At this global hackathon in Italy, Capgemini staff got to grips with a specialized challenge in quantum chemistry and the practicalities of solving it – while also learning from other practitioners about the industrial context

In April 2023, a Capgemini team of four took part in the ICTP–Quantinuum Quantum Hackathon in Trieste, Italy, alongside around 20 other teams from all over the world. The organizers’ aim was for participants “to learn and develop quantum algorithms and apply them in the context of real-world use cases with leading industrial partners.”[1] Participants were students and practitioners specializing in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. They came from all over the world, including Africa, Iran, Mexico, Morocco, and India, as well as Europe.

After a series of quantum computing workshops and lectures, mostly with experts from Quantinuum and ICTP, participants spent an intensive two days collaborating with experts from science and industry to practice deploying quantum technology on real-world use cases. These were contributed by companies such as Quandela, Merck, BMW, Generali, Aramco, Eni, and Intesa Sanpaolo, as well as from Quantinuum itself.

Capgemini’s project: exploring the potential of quantum computing in chemistry

From a range of suggested research topics, Capgemini’s Quantum Lab chose to focus on the field of quantum chemistry, and specifically on the calculation of excited state energies of photoswitch azobenzene.

Azobenzenes are a class of molecules that undergoes reversible photoisomerization and therefore can be used to explore other molecules noninvasively via light. This photoisomerization property makes using azobenzenes attractive for applications such as optical data storage, molecular switches, and photoresponsive materials – but doing so successfully depends on a detailed understanding of the light interaction process of the azobenzene itself.

Franziska Wolff, Quantum Technology Consultant with Capgemini Engineering tells us more: “Our team was assigned a technical mentor, and I was the use case owner. Our two days of hard work were highly productive. First, participants had to grasp the complex chemistry of excited states – a non-trivial task. We then had to understand and implement the methods and algorithms needed to get quantum computers to calculate results.

Once we started applying this knowledge to excited state calculations, some technical challenges also had to be overcome. For example, we had to find a way to simulate the calculations on participants’ laptops rather than on a more powerful machine.”

Franziska Wolff continuous about overcoming challenges and building understanding

“In spite of these challenges, we successfully explored the possibilities of carrying out excited state calculations with quantum computers, and then went on to implement the algorithms for our specific use case.

The limited computing power available on laptops meant that our calculations had to be completed on the azobenzene’s smaller counterpart molecules rather than on the azobenzene itself. However, the exercise greatly increased our insight into the overall potential of quantum in this area, as well as some of the practicalities of applying it. We hope to have the opportunity to use these insights in the near future in our research and client work.

For me, this was an intense, inspiring, and insightful event. I learned a lot about quantum algorithms and how they work. I had a lot of informative and interesting discussion with developers of quantum chemistry software from Quantinuum, who acted as technical mentors for our use case. I also found out a lot about how other companies see this new technology and how they are starting to engage with it. And I also very much enjoyed the international flavor of the event.”

NOTE ON ICTP AND QUANTINUUM

ICTP – the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics – is a research center funded by the UN and the Italian government. It is “committed to science advocacy and international cooperation through science by providing an international forum of scientific contact for scientists from all countries.”[2]

Formed by a 2021 merger between Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum, quantum hardware and software specialist company Quantinuum has a mission to “accelerate quantum computing and use its power to positively transform the world.”[3]

[1] https://indico.ictp.it/event/10163

[2] https://www.ictp.it/home/our-mission

[3] https://www.quantinuum.com/about

Securing an inclusive cyber ecosystem on the values of collaboration and entrepreneurship

Cybersecurity has rarely been higher on business agendas than it is today – and one thing we know is that no organization is exempt from attack. This is no clearer than with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for whom cyberattacks can have far-reaching consequences that not only put sensitive data and credibility at risk but can impact the lives of the people they serve. 

For a sector serving over one billion people with life-changing support, the consequences can be devastating. But although NGOs account for the second-most-targeted sector after IT, many struggle to adopt basic cybersecurity resources to guard themselves. 

In recognition of these challenges, Capgemini has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the CyberPeace Institute, a Geneva-based NGO focused on protecting civil society from cyber threats. Under this agreement, Capgemini will lend its cybersecurity expertise to support NGOs through the CyberPeace Institute’s volunteer program, the CyberPeace Builders, in enhancing their digital security posture and resilience. 

Building resilience for NGOs

Our volunteers, from diverse cybersecurity and crisis response backgrounds, will give their time to support NGOs for the CyberPeace Builders program. They join a unique network of expert corporate volunteers that have delivered end-to-end cybersecurity services to over 100 NGOs since its launch in 2021 with the objective of reaching 1,000 by 2025.

By supporting organizations like the CyberPeace Institute, Capgemini is working to create a world where peace is possible both on the ground and in cyberspace. As part of Capgemini’s #Cyber4Good initiative, we seek to create a powerful cyber ecosystem based on the values of collaboration, entrepreneurship, and inclusion. And so, by leveraging the skills and passions of our cybersecurity experts, Capgemini aims to build digital security support for civil society to ensure that technology is seen as an opportunity for every NGO. 

“We share in the CyberPeace Builders’ commitment to bridging the digital divide for non-profit organizations in need of cyber talent. Through our #Cyber4Good initiative, we believe that technology should provide opportunities for all, and I am confident that our cyber specialists will be able to make a real difference to civil society in the year ahead with increased digital security support.” Nive Bhagat, Chief Executive, Cloud Infrastructure Services.”

Ultimately, countering cybercrime requires a whole society approach, and our collective goal must be to ensure that human rights and fundamental freedoms are always prioritized when countering cyber threats. By working together, organizations like Capgemini and the CyberPeace Institute can help build a safer and more secure digital world for civil society organizations and the communities they serve. 

Hannover Messe is the world’s largest industrial fair, with thousands of exhibitors from all over the world demonstrating state-of-the-art Industry 4.0 advancements.

It is the Mecca of Digital Transformation and Industrial technology trends; the right place to be for experts in Data & AI, Industrial IoT, and of course, 5G. This year, Hannover Messe was extra special – as the first in-person full gathering post covid, it was a great showcase of how the industry is becoming more digital and intelligent and how various emerging technologies are coming together to enable Industry 4.0.

Who would have imagined a few years ago that more than 50% of MWC 2023 attendees would be from industry and there would be a 5G Arena and a fifth-anniversary celebration of 5G ACIA at HM 2023!

This year’s theme very aptly was “Make the Difference” as it was all about how change, new tech, and digitalization drive impact and create a better world – be it smarter production, circular economy, or energy efficiency and sustainability.

Capgemini was in sync with the HM theme, its vision that the future of industry is intelligent, and how we are working with clients and partners to pioneer “Intelligent Industry.” The Capgemini booth featured the transformative power of technologies across the end-to-end value chain for manufacturing: Intelligent Products & Services, Smart Plant, and Intelligent Supply Chain. In addition, several key technological advancements and innovations from Capgemini were demonstrated, such as Insights for Intelligent Industry, Software-Driven Transformation, Sustainability, and the Metaverse. Eight showcases, including case studies with prominent industrial players and 52 stage presentations with clients and partners, highlighted our leadership position as a company that defines the future of manufacturing.

It is our strong conviction that as the industry becomes more intelligent and digital, current industrial connectivity must keep pace. That’s why evolving towards advanced connectivity is essential for realizing intelligent industry. The key capabilities one would look for in advanced connectivity are agility, flexibility, performance, security, energy efficiency, ease of installation/maintenance, commercial viability, location accuracy, capability to support diverse industrial applications with specific requirements, and ability to support diverse industrial applications co-existing and working in synch. Meeting such capabilities is not easy and we believe that industrial connectivity will evolve and advance over time. Currently, industrial ethernet and Wi-Fi WLANs are the two most used industrial connectivity technologies and each of them has its limitations regarding these key capabilities. 5G addresses most of them(already available or planned in upcoming releases) and hence becomes a strong contender to adopt along with current technologies during this evolution towards advanced industrial connectivity.

We saw great dedication and innovation demonstrated for 5G across the Fair. There were clear signs that 5G is coming of age and the ecosystem is maturing for its industrial deployments. The 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), together with Deutsche Messe AG and VDMA, organized a 5G arena featuring 50 exhibitors whose sole focus was on 5G and the tremendous capability it unlocks for industry.

With the Capgemini booth buzzing with visitors, we had the opportunity to interact with the Industry 4.0 leaders of multiple global manufacturing organizations. It is evident that our clients are pivoting towards open and modular platforms, focused on optimizing production by increasing automation, and relying more on large amounts of data being processed in real-time and requiring heavy video/multimedia content analytics. Mobility and agility in operations are also key. All this poses additional burdens on existing connectivity infrastructure. Current connectivity solutions are being re-examined and 5G is being discussed not in terms of “what can 5G do for the OT” but rather “how to adopt 5G.” Some key takeaways to summarize:

• The 5G solution ecosystem (network equipment, devices, compliance with industry requirements, etc.) is growing rapidly. New industrial gateways, routers, performance measurement solutions, and even E2E 5G PN solution vendors are emerging in the market and developing a competitive landscape and contributing to the democratization of the technology and lowering of costs.
• Key drivers for the adoption of 5G or re-evaluation of existing connectivity technology include the operation of large fleets of AGVs/AIVs; connected and augmented digital worker solutions that require high video quality, secure connectivity with ubiquitous coverage in a reliable manner; retrofitting/augmentation of IIoT sensors and, of course, new industrial automation solutions. Combined applications of real-time video, XR, AI/ML, AGVs/AIVs and IIoT drive significant operational benefits and justify the adoption of advanced mobile technologies.
• 5G standards have matured and new industrial features are being demonstrated including Time-Sensitive-Networking and Profinet over 5G, indoor location positioning with sub-100cm accurate and converged core for 5G and non-3GPP traffic.
• Gigafactories, and similarly any greenfield industrial environment, are strong candidates for 5G adoption and industrial connectivity evolution.

TelcoInsights is a series of posts about the latest trends and opportunities in the telecommunications industry – powered by a community of global industry experts and thought leaders.

Capgemini’s customer interactions solution leverages Zendesk to deliver frictionless, connected, and personalized experiences to your customers that drive enhanced engagement and loyalty.

In today’s digital age, customers have come to expect personalized and connected experiences from the brands they interact with, delivered via a range of channels.

With the increasing reliance on digital channels for customer service, putting a proper customer interaction strategy in place that provides a frictionless omnichannel experience for your customers is more important than ever.

But how can you make this a reality for your organization?

Driving personalized, connected customer experiences

At Capgemini, our Intelligent Customer Interactions solution leverages an enterprise-grade customer service and engagement platform – provided by Zendesk – that puts your customers at the heart of everything you do. This, in turn, delivers more frictionless, personalized, and connected digital experiences to your customers, increasing engagement and loyalty for your organization with minimal effort on your part.

Our solution combines decades of customer interaction design experience with Zendesk’s powerful SaaS based omnichannel ticket management and self-service tools. By combining their expertise Capgemini and Zendesk, create a next-generation digital contact center service solution that leverages AI augmentation to deliver a persona-influenced service design that integrates humans and machines.

In turn, this enables you to drive a more meaningful, emotive, and frictionless relationship with your customers through delivering:

• A more personalized customer experience: that creates a virtuous circle of satisfied customers, helping your business grow
• An omnichannel customer journey: that leverages digital-first customer interactions across a range of channels, including phone, email, chatbots, social media, self-service platforms, and user portals
• An improved net promoter score (NPS): that significantly enhances your brand value and loyalty
• Enhanced customer engagement: that helps your experienced customer contact agents drive more meaningful conversations across digital channels with your customers.

In short, enabled by Zendesk, our solution drives synergies across your upstream and downstream process value chain to ensure smoother customer interactions.

Building lasting relationships with customers

Capgemini’s and Zendesk’s partnership is built on designing and implementing software solutions that significantly improves customer relationships through personalization, while still ensuring it is flexible enough to meet any business need.

This approach helps you build lasting relationships with your customers by ensuring you put your customers’ needs at the heart of everything you do, enabling you to stay connected with them regardless of the challenges come your way.

To learn more about how Capgemini’s Intelligent Customer Interactions delivers enhanced customer experience excellence through frictionless customer interactions contact stephen.barnett@capgemini.com

Stephen Barnett is responsible for designing and implementing core digital customer operations technology solutions, leveraging his 20-plus years of BPO call center industry knowledge to improve our client’s customer experience.

During my career in artificial intelligence I have been through the developing, improving, applying and fine-tuning of AI algorithms many, many times. At a specific point of time it become clear to me that the algorithms alone will never be able to solve your problem or use case other than in a lab-setting.

The reason? Context. AI models put into work in the real world have no possibility to relate to all possibilities across all dimensions in a real-world setting.

So I started to work on context for AI. First with explicit modeling of context using rules (the if-this-than-that kind of things). That did not work to well (too much work, I would say). So we aimed at describing the world and offering that as context. From the early 2000s I worked on Knowledge Graphs and their standards (and I still love them). They enabled modeling knowledge, but also flexibility by logical reasoning and inferencing, finding inconsistencies in our world and much more. But they are not the final or only answer either (as nothing is, I guess). So when we started to work with deep learning we thought part of the quest was solved. But it did not really work either. In real-world scenarios the AI models we made failed hopelessly at unexpected and unwanted moments. Why? They failed on context. Again.

And so came ChatGPT. Featuring a model which we had seen (failing) before, becoming racist after only a few hours in the real-world. But now with a wrapper that actually made it work…. much better! And more reliable. Still not perfect, but hey, given the previous attempts: great improvements!

And what was the trick, why did it work this time? The layer that was added by OpenAI was a genius strike: it added a context-layer, able to interpret what was happening, able to stop unwanted outcomes to a large extend and thus enabling the AI Model to work in the real-world.

We are not there yet, also this is not enough. But all the great work that has been done last years, on the graph tech, on deep learning, on transformer models and, not in the least, this first actually working context-layer, make me very optimistic that we can look ahead with confidence and trust. Still a lot of work to do, but the basics for a great future with AI seem to fall in place.

Next thing to add to the equation? Let´s rock and allow these models to use the context awareness in order to solve the parts that language models cannot do: the knowledge parts: factuality, causality, planning, maths, physics etc. First approaches popped up already, I cannot wait to see more integration of it all!

Read this article on Medium.

Sustainability is now one of the primary focus points of the financial sector. This is not without reason. By directing capital flows, the financial sector is the bloodline of sustainable initiatives. This, however, comes with a challenge. A lot more information is required to enable finance and risk decisions within the loan and coverage granting process.

Instead of having a snapshot of a client, banks and insurers suddenly need to track how a client is influencing the environment, and how the world is influencing the client. Is money well-spent? How do we decide which initiatives make the largest impact per euro?

The essence to answer these new questions is data. Data allows to steer on sustainable targets and populate sustainability reports with the right information. This is probably common knowledge. Yet, when diving one level deeper it becomes clear that it is not as clear-cut as it seems. Therefore, in this article I would like to focus on two big issues and best practices in addressing those issues.

Regulatory requirements on ESG are overwhelming, complex and sometimes conflicting
From a regulatory perspective, one needs to combine multiple reports, such as the ECB guide expectations, EBA LOM ESG or the Annual Report. Yet the necessary data to fulfill these regulatory requirements are all a bit different, resulting in a very large number of data point requirements.

For example, as the EBA LOM guidelines deep dive into sector level, one can add up with more than 200 data fields, just for one report. It is simply infeasible to ask a barrage of questions on ESG for all your clients.

This leads to two conclusions:
1. Group the questions between reports in a smart way, so there is no double ask. This should be goal oriented, whereby one can continuously ask the question “why do we need to report this data?”. If the goals align between two similar datapoints, one can be of lower importance or derived.
2. Discover alternative ways to collect client data, the main source of information for sustainability reports. For example, a lot can be found in – and digitally retrieved from- annual reports, as more clients will need to report on ESG with the introduction of CSRD in Europe.  

Existing risk frameworks are not ready for servicing a sustainable future
A prerequisite for becoming a financial institution that drives change is a strong risk framework to base its lending on. Such a framework is no longer only focused on financial returns, but now also on the sustainable impact clients can make.

Often, such an extended framework, which is often risk driven, does not exist yet. This challenge is especially visible when potential clients are innovating in the sustainability realm, but do not yet have the track record to prove their financial feasibility. In these cases, rigid, standardized and financially focused loan or insurance issuance process make it practically impossible for a willing employee to give out the loan – great business opportunity or not.

Financial institutions need to speed up, and issue services to these kinds of innovators, yet cannot do so right away. Not without upsetting their risk frameworks. Yet the implementation timeline is now.   

The fast lane towards implementing a decent sustainability risk framework
This is not an easy task. Currently there is no best practice yet on steering on sustainability risks, and if initial frameworks are made at all, they are made painstakingly slow. Comparing it to driving, one is navigating in the dark, whilst is going 40 on the highway.

Using data from the above-mentioned regulatory teams is a good first start. This means however that often information and knowledge captured in the reporting engine, will have to be transferred towards other departments. Unlocking and sharing this data is often a sizable effort. Using such data already allows for better sustainability-based client assessments compared to the traditional risk frameworks.

Another strong approach is to make step by step changes towards a sustainable banking environment. For example, with a loan or insurance granting perspective:
1. Provide an additional discount in your pricing or lower the acceptance bar for clients which are undeniably sustainable
2. Identify key risks via a questionnaire (which is useable as data!) and integrate these in first line processes
3. Integrate different sustainability risks into your credit models. In our experience with large Dutch and British banks; it is only when a wider variety of data is available, and when risk framework targets are set, that the step can be sensibly made towards credit modelling.

Whether it is regulations or risk frameworks, retrieving new data remains the key challenge to overcome. As shown above, the subsequent challenge is the usage. If a financial institution can keep the oversight of its goals for sustainability data, and therefore being able to combine datapoints for its specific goals– for example efficient sustainability reporting or creating a sustainability risk framework – makes the difference between becoming a best-in-class transition financier, and a traditional financer which will be forever struggling with the new world sustainability requirements. In order to be a front-runner, now is the time to set the strong data foundation.

At Capgemini Invent we are experienced in these change trajectories, with specialists ranging from data scientists to environmental experts. Do you want to be a leader in the financial sector? Do not hesitate to contact us.

Around 15 years ago, I was involved in a large ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system deal. It involved HR capabilities (including talent management, compensation etc), financial capabilities (like accounts payable and receivable), logistics capabilities (stocks and inventory) and procurement capabilities (vendor management etc). At the time, the obvious choice and the best solution was to have all these capabilities integrated into one platform and coolest at the time was the SAP system (possibly it still is). The major advantage was having it all connected and with huge amount of transactions handled by one platform by everyone, the cost per transaction went down considerably (economies of scale).

Could this approach at amalgamation on to one platform work in the DPA world as well? Does it make sense to run all the processes on one platform in order to get the economies of scale? For many years organizations have decided to stick with one platform to see cost per transaction go down, simplification of the architecture and an advantage of only building skills on one platform. And, if you trust everything the polished vendor slides are saying, you should use the same platform for CRM, Customer Service and Sales to really reap all the benefits. The story of one platform (to rule them all) is indeed quite convincing! And this trend (especially the use of a platform for many purposes) has been going on for some time now (just look at the waves and quadrants). The big Question is how come not all organizations are ‘buying it’?

In my view it all comes down to two other strategies, ‘best-of-breed’ and ‘fit-for-purpose’. Adopting a best-of-breed strategy means you want the best technical capabilities from the leading vendor in each specific area, be it DPA or CRM or Marketing automation. This is not new and explains why the ERP concept wasn’t as successful in the CX area. However, having a fit-for-purpose approach is newer.

Imagine you bought a state-of-the-art DPA platform (like Pega or Appian) to manage your super complex and highly regulatory payment processes with embedded business rules for payment investigations and disputes. The platform might be quite expensive but considering what you’re saving in quality, compliance and automation – ‘it’s so worth it!’. For this exact purpose, the leading DPA platform would be a perfect fit, especially if it’s a framework (like a regulatory scheme) that the vendor consistently updates twice a year. Now imagine a few years down the line, you’re implementing GDPR. Still highly regulatory and some complexity. The leading DPA solution might still be fit-for-purpose here. But, what happens if the bank wants to send out a survey about the new Mobile App and is offering each respondent two movie tickets, that are being sent to their home address? Probably, the leading DPA platform is a bit of an overkill for this purpose, while a simple low code tool or a basic case management tool could be fit-for-purpose here. 

Only the last month, I’ve come across three very large banks that are using several process platforms at the same time, as a part of their strategy. But, on the other hand, medium or smaller sized organizations can possibly not afford three parallel technologies based on different use cases. There, it would make more sense to see if there are platforms that are good enough for all (or at least most) of the prospective use cases and usage areas. The advantages of using one platform for both DPA, CRM, Customer Service and Sales can also be substantial there. Especially, since you have only one technology to maintain, one technology skill to build capabilities on etc, which would argue the case for ‘one platform to rule them all’. Are you unsure of where your new use case should fit best? Feel free to reach out to us!