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Bringing new technology and infrastructure to an enterprise is difficult. While the enthusiasm and the desire is there and spans a variety of leadership roles in a company, it can be hard to move from a pilot program to a new integrated system. A big part of the challenge comes from companies needing more from the businesses providing infrastructure. EY released a study this week that details where those problems spring up, pointing the way to opportunities for tech infrastructure vendors and companies to fill in the gaps.

Generative AI leads the way for planned tech investments—47% are planning on putting more funds there—but technologies to enhance performance in industrial facilities and mobile performance are also seeing more funds. A third are investing in 5G tech, and 43% are investing in Internet of Things (IoT). Despite these investment levels, the study found just 3% of businesses getting into these technologies have fully deployed IoT abilities, and only 1% of 5G investors. Less than 1% of companies were at that level with generative AI. And while almost half of companies said that complex integrations with existing systems is one of their top barriers to deploying tech, nearly a third said they don’t have adequate skills or training, or don’t have adequate support from tech suppliers. While the percentage of enterprises struggling with finding the right generative AI partners decreased 8% between 2024 and 2025, it increased significantly for 5G providers—58% a year ago to 64% now—and for those looking for a partner to help understand the larger supplier landscape—69% to 73%.

For tech suppliers, this means the opportunity is wide open to play a big role in companies’ enterprise tech transition—but they need to present themselves as more of a partner and less as a provider. They should concentrate on displaying their previous business outcomes, educating customers on the technology, and showing that they can scale a pilot to an actual solution. For businesses looking to upgrade, the study shows their issues are felt by many, and the lack of a good partner might be a primary reason it takes longer than expected to make a change.

President Donald Trump has made sweeping policy changes throughout the federal government and beyond, but he has yet to fully articulate his position on AI. I talked to Bill Vass, CTO of advanced technology company and federal contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, about what he’s seen and understood so far from the company’s work in federal departments and agencies. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

TECHNOLOGY + INNOVATION

This week, Microsoft unveiled its new quantum chip, which it says opens a path to developing an actual fault-tolerant quantum computer within a matter of years. The Majorana 1 is a quantum processor that can fit in the palm of your hand and it was developed by creating a new state of matter: the topological state, writes Forbes senior contributor John Koetsier. Chetan Nayak, who leads Microsoft’s quantum hardware program, told Koetsier that the topological state does not occur naturally in the universe, and Microsoft constructed the superconductors powering its chip out of a materials stack that includes indium arsenide and aluminum through a mostly atom-by-atom fabrication process. This state, which creates an exotic particle known as Majoranas, can develop reliable and controllable qubits at cooled temperatures. This project has been in development for 19 years, Koetsier writes.

Microsoft says it is working to scale up the chip to hold a million qubits. CEO Satya Nadella posted on X that quantum could potentially solve problems all of the world’s computers currently cannot. “This is our focus: When productivity rises, economies grow faster, benefiting every sector and every corner of the globe. It’s not about hyping tech; it’s about building technology that truly serves the world.”

This is the second major development in quantum computing in recent months. In December, Google announced its Willow quantum chip, which could solve a problem in five minutes that would theoretically take a supercomputer longer to solve than the age of the entire universe.

CYBERSECURITY

Last week, cloud network security platform Check Point Software Technologies announced a partnership with cybersecurity giant Wiz with the two companies planning to produce a unified and holistic security solution. Under the partnership, Check Point’s cloud network security controls will be integrated into Wiz’s Cloud Native Application Protection, and the companies say this will bridge a gap between cloud network and app security.

The partnership appears to bring the most potential competition to cybersecurity stalwart Palo Alto Networks, writes Forbes senior contributor Peter Cohan. From early indications, Palo Alto leaders have said that its solutions—including its new Cortex Cloud platform, which Forbes senior contributor Maribel Lopez writes is intended to increase security and improve cloud posture visibility—will be seen as comprehensive and superior. Palo Alto’s stock hit an all-time high on Tuesday, boosted by a report from Susquehanna that increased its price target on the stock and kept its positive rating, Insider Monkey wrote. Palo Alto’s stock is up nearly 9% in 2025, and its revenues grew 14% year-over-year according to its earnings report last week.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Amid possibilities that Clearview AI may be working on opportunities with the Trump Administration, cofounder and CEO Hoan Ton-That has resigned. Forbes’ David Jeans writes that cofounder Richard Schwartz and early investor and board member Hal Lambert are now serving as co-CEOs. Lambert is a prominent GOP donor and was a fundraiser for President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Clearview AI has sophisticated facial recognition technology, and came under fire shortly after its 2020 launch because it harvested billions of social media images without users’ consent. Ton-That and the company faced lawsuits from civil rights groups who claimed it violated privacy rights. Clearview committed to working only with government agencies, and its primary clients were local law enforcement. It didn’t get much federal business during the Biden Administration, which had concerns about facial recognition technology infringing on civil rights and privacy.

President Trump has not yet articulated clear plans and guidelines around AI use, but it’s unlikely his administration will have the same concerns. During Trump’s first term, officials pushed to expand biometric surveillance, particularly for border security. Lambert told Jeans he sees a big opportunity for Clearview. “The policy is, we want to keep America safe, and technology is a way to do it,” he said.

BITS + BYTES

AI And The Trump Administration: What We Know So Far

President Donald Trump is sharing big policy changes every day, but hasn’t said much comprehensive about his plans for AI—just that he’s rescinded former President Joe Biden’s executive order aimed at regulating AI development with the intent of stopping potential harm in order to “unshackle America’s innovation economy.” I talked to Bill Vass, the CTO of advanced technology company and government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, about the projects they’re working on with the federal government and what the administration’s approach to AI looks like so far. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

From what you have seen and what you can tell, what does President Trump's AI policy look like?

Vass: I think it’s wanting to use AI much more aggressively and much faster in the government with less constraints. I think it would be a mischaracterization to say that there is an advocate for no guardrails. I think there is still an advocacy for guardrails and practical implementations of AI.

One of the things I’ve liked about Booz Allen is we’ve been very practical. As the top provider of AI to the federal government with the most number of AI professionals engaged in it, we’ve found places where it’s transformational for intelligence analysts but also practical, not hype.

Some of the AI-related projects Booz Allen is working on must have been ongoing before Trump took office last month. In other areas of the presidency, he appears to be wanting to change everything from the previous administration. How different does his approach to technology and AI seem to be?

I think his goal very much is to keep us under the pacing threat, ahead of the world. If you constrain the United States too much on AI development and other countries don’t have that constraint, that would put us behind.

Having people use their best judgment on how to apply the AI—as opposed to policy—I think is another thing he’s trying to do: Free that up for people to use their best judgment. You have [Elon] Musk pushing hard on AI everywhere. We just went over a system where we’re training leaders in the government where they should apply AI from a requirements definition. There’s a lot of great uses there.

From where you sit, has there been a lot of complexity and regulations impeding the development of AI with the government?

Having been in the government and been in private industry, you’ll go to the government and, having a private industry view, you’ll say, ‘You can turn this on right now.’ The government will say, ‘Hey, hold on. We have to do this in compliance. We have to do this, we have to do this.’

There’s good reasons for those things. We should never allow commercial industry to deploy insecure things on government systems, right? Having a high bar in security and compliance, making sure that the government is maintaining privacy of our citizens, those are of paramount importance. Those are areas you don’t compromise.

But getting it to test faster as opposed to waiting for all these approvals, getting it into prototype deployments faster as opposed to waiting for all these approvals, accepting a synthetic test as validation, as opposed to just physical tests [to speed development up]. To put this in perspective, autonomous vehicles in the commercial area will do about 15 million miles of driving in a virtual world in an hour of training on the cloud. After 15 million miles of training every hour for a month, they’ll deploy the software onto a training fleet for about a week. And if it works, then they start deploying it to customers.

That’s a much faster cycle than the government: A thousand miles of training on the cloud and then three years of training on the physical fleet, and then deploy out to the actual fleet. The policies allow you to turn that around and move much faster.

FACTS + COMMENTS

Apple unveiled the iPhone 16e, a new lower-cost—but high-tech—model featuring the platform’s AI-powered Apple Intelligence that will be available for pre-orders Friday and on the market February 28.

$599: Cost of the 128 GB model, which is $200 less than the base iPhone 16 model

26: Hours of video playback available from the iPhone 16e’s battery, giving it the second-strongest battery among all models

‘A powerful, more affordable option to bring the iPhone experience to even more people’: How Apple VP of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing Kaiann Drance described the model in a press release

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

If all of your company’s leadership doesn’t have a complete understanding of AI, things could go very wrong and be difficult to fix. Here are some ways to bridge any knowledge gaps now.

Leaders all have core values at the center of who they are and what they do for the company. Here are four ways to put yours into practice.

QUIZ

Why did TikTok once again become available on Apple and Google app stores last week?

A. Meta bought the app for $90 billion

B. A Chinese hacker group got into the app stores and made it appear

C. The Justice Department informed the companies they would not enforce the law banning the app

D. It was part of a tariff reduction deal between China and the U.S.

See if you got the answer right here.


Note: This story was edited to clarify Booz Allen Hamilton’s functions and correct a transcription error.