British High Commissioner to Ghana, His Excellency Iain Walker, writes on the UK-Ghana prosperity partnership to accelerate a shared Ghana Beyond Aid vision. When it comes to building a more prosperous future, the UK-Ghana partnership is driving the agenda at the UK-Africa Investment Summit. Ghana is changing the narrative around the future of the African continent. Last year, the nation captured international headlines and energised the global African Diaspora through the ‘Year of Return’. The real story of Ghana is out there - one of aspiration, ambition and energy, and a journey to greater economic self-reliance. The UK Government shares His Excellency President Akufo-Addo’s ‘Beyond Aid’ vision for Africa. The Continent has 8 of the 15 fastest growing economies in the world but currently receives less than 4% of foreign direct investment. It is in all our interests to change this paradigm. Link to full article in first comment #africa #futureoftech #ghana #aws #azure #outsourcingit

The Hidden Costs of Cloud Computing Starting with your cloud infrastructure was simple. You ran up a few instances, maybe created an AD structure, added some storage; as it's easily scalable you added a few more things and the pay for what you use pricing seemed ideal. But very quickly you've added even more services and when you receive your next invoice you've been landed with an unexpectedly high bill. Now you start to analyse the invoice but there are thousands of line items and it can be almost impossible to identify what is needed, what is underutilised or poorly optimised so I'd like to give some pointers into ways that you can tame those costs and identify where the hidden extra charges may be hiding. 1. Unused Instances As it's so easy to run up an instance in the cloud it may not be surprising that one of the biggest unnecessary costs is unused instances, so you end up paying for services you are not utilising. Managing change control should include turning off instances when they are no longer being used. 2. Under Used Instances read more of the article (link to article in first comments) #aws #azure #outsourcingit #ghana

Happy New Year to all our followers. We hope you all had a wonderful festive season and are ready to take on 2022. We have begun our 2022 with some exciting news! Resilience Energy Technology has been named one of the "Top 5 Renewable Energy Solution Providers in the UK" by the technology magazine Energy Tech Review. Have a read of the article to explore how our REenergy platform is making innovative change in the way we interact and balance the National Grid, whilst creating an opportunity for installers and homeowners to earn revenue at the same time. Get in touch if you'd like to join us in shaping the future of green energy. #renewableenergy #greenenergy #energy #technology #cleantech #change #future Bethnal Green Ventures Tilix Maximeyes Group Puredrive Energy Ltd https://lnkd.in/eqZ86FKk

Data feels lightweight and fleeting, but its storage - essentially underwriting our world - weighs heavy on our limited resources. We talk to Andy Long about their green data centre Hydro66 | Green Cloud Infrastructure. How are they disrupting the data storage industry, and lightening the load? Join our conversation on our Facebook live on Friday 5th February at 3pm GMT.

We are going live on Facebook @3pm this afternoon with the 4th discussion in our Resilient Future series. This month we are discussing the renewable installer market and how our platform is revolutionizing this space. Why not join us this afternoon and challenge us with any burning questions you may have! Bethnal Green Ventures Tilix Maximeyes UK LtdAceOn Group https://fb.me/e/7MQ9rGKMX

I know its a sunny Friday and you have probably got better things to do this afternoon but have you ever considered the effect of a sunny day like this will have on our electricity grid? We will be discussing the topic of flexibility during our second Facebook live event this afternoon! 3.00pm on our Facebook page Here is our last discussion introducing us and our series of talks: https://lnkd.in/gfT4G4Z #energyindustry #batterystorage #electricity #event #innovation TilixStuart DawesBethnal Green VenturesOptimeyes Energy LtdDoogheno

If all the data centres were combined as one country, they would be the fifth-largest consumer of energy in the world. These data centres account for approximately 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, almost the equivalent of the entire global airline industry. Our lives are ever more connected, and the demand for processing power and data storage is not slowing. The problem is getting bigger. The IDC estimates that more than $26 billion is spent powering and cooling servers worldwide. So it's not surprising that data centre owners are looking for more efficient ways to run their DCs and reduce their environmental impact. Some, including Facebook and Hydro66, are choosing to locate data centres in the Arctic circle to reduce the cost of cooling and take advantage of renewable energy sources. Closer to home, those companies building new data centres are looking to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact from inception. Others are retrofitting existing data centres to achieve their ambitions. Making a data centre more efficient and environmentally friendly requires a little rethinking. Google set up methods to reduce their energy bills by 40% by matching their power needs to the weather and matching consumer demand. But we don't all have access to the level of resources at Google's fingertips. However, starting by replacing old inefficient servers with more energy-efficient ones - which don't require any major work - could be your first step to greening your data centre. Running servers typically takes up around 40% of the total power used by the data centre, so this could significantly reduce your costs. Cooling and power provisioning systems similarly take around 40%, with the remaining energy use split between storage and the network. Installing new high-efficiency power systems will help, as will implementing liquid cooling systems rather than the older air cooling approach. We have been working with data centre providers for many of our 20 years in business, so we understand your industry. If you are about to deploy new efficient servers or are looking at building/retrofitting a data centre, IQ Finance can help you with leasing agreements and finance to ease the burden of not inconsiderable costs. #finance #renewableenergy #datacentres #leasing

The electric car market is growing, but charging points are not keeping up. As a Tesla driver, I have access to the Supercharger network, but there are only 30,000 worldwide. Fortunately, I'm not just relying on them. The UK has 28,375 publicly accessible plug-in points, about one per 25 electric cars on the road. But the number of EVs is going to rise rapidly. To achieve the government's net-zero target, 2.5 million new electric cars must be sold. This means the public charging network must also be increased to serve all these electric vehicles, especially as many buyers will not have access to charging at home or work. The government's independent adviser, the Committee on Climate Change, stated that by 2030, about 280,000 charging points will be required, meaning an average of over 30,000 new charging points each year. The UK public charging network grew 37% last year, with just 7,600 devices added, so there is a long way to go. I estimate that between £8 billion and £18 billion of investment in the charging point infrastructure for electric vehicles are needed in the years leading up to 2030. And that's just cars. The infrastructure for van fleets and electric lorries requires even greater investment. To power 50 articulated lorries, the grid must deliver a peak load of 50 megawatts of energy - the same as a large factory or data centre. All this requires more capital, risk management, operations and energy expertise than most organisations have in-house. This will lead to a new sector of specialist charging-infrastructure providers. It will not happen overnight. Central and local government and charging providers need to start building now to provide comprehensive coverage and provide a choice of charging speeds and price points to meet consumer preferences. If you are an electric vehicle charging point provider looking to fund rollout for fleets, lorries or even smaller sites for businesses, let's talk about finance options available for you and your customers for the hardware. #electricvehiclecharging #greenenergy #leasing #finance #tesla #electricvehicles

I've lost count of the number of people I have spoken to about hardware shortages. How frustrating is it to have a customer order, but struggle to fulfil it? But there may be some good news coming. A sharp drop in graphic chip prices could predict an unexpectedly quick end to a global chip crunch that has impacted manufacturing from smartphones to cars. The trigger is a decline in prices of GPUs, which are the brains of gaming machines, and spread to other applications, such as crypto mining. GPU prices are still selling at a premium, but a smaller one. Demand for GPUs could also fall, because the crypto currency Ethereum is expected to change the way it operates at the end of this summer, reducing the demand for graphics chips that power systems used to mine the cryptocurrency. There is a debate about whether lower prices will spread across the chip sector. Last month, Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger said he believes the global chip shortage will continue into 2024. Meanwhile, major chip manufacturers including Intel and TSMC plan multibillion dollar expansions. But the end of the shortages looks like they are in sight. Orders can be filled! And if you need any help financing those hardware purchases, remember to contact us. #hardwareshortage #chipshortage #finance #leasing #goodnews

A big thank you to all our customers and suppliers over the past 20 years, and can't wait to see what the future brings for our continued success. It's our Birthday! This year IQ Finance turns 20. 2002 seems a very long time ago. It has been an incredible 20 years and an amazing learning curve in the face of recessions and, most recently, the pandemic. So thank you, and we look forward to the next 20 years of helping UK businesses access finance. There is no need to send a card, but if we haven't spoken for a while we'd love to catch up and see if we can help you. #success #anniversarycelebration #finance