It wasn’t just the sea breeze that electrified the air at Shangri-La Boracay — it was the buzz of Artificial Intelligence!

The VSTECS CXO Summit 2025 gathered nearly 600 ICT leaders, vendors, system integrators, government agencies, universities, banks, telcos, enterprises, and media partners for three dynamic days of innovation under the theme “Navigating the Next Frontier of Digital Transformation.”

AI was the undisputed star of the summit, dominating breakout sessions and ballroom discussions as vendors unveiled their latest breakthroughs. Schneider Electric’s Harold Lim demonstrated how smart datacenter monitoring systems powered by AI ensure greater energy efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.

The indefatigable president and CEO of VSTECS, Jimmy Go, summed up perfectly what would be the resounding summit's mantra: “It’s not man versus the machine — it’s man with the machine," that makes life easier than never before.

For his part, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Aguda outlined the government’s move toward blockchain-enabled online transactions and public biddings, underscoring collaboration between the public and private sectors in shaping a digitally trusted Philippines.

Lenovo, in partnership with NVIDIA, showcased the Lenovo AI Library — a complete stack of infrastructure, devices, data, software, and services designed to improve agility, productivity, and innovation. Lenovo’s Kumar Mitra and Alex Tan highlighted that the future of AI is hybrid, with workloads spread across cloud and on-premise systems to maximize flexibility and performance.

Fortinet Philippines’ Nap Castillo revealed how Forti-AI, FortiAI-Assist, and FortiAI-SecureAI strengthen cybersecurity through proactive AI threat detection — technologies refined over 15 years of AI-driven research by FortiGuard Labs. Cohesity introduced its Data Cloud Platform, simplifying backups, archives, and test environments through hyperscale web architecture.

Dell Technologies’ Ronnie Latinazo and Chris Papa presented the DELL AI Factory, which processes data from edge to cloud — turning infrastructure into intelligent ecosystems that drive real-world use cases such as digital assistants, computer vision, and digital twins.

CISCO underscored that digital transformation is not just about converting analog to digital, but about optimizing broken processes through smarter systems. With AI embedded in its UCS platform, Cisco emphasized energy efficiency and early AI-based detection to counter emerging threats.

Stellar Cyber CEO Changming Liu and ASEAN VP Alvin Tan showcased their powerful MSSP platform that integrates firewalls, SIEM, and endpoint detection into one scalable, easy-to-deploy system, empowering over 14,000 clients worldwide with comprehensive security visibility and response.

From data to defense, and intelligence to innovation, VSTECS continues to set new benchmarks in Agentic AI, cybersecurity, datacenter infrastructure, and managed security services — empowering a smarter, more connected Philippines.

Because when vision meets technology — the future happens now.