Category: Tech

The government is on a mission to make the UK an artificial intelligence (AI) superpower, by accelerating the adoption of the technology across the public and private sectors to supercharge the economy.

According to the government, embracing AI will generate efficiencies in the way that businesses and public sector organisations operate, but achieving this will require the UK to develop the homegrown datacentre infrastructure needed to host compute-intensive AI workloads.

To this point, the government outlined a commitment in January 2025 – following the publication of its AI opportunities action plan – to expand the UK’s sovereign compute capacity by at least 20-fold by 2030. And this is where the government’s AI Growth Zones strategy comes into play, which was another of the standout inclusions in the Action Plan.

But what are AI Growth Zones? And how are they expected to help the UK government achieve its AI-focused aims and objectives? 

What is an AI Growth Zone?

According to the government, AI Growth Zones are designated sites that are well-suited to housing AI-enabled datacentres and their supporting infrastructure. Ideally, these zones should have “enhanced access” to power supplies of at least 500MW and sympathetic planning support. This is because datacentres are notoriously power-hungry entities, and siting them in areas where energy is in short-supply could slow down the time it takes to bring one of these new AI server farms online. 

This is also why the government is prioritising areas where it is possible to fast-track the process of securing planning permission for a new datacentres, because there are numerous examples of similar projects being kicked into the long grass because of planning issues.

To address both these points, the government has said it’s looking to build AI Growth Zones in de-industrialised parts of the country that can be readily redeveloped to speed up the time it takes to bring them online.

Has the government done anything else to fast-track the development of datacentres?

It is assumed the government’s decision to prioritise applications for AI Growth Zones in existing de-industrialised areas is because it will make it easier for datacentre developers to get sign-off for their projects because these areas have previously undergone development.

However, in addition to that, the government – since coming to power in July 2024 – has made a concerted effort to lower the planning barriers to datacentre developments in other ways.

This began with the launch of a consultation in July 2024, led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, seeking views on how to make immediate changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to fast-track the development of large-scale infrastructure developments, such as datacentres.

The government also vowed that planning decisions about large-scale infrastructure projects will be taken nationally, rather than locally. This has already resulted in deputy prime minister Angela Rayner reviewing decisions to block the builds of two datacentres because allowing them to proceed is in the interests of the national economy.

Are there any AI Growth Zones in operation yet?

The government confirmed in its January 2025 AI opportunities action plan paper that the location of the first pilot AI Growth Zone had already been decided on, and would be located in Culham, Oxfordshire, at the headquarters of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

“The government and UKAEA will seek a private sector partner who would develop one of the UK’s largest AI datacentres, beginning with 100MW of capacity and with plans to scale up to 500MW,” the document stated. “The pilot would pioneer innovative public-private models to deliver secure, dedicated public sector computing capacity, supporting key national priorities.”

It is also understood the site will be used as a testing ground for research into sustainable energy sources, as part of the government’s commitment to powering its AI ambitions with green energy.

How does the government decide where to build AI Growth Zones?

A month after the AI opportunities action plan dropped, the government announced in February 2025 that it was inviting local and regional authorities across the country to submit bids for their areas to become home to AI Growth Zones.

Secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Peter Kyle said at the time: “These new AI growth zones will deliver untold opportunities – sparking new jobs, fresh investment and ensuring every corner of the country has a real stake in our AI-powered future.  We’re leaving no stone unturned in how we can harness expertise from all over the UK to deliver new opportunities, fresh growth, better public services and cement our position as an AI pioneer.”

The government has also indicated that it is particularly interested in AI Growth Zone proposals that could bring at least 500MW AI compute capacity online by 2030.

How much interest has the government had from local authorities wanting to house AI Growth Zones?

In April 2025, the government confirmed that 200 local authorities across the UK had expressed an interest in their areas becoming AI Growth Zones, and that it would begin progressing some of these bids by the end of that month. The idea being that councils that have submitted successful bids will be notified sometime in the summer of 2025.

What areas are vying to become AI Growth Zones?

The government claimed in February 2025 that it had received interest from site owners in Scotland, Wales, the North East and North West of England about the possibility of creating an AI Growth Zone in these regions.

Since then, details about specific areas that want to be in the running to become AI Growth Zones have started to emerge, with North Lincolnshire Council known to have thrown its hat into the ring.

The council claims becoming an AI Growth Zone would attract £15bn in private business investment to the area, and create 1.5 gigawatts of AI processing capacity, with plans to build four AI-enabled datacentres in the region.

The City of Doncaster Council has also applied for consideration for the city to become an AI Growth Zone, as part of a broader push by the local authority to establish a Centre of Excellence for AI in the region.

Another bid is also known to have been submitted as part of a collaboration, including The University of York and North Yorkshire Council, as well as other private sector entities.

When will the AI Growth Zone winners be announced?

The UK government initially stated that it would be announcing which bids to become AI Growth Zones had succeeded in the summer of 2025, but it was not until 17 September 2025 that an update was provided on where the next AI Growth Zone would be sited. 

On that date, the government confirmed that two sites in the North East will be the location of the UK’s second artificial intelligence (AI) Growth Zone, with one of the developments also set to be the launch site for OpenAI’s Stargate UK endeavour.

The zone itself will be made up of two distinct sites near to Newcastle. One at Cobalt Park, which is billed as being the UK’s largest office park, and another in Blyth, Northumberland.

On 25 September 2025, the government confirmed that it would be launching a task force to underpin the launch of its AI growth zone in the North East of England, comprising tech firms, local universities, and skills providers who will work together to create jobs and ease any planning issues that arise from the creation of the growth zone. 

Media reports in mid-July 2025 seemed to suggest that a former steelworks in Teeside, Middlesborough, had been selected by the government as the second confirmed AI Growth Zone.

However, in a statement to Computer Weekly, a spokesperson appeared to play that down.

“We have regular conversations with local authorities and regional leaders across the UK – including Teesside – to deliver the range of major infrastructure projects the British public rightly expect,” the spokesperson said.

“These are projects that will unlock new investment, new jobs, and revitalise local communities by giving them a leading role in driving forward the government’s Plan for Change.”

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has seen an overwhelming boom in recent years, often with public backlash following. Software using AI claims to have human-like intelligence, and companies are scrambling to jump on board this new technology. Microsoft is pushing its AI Copilot into multiple aspects of its new Windows 11. Google’s AI Overviews for search results are seen as helpful by some and annoying by others. Some people are fascinated by new AI technology and use it daily. However, others see it as unreliable, inaccurate, and a cheap imitation of human capabilities. Hanging over all opinions is also the question of whether AI can ever become conscious, and what that means for the future of humanity.

With companies integrating AI into operations, one major concern is the impact it will have on the job market for humans. People fear being replaced by AI and having nowhere to go. The loss of income with no available human jobs is a high source of stress that is slowly spreading around the world.

Will AI actually start taking human jobs? Unfortunately for employees, it already has. Many companies have laid off employees in favor of being an AI-first business. However, this has not always turned out the way the companies anticipated, and worried workers can still have hope for things to change course.

Where AI has taken over human jobs

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Companies see AI as a way to reduce the cost of human labor and boost efficiency so they can be more profitable. Some positions being replaced include customer service jobs, analytical jobs, graphic design jobs, and positions in the technology field. It is especially bad for young workers who haven’t yet had time to develop specialized skillsets to help them stand out. Some people are even turning to ChatGPT to replace their therapists, though professionals warn this is a bad idea.

Microsoft Corporation feels human interaction isn’t needed when it comes to support operations. It laid off 6,000 workers in May 2025, with most of them being programmers. PayPal has launched PayPal Assistant to replace its customer service workers with AI. It seems harder than ever to reach an actual human when you need customer service help these days.

Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, released a statement to workers in June 2025 that focused on how proud he is of their AI initiatives. After 14 paragraphs of this, he then dropped the bomb that they will need fewer workers now and will be laying off across the next few years. Fiverr’s CEO and founder, Micha Kaufman, said in a LinkedIn post in September 2025 that his company is adopting an AI-first mindset. Due to this, it will be laying off 250 workers.

Humans still prove their value as workers

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Jan Hatzius is Goldman Sachs’ Chief Economist and Head of Global Investment Research. He believes that though AI will replace some jobs, it will actually open up opportunities for new jobs. In a statement recorded by CNBC News, he said, “We remain skeptical that AI will lead to large employment reductions over the next decade, primarily because AI-related innovation will create new work opportunities that help offset job losses from automation.”

Companies are also learning that their customers don’t necessarily want human interaction replaced by AI. Taco Bell tried AI in the drive-thru, which did not go over well. The language app Duolingo upset users by saying it was replacing its contract workers to be an AI-first company. Now, the company’s tone has changed after the backlash, emphasizing that it hasn’t reduced its hiring operations and that AI actually cannot replace humans.

Fintech company Klarna laid off hundreds of customer service workers in favor of AI. Now that the company has also backtracked. It is promising that humans will always be there for customers in need, that high-quality human customer support should be the priority, and that focusing too much on cutting costs results in a lower quality of company offerings. All this gives hope to a worried public that the AI boom may fizzle out, with it being there to assist in operations, rather than take them over.

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Apple made changes to the iPhone 17 prices this year without raising them. The standard iPhone 17 still starts at $799. The iPhone 17 Pro models have the same prices as their predecessors, with the distinction that Apple removed the 128GB storage option from the smaller Pro variant. Finally, the iPhone Air replaces the iPhone Plus model, but it costs as much as the 256GB iPhone 16 Plus did last year. That said, the new iPhones are still expensive devices. You can get better deals by trading in older smartphones, including previous iPhone models.

You’ll see commercials saying you can save up to $1,100 with trade-ins of an iPhone 13 Pro or newer. Apple mentioned the trade-in discount during the iPhone 17 launch event a few weeks ago. It turns out these promotions convinced some TikTok users that the iPhone 13 Pro Max is the best iPhone there ever was, and Apple is now trying to convince you to trade it in for a newer iPhone 17 model. The conspiracy theory clip below (via The Verge) received almost 7 million views, at the time of writing.

@motiv8_tray

#newiphone #iphone17 #iphone17promax #iphone17air #iphone

original sound – motiv8

However, that’s hardly the case. Apple and carrier partners aren’t going after the iPhone 13 Pro Max like it’s the holy grail of smartphones. Yes, the iPhone 13 Pro Max was a great handset, and the best iPhone Apple ever made until that title transitioned to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Following that logic, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the best iPhone model ever made, and the one you can buy for less than its starting price with a trade-in. But trading the iPhone 13 Pro Max won’t give you that $1,000 discount. The confusion comes from the way Apple worded this promotion at the end of the iPhone 17 event.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max isn’t the best iPhone of all time

Nyc Russ/Getty Images

“We also have amazing offers, from Apple and our partners,” Apple’s marketing chief Greg Joswiak said after announcing prices for the new phones. “You can get up to $1,100 off when you trade in an iPhone 13 Pro or newer, in any condition.” The important keywords in such offers are: “or newer” and “up to.” The iPhone 13 Pro Max is not a guaranteed $1,100 discount. The newer the handset and the better the condition, the more money you’ll get back.

As The Verge points out, you’ll only get up to $320 for trading in the iPhone 13 Pro Max towards an iPhone 17 purchase. Carriers might have much better deals, as long as you agree to their terms and conditions. As for why everyone, including Apple, might be mentioning the four-year-old iPhone 13 Pro model during these promotions, that’s how things work. Last year’s iPhone 16 trade-in promos targeted iPhone 12 or newer devices. The year before that, it was the iPhone 11 and newer. Next year, the iPhone 14 will likely be mentioned in similar marketing promos.

You can trade in older devices too. You don’t need an iPhone 13 to get a discount. You should check with your carrier to see how much your current device is worth to them. On that note, a viral conspiracy theory shouldn’t motivate you to keep using the iPhone 13 Pro Max for one more year. The handset will still offer a great iOS 26 experience for one more year, but you can upgrade to the iPhone 17 if you want to, without thinking you’ll be giving up on the best iPhone Apple ever made.

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Google unveiled Search Live at I/O 2025, a new AI product that brings the multimodal AI capabilities of Project Astra to Google Search on mobile phones. Put differently, Search Live also allows the AI to see what you see in the real world in addition to hearing your voice commands. The AI will provide answers in real-time to the questions you might have about what it can see. However, most of the new features Google showed at the event were made available to Labs users, rather than the general public. Four months later, Google launched Search Live officially in the U.S.

Android and iPhone users can try the new Search Live feature without going through Labs experiments. A new button in the Google app on Android and iPhone, and in Google Lens, will let them have interactive voice conversations in Google’s AI Mode, with the AI having access to the camera’s live video feed.

How to use Search Live on Android and iPhone

Google detailed the new Search Live functionality in a blog post on Wednesday. Search Live will work in the Google and Google Lens apps, but only English is supported.

Users will have to open the Google app and tap a new Live icon that appears under the search bar (image above). Once they do that, they’ll share the camera feed with the AI, and the AI will be able to see what they see in real-time. Users can ask questions about their environment, as seen in the examples Google posted on YouTube.

A similar procedure is available if users are already pointing the smartphone camera to something when using Google Lens. They can tap the new Live button that appears at the bottom of the screen (image below). Camera sharing will already be enabled in this scenario. All you need to do is start asking questions, and the AI will respond.

What can Search Live do?

Google

Google also detailed a few types of interactions you could have with Search Live. For example, users might use Search Live while traveling to ask the AI questions about their new surroundings and find points of interest. Another example concerns playing board games with family and friends while on vacation. Rather than reading the rules for each new game, you can engage the AI via Search Live and ask questions about your options.

Google shared a few YouTube Shorts videos that show how easy it is to have the AI provide instructions for crafting “the perfect cup of matcha,” getting help for setting up a home theater system, or completing school homework. In all instances, the smartphone user fires up Search Live on the handset, points the camera to their surroundings, whether it’s the kitchen, the TV setup, or an elephant toothpaste experiment for school, and asks AI Mode questions about the task at hand. The AI is able to recognize what it sees in the video stream and provides quick answers to the user’s questions.

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After 2 October 2025, VMware version 7 will no longer be supported, and organisations will need to consider how they take their server virtualisation strategy forward.

Shane O’Rourke, senior director of global VMware support services at Spinnaker Support, said this deadline arrives at the same time as Broadcom’s wider licensing changes. He warned that while VMware customers with perpetual licenses may still have rights to download newer binaries, renewing support almost always means moving to a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscription. This can be a costly upgrade, especially in organisations that are not using the full VMware suite.

“I’ve spoken to organisations trying to renew part of their footprint while transitioning the rest elsewhere, only to be told it’s all or nothing,” said O’Rourke. “Others were offered exceptions early on, only for those exceptions to be pulled at the last minute.”

The third-party support company has spoken to a number of organisations looking at options to continue running VMware 7. From the feedback he has received, O’Rourke said: “There’s a lack of trust.”

While Broadcom has made it clear it is simplifying the VMware product portfolio, by stopping perpetual licensing of VMware and bundling products into VCF subscription, he said people were concerned about what Broadcom planned to do going forward. For IT leaders looking at their VMware estate long-term, O’Rourke added: “This can be a gamble. In the old VMware world, when you were building your software-defined datacentre, you could adopt VMware components taking a pick-and-mix approach in order to be successful within your environment.

“Whereas, when Broadcom moved to VCF, customers had no choice what to take on, even if they weren’t going to use some of the VMware products,” he said.

For some organisations, this approach is leading to price hikes, because they are having to pay for products they do not require. All of this is well understood, but two years ago, when Broadcom acquired VMware, version 7 was the most prevalent and most stable version of the virtualisation platform, even though version 8 had been released. “Now, with the move to VCF from VMware 8 onwards, for a lot of customers, version 7 is the last version they have on a perpetual licence,” said O’Rourke.

While some organisations may be entitled to upgrade to version 8, he said they will no longer receive patches and updates for version 7, even if they have a VMware support contract. Customers with perpetual licenses may still have rights to download newer versions of VMware, but according to O’Rourke, renewing support almost always means moving to subscription.

VMware vSphere sits at the centre of most environments; when failures occur, they rarely stay contained to a single component. In his experience, unexpected product defects, subtle interoperability issues or behaviour changes introduced elsewhere in the ecosystem can create problems that would normally be escalated to VMware engineering. However, after 2 October, that option disappears for VMware version 7.

As a company offering third-party support, O’Rourke said that while it cannot provide patches, Spinnaker Support has plenty of experience maintaining a stable environment for its customers.  

Instead of tackling the issue from a product viewpoint, he said: “We look at how a customer has adapted VMware in their environment. How has it been configured? What are their use cases?

O’Rourke said the approach has been a success. “I can honestly say I have not seen any issue that we haven’t been able to fix within a customer’s environment,” he added.

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October 2, 2025, marks the end of general support for VMware’s version 7. After that, Broadcom won’t release any new security patches or fixes, and you won’t be able to log vendor support tickets for these versions. You’ll still have access to previously published updates under the self-service policy (although this could change in time, but there won’t be anything new coming.

For most of the customers I talk to, this deadline is significant – because a lot of them are still running VMware version 7 in production. These aren’t side environments or edge cases. We’re talking about core workloads in financial services, healthcare, telco, government, retail – the systems business operations depend on every day.

There’s a simple reason most environments are still running version 7: timing. When Broadcom completed the VMware acquisition, version 8 had only been generally available for about a year. That’s early for any major platform release, and most enterprises held back. It’s standard practice to let new versions settle, which gives you a chance to wait until bugs surface, compatibility guidance matures, and integration testing stabilises.

At that point, VMware version 7 was the safe choice, and it became the most widely deployed branch across almost every industry I work with. Today, that’s still true. 

Running on version 7 after October

Plenty of customers I speak to have already decided they’ll hold on VMware version 7 beyond October. That can make sense — it’s a stable platform, workloads are under control, and management planes are often isolated.

But running on version 7 after October isn’t without consequences. There won’t be any new CVEs or zero-day fixes for these releases, so if a vulnerability is discovered, you’ll need a mitigation plan that doesn’t rely on vendor patches. That means reviewing segmentation, privileged access, monitoring, and disaster recovery processes now, not later.

Running unsupported also means preparing for operational contingencies. vSphere sits at the centre of most environments; when failures occur, they rarely stay contained to a single component. Unexpected product defects, subtle interoperability issues, or behaviour changes introduced elsewhere in the ecosystem can create problems that would normally be escalated to vendor engineering. After October, that option disappears for VMware version 7. You need to be ready with your response processes before you cross that line.

This deadline arrives at the same time as Broadcom’s wider licensing changes, which is confusing. Customers with perpetual licenses may still have rights to download newer binaries, but renewing support almost always means moving to subscription.

I’ve spoken to organisations trying to renew part of their footprint while transitioning the rest elsewhere, only to be told it’s “all or nothing.” Others were offered exceptions early on, only for those exceptions to be pulled at the last minute. This process is inconsistent and unpredictable, and customers are increasingly finding themselves exposed when approaching renewals without a clear plan.

Right now, the best thing you can do is get your house in order. Archive everything you’re entitled to: installation media, service packs, historical fixes. Because once your contract ends, your access will disappear. Audit your deployments against your entitlements, and make sure you know exactly what you’re running. You’ll be grateful for the clarity from an operational perspective… and even more so if you ever face a vendor audit. 

Given this context, it’s no surprise that third-party support has started to come up in more conversations than ever, especially for customers planning to stay on VMware version 7 beyond October or who need more time to decide their longer-term strategy. It’s not about walking away from VMware entirely; it’s about keeping critical workloads supported while you make decisions on your own timeline.

Third-party support means access to engineers who understand your environment as it’s deployed, not just as it’s documented. It means you can keep operations stable if you’re delaying upgrades until version 8 matures. And it covers you during migrations if you’re planning a move away from VMware but can’t do it overnight.

It’s not the right choice for everyone. If your upgrade is funded, scheduled, and aligned to Broadcom’s roadmap, staying inside the vendor boundary can still make sense. But if timelines, budgets, or strategy mean you’ll be holding on VMware version 7 for a while, third-party support keeps workloads secure and supported while you decide what’s next.

Shane O’Rourke, is a senior director at Spinnaker Support, responsible for global VMware support services.

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Two men, named as Owen Flowers and Thalha Jubair, have today appeared before Westminster Magistrate’s Court in connection with a 2024 cyber attack on Transport for London (TfL), after being arrested by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and City of London Police on 16 September 2025.

Flowers, of Walsall in the West Midlands, was arrested and questioned over the cyber attack on TfL in September 2024, but as he was a minor at the time, his identity could not be officially revealed.

The attack on TfL, attributed to the Scattered Spider hacking collective, did not stop core public transit services such as the London Underground from running. However, it did cause significant disruption to some technical services, including third-party application programming interfaces used by the likes of Citymapper, and logins for contactless and Oyster payment accounts.

The incident has cost TfL well over £30m to date, with at least £5m of that total spent on response, investigation and remediation.

Paul Foster, NCA deputy director and head of the National Cyber Crime Unit, described the charges as a key step in a lengthy and complex investigation. “This attack caused significant disruption and millions in losses to TfL, part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure,” he said.

“Earlier this year, the NCA warned of an increase in the threat from cyber criminals based in the UK and other English-speaking countries, of which Scattered Spider is a clear example,” said Foster.

“The NCA, UK policing and our international partners, including the FBI, are collectively committed to identifying offenders within these networks and ensuring they face justice.”

Transparency praised

Foster went on to praise TfL for working transparently with the investigation, and remarked that the arrests demonstrated what law enforcement is able to achieve when victims are empowered to come forward and report incidents.

Hannah von Dadelszen, chief crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), added: “The Crown Prosecution Service has decided to prosecute Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers with computer misuse and fraud related charges – following a National Crime Agency investigation into a cyber attack on the Transport for London network.

“Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings,” she said. “We have worked closely with the National Crime Agency as they carried out their investigation.”

Flowers, aged 18, is charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit an unauthorised act in relation to a computer causing and/or creating risk of serious damage to human welfare and/or national security under the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990.

One of these counts relates to the TfL incident, the other two relate to offences against two targets in the US, SSM Health Care Corporation and Sutter Health.

Jubair, aged 19, of Tower Hamlets in London, is also charged with conspiracy to commit an unauthorised act in relation to a computer causing and/or creating risk of serious damage to human welfare and/or national security, but only in relation to the TfL attack.

He faces an additional charge of failure to comply with a Section 49 notice issued under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) of 2000, for failing to turn over the PIN or passwords to devices seized from him as part of the investigation.

Scattered Spider connections

The arrests of Flowers and Jubair come two months after four as-yet unnamed people were arrested in connection with the Scattered Spider attacks on UK retailers. As was the case then, the NCA is again somewhat limited in the amount of detail it is able to provide at this stage of the legal process.

However, agency staff did confirm their strong belief that both Flowers and Jubair are involved in the Scattered Spider cyber crime collective, although they urged against speculation on any link to the group’s other activities at this stage.

Computer Weekly understands Flowers and Jubair have been on the radar of law enforcement for some time, and both men have been publicly identified and linked to various other Scattered Spider and Lapsus$ cyber attacks in the past.

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File servers are at the core of almost all IT infrastructures. File sharing is essential to collaboration and is a vital component of growing volumes of unstructured information.

File storage is a key part of general document storage, and access to the information therein is vital for analytics, including artificial intelligence (AI). File systems also take centre stage for specialist workloads such as media, medical imaging and surveillance.

Increasingly, firms have moved file storage to the cloud to replace file servers and network attached storage (NAS) equipment. The hyperscale cloud providers – AWS, Azure and Google Cloud – now offer a wide range of file options, from general storage to high-performance and specialist workloads.

In this article, we look at the key benefits of file storage in the cloud, its key use cases and what’s on offer from the main cloud providers.

File in the cloud

Faster network connections and higher-performance cloud storage have allowed organisations to replace local file servers and NAS volumes with cloud storage. And with improved integration between on-premise hardware and cloud file storage, organisations can use cloud file systems as additional on-demand capacity for workloads alongside on-premise NAS volumes.

Use cases here include bursting to the cloud for peaks in storage demand, as well as longer-term applications such as document archiving, and backup and recovery.

The cloud’s advantages for file storage largely mirror those for other areas of cloud computing. These include scalability in terms of speed and capacity, on-demand or usage-based pricing, and removing the need for upfront capital spending, on hardware and datacentre space.

Cloud file storage brings other benefits too, including sophisticated storage tiering to match performance and cost with application requirements; redundancy, including storing data across multiple zones; and the potential for improved automation.

Although the cloud cannot match a finely tuned NAS system for raw performance, this matters less for file-based storage than it does for block storage. And data is increasingly being stored and processed in the cloud.

Azure

Azure Files is Microsoft’s main, managed cloud file storage option. Described as “serverless file shares”, Azure Files supports SMB and NFS for Windows, Mac and Linux clients.

Microsoft provides Azure File Sync to cache cloud file shares on Windows servers, which it says provides on-premise performance levels. Azure also provides persistent shared storage containers using NFS or SMB, via the Azure Kubernetes Service.

Tiering allows Azure Files users to match performance requirements and budgets by mixing SSD (premium) and HDD (standard) storage. SSDs support SMB Multichannel for improved performance, with between 2x and 4x gains in IOPS, Microsoft says.

Azure Files Provisioned SSD V1 and V2 support up to 102,400 IOPS and a throughput of 10.340MiBps, against 50,000 IOPS and 5,120MiBps for HDD Provisioned V2.

AWS

AWS’s primary cloud file storage offering is Elastic File System (EFS). It’s designed to be “set and forget” for use with AWS compute instances, and comes with three storage classes: standard, infrequent access (IA) and archive.

EFS Standard uses SSDs to provide “sub millisecond” latency, whereas IA and archive run in the low double digit millisecond range. But AWS claims IA is 95% cheaper than standard, and archive is 50% of the cost of IA.

AWS also offers FSx, a managed cloud file system for use with servers. FSx supports Windows File Server, using Windows’s native file system. FSx for Lustre offers supports for high performance applications, including via cloud GPU instances, with “up to terabytes per second of throughput”, according to Amazon.

Linux workloads are supported through FSx for OpenZFS, while AWS also provides file storage using NetApp’s ONTAP operating system for data migration and hybrid operations.

Amazon File Cache provides high-speed storage for bursting, while AWS Storage Gateway gives users the option of on-premise access to hybrid storage. 

Google Cloud

Google Cloud’s Filestore offers file storage with a range of performance options, up to 25GBps throughput and 920,000 IOPS, as well as capacities up to 100TB.

In addition, the hyperscaler supports VMs with VMWare certified NFS storage, through Filestore Zonal and Filestore Enterprise. Container workloads are supported through Google Kubernetes Engine, again on NFS for stateful and stateless applications.

Filestore Basic comes in HDD and SSD versions. HDD provides a maximum sequential read and write of 180 MBps and 1,000 IOPS with SSD reaching 1,200 MBps and 60,000 IOPS. Filestore Regional and Zonal tiers provide a throughout of 26,000 MBps and 920,000 IOPS. Pricing is based on the service tier, instance capacity and performance, as well as the region.

IBM

IBM’s cloud file storage is part of its Virtual Private Cloud offering. It bases storage on cloud NFSv4.1, with file share capacity ranging from 10GB to 32,000GB.

IBM offers customisable IOPS, with users able to change capacity and performance in use. This, IBM says, allows users to adjust performance and costs according to workloads. IOPS options range from 0.25 IOPS/GB for low-intensity workloads, through 2 and 4 IOPS/GB up to 10 IOPS/GB for the most demanding workloads.

File Storage for VPC is also compatible with both virtual and bare metal servers, as well as IBM’s watsonx AI technology.

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We’ve all been there. You’re browsing Google Play to download new Android apps or taking photos and videos while out and about, and you see a pop-up on your phone. “Memory full,” it says, or some other variation. This can be a really troubling issue to run into, especially since many smartphones tend to still be released with just 128GB of built-in storage.

One of the first things smartphone owners tend to do when they run into these kinds of issues is to start uninstalling apps they no longer use or that they don’t think they need. That’s not a bad idea most of the time, but what happens when you decide to remove an app and then need it again later? You might not have access to all of the data or progress from your previous installation.

Well, you no longer have to settle for saying goodbye to all of your data just because you need some storage space. Android 15 introduced a new functionality that removes the app from your device, but saves all the data to the cloud, so when you reinstall it, your data is right where you left it. If you’re rocking an Android device with Android 15 or higher, then you might already know about the Archive feature. If you don’t, though, don’t fret. We’ll show you how to use it.

How to use the Archive option on Android

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Archive allows you remove an app and its various files from your device without costing you all the time that you put into customizing that app and setting it up just the way you want it. It’s the perfect solution for all those seasonal apps you might install, or apps that you only need certain times of the year — like an app for the resort you visit with your family every summer.

To make use of Archive, simply navigate to your phone’s Settings, then find the Apps section. The exact steps taken here will vary depending on device, but on most phones, you can just search for Apps using the search bar at the top or bottom. On the Apps page, find the app you want to archive and tap on it. Next, find the Archive option on the toolbar. Once you tap Archive, your phone will remove the app from your storage but upload your data to the cloud.

When archived, an app will still be visible in your phone’s apps list within the Settings app. To restore the app and continuing using it, just tap on the app in question, then tap Restore. This will reinstall the app right back to how you had it before — permissions and all. Keep in mind that you’ll still need to download any new updates, though, and you’ll still want to keep up with important maintenance functions to keep your Android phone running smoothly, like clearing the app cache regularly.

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There is one aspect of the iPhone Air that’s closer to the Pro devices than the standard iPhone 17, and that’s the performance. This is due to the fact that the iPhone Air has the same A19 Pro chip as the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, rather than the A19 chip offered by the base iPhone 17.

The difference between the A19 and A19 Pro isn’t massive, though –- and actually, while the iPhone 17 Pro devices have six GPU cores, the iPhone Air’s A19 Pro only has five, like the A19. Not only that, but the Air also doesn’t get the vapor chamber cooling system on offer by the thicker iPhone 17 Pro devices, which means that with sustained performance situations, like mobile gaming, it may heat up a little, and as a result, throttle performance slightly.

So, what makes the A19 Pro-powered performance of the iPhone Air better than that of the base iPhone 17? For starters, the iPhone Air benefits from the increased RAM, which is also faster on the A19 Pro. It’s not all about raw performance, either. According to Apple, the A19 Pro is more power-efficient than the A19, which is important in a device like the iPhone Air, which sacrifices some battery size to hit that super-thin size.

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However, all of this arguably doesn’t matter –- it’s just numbers. What really matters is how the phone performs in day-to-day usage. The answer? It performs… great — just like every other 2026 iPhone, A19 or A19 Pro. In normal usage, the phone never stuttered or lagged, and it loaded games quickly. It handled heavy multitasking with ease, and while under very heavy workloads it did heat up, I suspect most won’t push it enough to get overly hot.

There’s another performance-related area that’s worth mentioning, and that’s wireless performance. The iPhone Air is one of the first phones to offer Apple’s new C1X cellular modem, coupled with the N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. The device performed very well across all different kinds of connectivity, and I noticed no difference between the cellular performance of the iPhone Air compared to the other devices in the iPhone 17 lineup.

That said, it’s technically missing one feature — support for mmWave. You probably don’t really care about that though. mmWave has proven to be a bit of a slow burn, and you would only ever really connect to it in areas of very heavy congestion, like a sports stadium, anyway. I’m not sure it’s worth buying a different phone for mmWave support unless, perhaps, you’re a season ticket holder and for some reason still really care about how fast TikTok loads when you’re watching your favorite team with the expensive tickets you bought. That’s not to say Apple shouldn’t add mmWave support soon — hopefully its next-generation modem will support the tech. When it does, expect Apple’s entire lineup of phones to offer Apple-designed modems.

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