organisations across the UK. This is similar to Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service, which is already up and running.
AI Action Plan
The UK government has announced a multi-billion-pound investment to boost the country’s AI capabilities, with the aim of increasing public AI hardware twentyfold by 2030. The new 50-point strategy will see Oxfordshire become the UK’s first AI growth zone, with data centre development fast-tracked and the establishment of a National Data Library where public-sector data will be used to drive AI innovation.
According to the government, AI applications will be used to improve public services in areas as diverse as pothole detection and education, potentially adding £470 billion to the economy over the next decade. The initiative also includes investments in renewable energy and modular nuclear reactors to support AI operations.
Agentic AI
Developments in agentic AI, AI that can operate autonomously to complete given tasks and objectives, is set to transform a range of industries. Unlike conventional AI, AI agents can make decisions and carry out tasks independently without human input, using machine learning, natural language processing and automation. As a result, they can be deployed in businesses to undertake processes such as IT management, supply chain optimisation and personalised customer service.
Developers believe that agentic AI promises a significant advancement towards more integrated human-machine collaboration. Research is currently taking place to investigate its application in fields such as healthcare and manufacturing, where AI agents can provide support in caregiving, predict equipment failure or improve production efficiency. Developers are also looking at its potential to drive innovation, such as in the formulation of new chemical compounds and the speeding up of research processes.
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