We must build people’s trust in technology: Satya Nadella

At a time when Big Tech is facing its biggest challenge in maintaining privacy of its users and fighting various probes into anti-competitive practices, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday stressed that the need of the hour is to build people’s trust in technology and its use.

In his keynote address at the virtual ‘Microsoft Ignite 2020’ conference, Nadella said that the shift to remote work has only increased the need for an integrated zero trust architecture that reduces both cost and complexity.

“We have an enormous responsibility to ensure that the technology we build benefits everyone on the planet, including the planet itself. Our purpose and actions must always be aligned to help solve the world’s challenges, not create new ones,” Nadella said.

“We must build trust in technology and its use spanning privacy, security, responsible use of AI and transparency,” he added.

“No customer wants to depend on a provider that sells the technology at one end and then competes with them on the other. You’ve got to get this equation right on all fronts”.

Stressing that the world came to a near standstill earlier this year, he said that the tech community at large has helped the world keep moving forward.

“From system administrators and security specialists to data analysts and software engineers, and professionals across all functions, all of us stepped up over the last six months to help people and organizations in every country adapt during the most trying of circumstances,” the Microsoft CEO maintained.

The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent, or for any organization to succeed in a world of unprecedented constraints.

“They will need to empower employees, foster a new culture of hybrid work, engage their customers in new ways intelligently and virtually transform products and services with new business models, and optimize operations to keep customers and employees safe and secure,” Nadella told the attendees.

He said that Microsoft has built a complete technology stack to support both tech adoption and tech capability building and, ultimately, increase your own ability to achieve success through digital technology.

Our tech stack offers unparalleled integration, architectural coherence, and openness in each layer and extensibility in this era of intelligent cloud and intelligent edge,” Nadella noted.

Microsoft, he said, is analyzing more than 8 trillion security signals each day, generating insights that fuel security innovations across the platform to protect customers, including largest enterprises as well as small businesses.

He also touched upon the racial hate crimes the world is currently going through.

“We support the fundamental rights of people from defending democracy, to addressing the systemic racial injustice and inequity around the world,” Nadella said.