The latest Rectron Summit for 2024 has come and gone, delivering another year of excellent innovations in the tech world and industry at large. It’s a promising future for South African tech as this year’s event placed a great emphasis on the benefits and ethical usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in tech, which is slowly becoming a dominant force in the world. Beyond that, the event also gave attendees plenty of opportunities to try out the latest and greatest tech on the market, from MSI’s ever-reliable range of powerful gaming laptops and Gigabyte’s noteworthy strides in AI development to ASUS offering fantastic productive notebooks and more.
For this year’s Rectron Summit, I wanted to dig into why so many tech brands are leaning heavily towards AI implementation and support. To really understand this perspective, I took a look at the pros and cons – something that, to my surprise, every brand spoke quite candidly about. Understandably, the great fear is that AI would make certain jobs typically undertaken by humans obsolete or redundant. This wasn’t the case, looking deeper into the emerging technology.
AI has been around for years but only now does it seem like companies are beginning to harness its full potential, properly implementing artificial intelligence – or rather, refining what was already there – to streamline productivity, improve systems and generally make some software easier to monitor and control.
Cyber security, for example, uses AI to bolster its user protection, detecting intrusions or anomalies quicker than ever before. This allows companies to ensure safe, secure personal browsing and usage – something that establishments like banks could benefit from. From the various spokespeople I talked to at Summit, they understood the boundaries of innovation without overstepping the need for a human touch. We, thankfully, aren’t living the science fiction world of I, Robot, don’t worry.
Synology has expertise in the cyber security field. As mentioned before, using artificial intelligence, Synology improves cyber security and user privacy by probing potential threats and working overtime to digitally shield users – from smarter multi-factor authentication to organisation-wide identity services and mobile device management, ensuring safe, secure private browsing. Synology boasts a faster response time than the industry standard as well.
“Balancing innovation with ethical responsibilities is vital as AI becomes an integral part of South African businesses,” said ASUS Business. “By prioritising ethical AI, businesses can build trust, foster inclusivity and ensure that AI benefits all South Africans.”
“Privacy concerns are also significant, as AI systems often require vast amounts of personal data. Ensuring that this data is protected and used responsibly is crucial.”
Johan Steyn, the human-centred AI advocate for Microsoft, took the stage to discuss how to use prompts regarding the AI-powered Microsoft Co-pilot. For the most part, he gave fairly honest answers about the pitfalls of using ChatGPT and how Co-pilot differentiates itself in key areas, though it’s ultimately up to the person typing prompts to generate articles using the correct keywords. Steyn talked about Co-pilot being able to recognise what you are asking of AI more intelligently – essentially, it comes down to understanding how AI works and how articulate you have to be with it if you want the who, why, what and how of your preferred generation in the end.
AI is still floating around a bit of a grey area, especially in the creative fields, but where technology is concerned, it seems to work hand-in-hand with streamlining tasks, creating a more efficient working environment and processing data quickly for businesses. I’m not completely sold but seeing it in practice, and not just hearing about it in press releases for once, helped me wrap my head around quite a bit of it.
Elsewhere at Summit, companies were ready to showcase their latest and greatest products either available right now on the market or coming very soon.
MSI took the opportunity to showcase a range of powerful gaming laptops including its priciest behemoth, the Titan 18 HX. Running Black Myth: Wukong on the laptop, I got a chance to test it out extensively and walked away beyond impressed by its design, performance and power. Granted, an MSI spokesperson made it clear that this was the absolute top-of-the-range hardware crafted for serious gamers, sporting a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 with 16GB DDR6 and an Intel Core i9 14900HX. The 4K Mini LED 120Hz screen also looked phenomenal, causing the vibrant colours to really pop.
Since this was also my first time getting hands-on with the MSI Claw handheld, I had nothing but positive things to report (as I’m sure you’ve heard before). It rests comfortably in your hands, more so than market competitors like the Steam Deck, and boasts a sleek, terrific design with an easy-to-navigate UI and all the apps you really need, including Game Pass and Steam, to sort your gaming needs.
PNY, a manufacturer for all manner of tech, was a brand I did not expect to find at the Rectron Summit. Speaking with the friendly spokesperson there, I found out that PNY mainly worked with NVIDIA to distribute its technology internationally, though this was a small step towards bridging the gap to the South African market.
Getac was one of the more unfamiliar brands at Summit this year, but they have extensive tech experience spanning decades. First developing tech for the military and governments, Getac has evolved to offer one of the most complete hardware ranges on the market. The company is also embracing AI with its AI-ready Rugged laptop and tablets. Designing for the military allowed Getac to focus its strengths on very secure private networks too through fingerprint scanners, smart card readers and more. The fact that Getac is so proficient in its security and user privacy makes this a welcomed brand breaking out into the global market to reach users who would appreciate the reliability of the company’s tech.
RCT, a tech company providing affordable solutions for business and home, presented its range of notebooks and tablets at Summit. Affordability was the key to RCT’s pitch and it was quite endearing – while the products aren’t packed with high-end specs, the company offers highly affordable entry-point notebooks and tablets for businesses; in particular the start-ups that initially struggle with the hardware needed to get up and going. RCT covers that lower-end market, and arguably has a more important role to play in getting those businesses on their feet and thriving. RCT also provides power solutions for businesses such as inverters, adding to the company’s impressive, affordable tech portfolio.
ASUS Intel marked my last stop on my brief floor experience and I found a healthy balance of gaming and productivity notebooks and monitors in display. Drawing from the power from AI (and once again having Black Myth: Wukong as well as Mortal Kombat 1 on all screens), I dug into some of the latest laptops and screens from the company.
The custom-built BTF was a highlight at ASUS Intel – a beastly gaming PC that prides itself on superb cable management. No protruding cables are seen inside the machine. The graphics card doesn’t have a power cable attached either – everything is powered directly from the motherboard. It’s a lot more aesthetically pleasing on the eye without the clutter of cables to distract you from its sleek, almost elegant space management and aesthetic.
ASUS Business discussed how AI Assistant is going to play a role in our daily lives, believing that in the next 3-4 years, it’s going to be a common household staple – an AI program that can not only respond to your prompts and text but also physically see, hear and fully interact with you. ASUS plans on leveraging that advancements in tech to build new systems, create exciting new software and from a productivity side, create a far more efficient user experience. It’s exciting to consider the possibilities, seeing as how recent laptops and notebooks from ASUS, like the Zenbook Z16 OLED with AMD Ryzen AI, have already begun implementing the technology in fantastic ways.
Rectron Summit 2024 offered a glimpse into the future for the South African tech market and it’s one that generates more excitement than initial concerns about the ethical usage of AI. While there are some questions left unanswered, Summit was a fruitful event that ushered in a new age of computing, tech and artificial intelligence. Just don’t register a new tech company called Skynet, please.
