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The Bitcoin ETFs appear to have opened many institutions’ eyes to Bitcoin as an alternate asset. Will the April halving accelerate the trend?

Dencun, the biggest upgrade since the Merge, has just gone live on the Ethereum network.

Security analyst turned wallet-draining kingpin “Pink” defends millions stolen from “participants” who fell victim to his crypto scam kit.

SAP was recently named a Strategic Challenger in the 2024 Fosway 9-GridTM for Learning Systems, a multidimensional learning market analysis model. As a Strategic Challenger, SAP is recognized as demonstrating solid performance with solutions that have a rich and broad suite of capability compared to the market.  

With the widened availability of AI, the race for skills is impacting both people and organizations. While people are learning how to use AI to drive more efficiency within their individual roles, organizations are also under pressure to adopt AI technology that can deliver more personalized development opportunities and greater talent intelligence.  

Over the last year, SAP has made significant investments across SAP SuccessFactors solutions, specifically in SAP SuccessFactors Learning, to deliver these capabilities. 

Boost employee skills while helping ensure compliance with SAP SuccessFactors Learning Learn more

These investments are part of a broader strategy to help our customers focus on accelerated skills growth and build a future-ready workforce. Recently, we released a redesigned integrated learning experience that can deliver an entirely new way for people to experience learning at work. The highly personalized experience can guide the learner to not only accomplish compliance trainings – what they “have to learn” – and organizational goals – what they “need to learn” – but also helps to drive an intrinsic culture of learning around what they “want to learn,” tapping into each individual’s needs, aspirations, interests, or preferences based on their growth profile.  

Furthermore, the AI-powered talent intelligence hub is now available across all SAP SuccessFactors solutions. It is a framework that helps organizations understand the skills their employees have today, the gaps that exist, and how to close those gaps. With this intelligence, SAP SuccessFactors Learning can continue to deliver even more personalized learning and development recommendations. 

“The level of innovation within the learning systems market continues to accelerate rapidly – specifically around AI and skills,” said David Wilson, founder and CEO of Fosway Group. “As a major vendor in this space, SAP continues to invest significantly in innovating its learning and talent capabilities, reflecting its focus on enhancing the value it delivers to learning buyers as well as its wider HCM audience.” 

Source: 2024 Fosway 9-GridTM for Learning Systems. Click to enlarge.

Both multinational and midsize companies leverage SAP SuccessFactors Learning, along with our partner ecosystem, to help drive upskilling and reskilling and create a culture of continuous learning. 

San Pablo Farmacia, a Mexico-based pharmacy retail chain, created an intuitive and engaging training experience that employees can consume at their convenience. By integrating the learning solution with other talent management applications, it can design personal training and development plans in line with its growth strategies and the individual needs of the entire workforce. The company delivered certified training to 1,800 employees without the need to transport its people to a training location and take them away from their pharmacy stores. 

Delta is also embracing AI to drive upskilling and personalized development opportunities. “We are incorporating disruptive technologies like our AI-driven skills ontology that automatically incorporates industry trends with embedded intelligence,” said Tim Gregory, managing director of HR Innovation and Workforce Technology at Delta. “We can say which skills are most important to Delta Air Lines and the employee can easily combine those with their current capabilities, strengths and styles, and aspirations to create a personal career path. All of the content is based on Delta-specific skills and personalized to each employee’s career goals.”  

Looking ahead, we will continue to deliver more learning-specific enhancements and new AI capabilities throughout 2024 across all SAP SuccessFactors solutions so leaders can hire the best talent and grow their personal skills with individualized plans while building up the compliance and strategic skills needed by the organization.  

Learn more about SAP SuccessFactors Learning.

Vinita Venkatesh is vice president of Product Management for SAP SuccessFactors Learning. 

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Quantum computing reports are still working up steam, but error correction remains elusive. Research into quantum computing has yielded many positive results, in quantum computing and also improvements in classical algorithms. In addition, it has inspired new hardware that potentially improves how businesses will optimize. Last year, SAP and Fujitsu collaborated to test out Fujitsu’s new quantum-inspired Digital Annealer Unit (DAU).

If you ask a quantum researcher what keeps them awake at night, error correction might be their likely answer. And so, while quantum computing still makes great strides, the quantum advantage can sometimes be overstated in the press. To mitigate this, however, a new type of quantum-inspired computing is coming of age. What started as simulated annealing has given rise to dedicated simulated annealing machines. These typically work on optimization problems, finding the best way to do something.

Harnessing Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer Unit for Efficient Optimization

Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer Unit (DAU) is a quantum-inspired machine. It works by finding the optimal combination when presented with a list of possible combinations, and it works fast. Last year, SAP ran a proof of concept with Fujitsu to test and benchmark its DAU – with some promising results.

SAP is continuously exploring new ideas, business models, and pioneering technologies Learn more

As mentioned in a recent blog, the DAU was tested against some rather abstract but standardized research problems from the Library of Quadratic Programming Instances (QPLIB). We also tested the possibility to seamlessly integrate SAP solutions with the DAU, proving a simple execution to start. As a result, SAP was able to demonstrate that the DAU has real potential and marks an important milestone in the progress of quantum-inspired computing towards practical, real-world, standard business solutions. We are currently working with Fujitsu to extend this potential to other optimization problems, like creating more efficient schedules for manufacturing, vehicle space optimization, and ultimately an even broader use case application.

While still a proof of concept, these connections and benchmarking results demonstrate the potential for simulated annealing to deliver on real-world problems, such as balancing the load across all manufacturing tool sets, by using the DAU as a machine dedicated to the task of optimization, rather than a universally reprogrammable computer.

As a world-leading enterprise application provider, SAP continues to help innovate and bring the benefits of quantum-inspired computing to customers through our solutions.

Benchmarking Against Current Optimization Methods

Before committing more resources, SAP wanted to test the DAU against problems that serve as industry or academic standards for optimization. This is where the QPLIB comes in. It is essentially a huge repository of math problems, none of which are mapped to potential use cases but all of which can determine what kind of problems the DAU might excel at. The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to benchmark against current optimization methods, although the use case context has been removed. Take the example of a drug trial, where scientists test the new drug in test tubes against drugs already on the market. It may not show side effects, but it will show whether it’s worth risking trials on living subjects.

The DAU takes a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem as its input, which sets up the cost-benefit matrix. It then outputs a string of 1’s and 0’s, telling the user whether it is optimal to include, for example, a unit of stock, where the variance is to be minimized. The key is that it must either be faster or output a more optimal solution.

Most quantum computers run their quantum circuits at gate-level. Fujitsu’s approach was inspired by quantum annealing, a technique that specializes entirely in optimization. Although quantum annealing makes great progress in the number of qubits (quantum bits), it is subject to similar limitations of error. The advantage of Fujitsu’s quantum-inspired approach is that it relies on existing hardware, eliminating the need for expensive cryogenic cooling.

It is SAP’s sincere hope that this quantum-inspired optimization can help our customers bridge the optimization gaps until quantum hardware becomes more reliable. The incorporation of Fujitsu’s DAU into SAP technology helps establish a platform designed to tackle the impending gaps in the years ahead. This remarkable advancement is a key achievement in SAP’s journey towards the next era of enterprise software, aiming to enhance business operations and foster value creation.

Together, SAP and Fujitsu are pushing the boundaries and redefining what is possible, as the industry looks to a future transformed by the advancements in quantum-inspired computing.

Paul McElligott is a fellow in the Quantum eXplorers Group at SAP.

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Bitcoin bulls have no time for long pullbacks as a BTC price dip to $69,000 is swiftly canceled to be replaced with new record highs.

Grayscale’s slice of the Bitcoin ETF pie has fallen below 50% for the first time since it was converted alongside the launch of nine new ETFs in January.

The case against Roman Sterlingov showed that Chainalysis tools are flawed — and shouldn't be trusted to convict defendants when they face decades in prison.

Markets reacted to stubbornly high inflation in the United States and its potential impact on the Fed’s interest-rate plans.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says this is one of the first times the U.S. has recovered USDT from an unhosted digital currency wallet.

The Bitcoin bull run will explode as China gets involved, $1M BTC price by 2028, tips Herbert Sim “The Bitcoin Man”, X Hall of Flame.

Last week, to a virtual audience of nearly 50,000 employees, the Executive Board of SAP SE announced the 2023 winners of the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award, the company’s most prestigious employee recognition.

Three teams were selected for outstanding and innovative projects in the categories Go-to-Market, Operational Excellence, and Products and Technology.

In 2023, 115 nominations involved more than 750 employees from 35 countries. Eight teams consisting of 81 employees from around the world made it to the final round.

In honor of the three winning teams, SAP will make donations to three charities selected by the team members. The €30,000 total donation – €10,000 per team – will be split between Better Shelter, World Central Kitchen, and Embrace Global.

Meet the 2023 Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Winners

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube Always load all embeds--> Go-to-Market Winner Reimagined RISE with SAP Business Case with SAP Signavio and SAP Value Lifecycle Manager Integration

When shifting to a cloud-first approach, it can be a challenge to pitch the cloud to customers due to the comprehensiveness of the solution spanning across the entire value chain of an enterprise.

To apply a more streamlined and dependable method for crafting compelling value propositions, the Value Advisory team at SAP implemented the SAP Signavio portfolio of cloud-based business process management solutions within their practice to demonstrate value to customers through data-driven insights.

The team created a system where business metrics from SAP Value Lifecycle Manager and process performance data from SAP Signavio solutions were merged and applied to business KPIs to identify cases of suboptimal performance. This allows customers to more easily see the connection between business outcomes and the process capabilities, supported by data.

The approach offers a robust and repeatable performance diagnostic that can be used to identify, clarify, verify, and amplify value throughout the customer value journey, helping customers better understand the value of the cloud and RISE with SAP. The innovation helps build customer trust and intimacy while also helping our business operate at scale. To date, this process-driven value management has impacted more than 190 customers.

“Our future focus involves enhancing usability and capabilities to comprehensively cover the customer value journey,” Nitin Singh, team leader and Value Advisory principal, says. “We extend our sincere gratitude to our leaders for fostering a culture of innovation, our colleagues for experimenting and navigating challenges with us, and prior colleagues whose work paved the way for this journey. We genuinely stand on the shoulders of giants.” 

Operational Excellence Winner Plutus: Rate Optimization and Management

Cloud services are a critical part of SAP’s recent evolution, with the company dedicating extensive time and resources to seamlessly integrate all essential services into the cloud. This effort aims to enhance customer experiences – and Plutus serves as the cornerstone of these endeavors.

Plutus, which leverages SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), is a one-stop solution for major hyperscalers. It’s crafted to empower lines of business by providing smarter and more efficient advice for optimizing cloud services. Plutus can centralize the management of cost optimization and intelligently navigate users through cloud expenses, providing top-notch recommendations and comprehensive end-to-end management. It caters to users’ needs from guidance to execution, helping to ensure cost savings every step of the way.

The Plutus team used cutting-edge technologies to create a 24/7, fully integrated, user-centric cloud service hub and a smooth user interface platform that can operate across various channels. Plutus provides simplified financial operations processes by offering an intuitive interface across all platforms, working to eliminate pricing disparities and provide reliable cost-saving solutions. These efforts strongly emphasize SAP’s commitment to advancing global digital sustainability through innovative enterprise solutions.

The solution uses machine learning to provide smart recommendations. The team also plans to integrate a versatile digital chatbot based on generative AI to help ensure seamless and comprehensive user support in the future.

Plutus allows for a new approach to SAP’s cloud cost optimization strategy, unlocking new avenues for significant cost savings and margin improvements. To date, Plutus has generated over US$920 million in net savings for SAP, with projections reaching $1 billion in Q1 2024. It has also achieved and maintained remarkable, best-in-industry cloud utilization and coverage rates – exceeding 97% and 90%, respectively.

“Winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award reflects our dedication to teamwork and innovation,” Donghua Chen, Plutus team lead, says. “Our journey to this point has required a lot of hard work. But as we celebrate this achievement, we remain committed to continually analyzing cloud usage to maximize savings for SAP through rate optimization.”

Products & Technology Winner CAP and capGPT – SAP Cloud Application Programming Model and Generative AI

The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) was started in 2018 as a project to address the lack of guidance for developers building apps on what is now SAP BTP. At first, developers could choose from a huge number of technologies, which made integration with the platform services a relatively high effort.

As a development framework, CAP automatically solves about 80% of the problems backend developers face – such as multitenancy, expandability, or business features such as localization and translatability. But thanks to CAP’s domain-driven approach, it is no longer necessary to always change the coding in each of those cases. And for special use cases that CAP doesn’t cover, the coding can be easily added to build in this functionality. To help safeguard customers’ investments, CAP offers the possibility to interchange components, such as runtime or the database, without changing the actual implementation.

CAP, as a centerpiece of Golden Path and SAP Build Code, is now an integral part of the consumption experience of SAP BTP. Today, thousands of internal and external developers use CAP to build business applications on SAP BTP, driving higher developer productivity and easier SAP BTP service adoption.

“This award is a great testament to the hard work and dedication of the whole CAP unit and a recognition of the impact we have both internally as well as for our customers and partners,” Ole Lilienthal, team lead, says.

To make prototyping even easier, in spring 2023, SAP software architect David Kunz applied ChatGPT’s large language model to writing code for business apps.

capGPT, as the new functionality is called, allows users to write in natural language what they want their app prototype to be able to do. In as little as 30 seconds, they can receive all the code – which previously had to be written by hand – and access the prototype to test it. This can not only save experienced developers an amazing amount of time, but can also enable non-developers to create prototypes of the apps they need. capGPT can also generate user interfaces in addition to backend applications. It will soon be available to customers through integration into SAP Build Code as part of AI-development assistant Joule.

“Seeing capGPT go from an idea to a Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award winner within a year is a true testament that everything is possible at SAP,” Kunz says. “I feel very proud and I’m energized to continue to push the limits of what generative AI can enable.”

Photo courtesy of SAP employee Fateh Kassab

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The Bitcoin halving will likely positively affect Ethereum and the broader crypto market, according to multiple industry insiders.

As a longtime executive sponsor of the SAP Innovation Awards, I always look forward to the day we announce our winners to the world. And the countdown is now on. But before we get to the big reveal, we are proud to share some incredible stories from this year’s finalists.

These organizations exemplify resilience and innovation. Despite macro challenges and an unpredictable business climate, they harness technology, culture, and sometimes pure grit to address some of the world’s biggest challenges. We at SAP are honored to be part of their journey. With our help, they develop business processes, solutions, and services to better serve their customers, operations, and communities around the world.

SAP Innovation Awards celebrate inspirational customer and partner stories Learn more Real-World Problems, Real-Life Solutions

For the past 11 years, SAP has run the prestigious SAP Innovation Awards, proudly recognizing top global innovators that use SAP solutions to make the world a better place. Our distinguished judges of industry thought leaders, influencers, community members, and SAP experts have carefully reviewed 160 entries to determine the 2024 SAP Innovation Award finalists.

These organizations are setting the standards in improving operations across the value chain, boosting employee and customer experiences, shaping a sustainable future, and much more. A huge congratulations to all of our finalists! I know I speak for everyone involved when I say I can’t wait to find out this year’s winners.

Click to enlarge. 30 Winners Across Seven Categories

Judging for the SAP Innovation Awards is based on a few big elements: the creativity of an organization’s use case, the tangible outcomes, and their innovation in employing AI technologies and cloud solutions from SAP. We highlight winners in the following seven categories:

• Business Innovator: This category focuses on how customers are transforming their supply chain, processes, or business networks using cloud solutions from SAP.
• Industry Leader: Customers are recognized for employing our solutions to address big challenges in their industries and disrupting the way their industries have traditionally conducted business.
• Experience Wizard: This one focuses on customers achieving tangible business transformation using our cloud solutions to delight their employees and customers.
• Sustainability Hero: To be honored here, customers must be actively committed to sustainability with leading-edge solutions.
• Services Supernova: Customers are recognized for outstanding achievements in transforming businesses into sustainable enterprises. They’ve exceeded their business goals, optimized IT resources, increased user enablement, and improved productivity or learning using RISE with SAP or Cloud Success Services.
• Transformation Titan: How do you become a titan? Demonstrate exceptional innovation and transformational leadership in using SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Selected customers are employing the full portfolio of SAP products.
• Partner Paragon: This category highlights how partners accelerate the adoption of SAP BTP by developing a monetized application that has been deployed by customers.

Continuing the Celebration

SAP Innovation Awards represent an amazing opportunity to learn, be inspired by, and celebrate the unique and innovative ways our customers and partners are making a difference and we look forward to celebrating the winners on April 10!

Do you know of a customer or partner that would be a good candidate for next year’s SAP Innovation Awards? Or do you just want to learn more about the awards, the finalists, and the winners when they’re announced? Join us and showcase your innovation story! Get started here.

Dorit Shackleton is senior vice president and head of Global Customer Adoption and Events Marketing at SAP.

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Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced new rules requiring many large U.S.-listed public companies to disclose climate-related risks that have a material impact on their financials, operations, or business strategy. 

Specifically, companies registered with the SEC now must disclose their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as in those resulting from both their direct emissions and purchases of electricity and fuel.

Calculate your carbon footprint from cradle to gate with SAP technology Learn more

Critics of the ruling say it adds to the burden of reporting to multiple government agencies. Others believe the SEC is not going far enough, as its decision does not require the disclosure of Scope 3 emissions, which are generated by a company’s suppliers and customers.

Among the reasons the SEC decided against mandating the disclosure of Scope 3 emissions was the potential difficulty in collecting and measuring this data as well as potential high costs.

At SAP,  we embrace the SEC’s ruling not just as a regulatory measure, but as a promising avenue for companies to thrive by leveraging technology to harness the power of business data.

We are not merely observing from the sidelines; we are actively partnering with our customers to empower them in accurately monitoring emission, reducing energy costs, and streamlining their business processes.

Our commitment goes beyond compliance — we are dedicated to enabling companies to stay agile in both voluntary and mandatory reporting, recognizing the ever-evolving landscape of emissions disclosure regulations. This sentiment is underscored not only by the recent SEC rule but also by the stringent laws such as the one passed last year in California and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

SAP has the technology to make Scope 3 emissions accurate, granular, and stable. We are seeing customers adopt digital technologies that will enable them to comply with all existing and anticipated regulatory requirements around the world up and down their value chains to track emissions accurately, including Scope 3, where applicable.

From our experience, sustainability management solutions from SAP can benefit businesses while helping them stay compliant with local and global regulations. SAP makes end-to-end carbon management seamless by embedding it into business processes through a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This offers companies the ability to create a green ledger by connecting their financial data with accurate and verifiable emissions data. When this data is connected, they can innovate their operations and supply chains to be more sustainable and competitive.

The essence of the SEC’s impact lies in our unwavering belief in collaboration. Our business-to-business network enables our customers to meet the challenge of disclosing emissions data under various reporting requirements. This ability to accurately track emissions allows companies’ stakeholders, including their supply chain partners, to access that information on public websites or mobile apps so they can meet and even exceed the most stringent reporting requirements.

With SAP’s enterprise solutions, companies can operate today while increasing the overall availability and transparency of carbon data. These same solutions also allow for the proactive identification of supply chain partners so companies can further decrease their carbon emissions. Concurrently, government agencies can easily access companies’ emissions data using already available enterprise software to improve their emissions reduction goals.

SAP’s Holistic Approach to Cloud-Based Sustainability and Business Transformation

The reality of our future economy is that it is cloud-based and sustainable. That’s why we see our customers transitioning to more agile business models that drive sustainable outcomes.

SAP guides them through this new reality by providing the technology that allows for their business process shifts across their value chains. Whether they are new local or regional emissions rules, plastic taxes or extended producer responsibility requirements, SAP is ready to work with customers to minimize any disruptions with these new reporting requirements.

With a comprehensive and integrated approach to sustainability, SAP solutions move beyond compliance and operationalize sustainability across companies’ operations. Customers can build on their ERP solutions over time, transforming business processes for maximum sustainable impact. Companies can also deploy SAP Business AI to inform, predict, and optimize sustainable outcomes. These same tools can leverage sustainability regulations and help companies achieve business process transformation.

We are hopeful that governments will advance carbon accounting globally. Taking that step will harmonize regional and global reporting frameworks and ensure optimal reuse of companies’ existing data flows and business processes.

This SEC decision makes it more important than ever for companies to use digital technologies to track their emissions accurately and not rely on estimated data that often undercounts carbon emissions.

Regulations can actually drive innovation. We are in a world where businesses must pivot quickly due to externalities like economic shocks, political shifts, and climate-related disasters. SAP has the technology to help companies rapidly adapt to these changes and new regulations.

Sophia Mendelsohn is chief sustainability and commercial officer and co-general manager for SAP Sustainability. 

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Senior Binance execs Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla have been detained at a government property since Feb. 26.

Bitcoin ETFs are sucking up the BTC available for purchase, and the tipping point in supply dynamics will come this year, one analyst says.

On-chain Bitcoin whales have had a slow return, despite Bitcoin surpassing its previous all-time high.

Unlike games that rely partly on centralization (Axie Infinity), fully on-chain games give players more control — and get them more engaged.

The price of Bitcoin has reached an all-time high above $72,000.