Tech Ascension Awards Announces 2026 Cloud Award Winners, Highlighting Breakthroughs in Cloud Innovation

The Tech Ascension Awards announced the winners of its 2026 Cloud Awards, recognizing the most innovative companies and solutions shaping the future of cloud computing. This year’s winners reflect a new wave of enterprise transformation driven by scalable infrastructure, global connectivity, and measurable business outcomes.

The 2026 Cloud Awards honor organizations that are redefining how businesses operate in cloud-native, distributed, and hybrid environments. Winners were selected based on innovation, competitive differentiation, and their ability to solve critical enterprise challenges while delivering tangible results.

2026 Winners

Cloud Innovation of the Year TEKsystems Global Services TEKsystems Global Services was honored for its cloud-driven transformation capabilities that help enterprises modernize infrastructure and accelerate digital initiatives. Its solution enables organizations to improve agility, optimize cloud environments, and drive operational efficiency while addressing evolving business and technical challenges.

Cloud Infrastructure Solution of the Year LoopUp Microsoft Teams Multinational Cloud Telephony Solution

LoopUp was recognized for its Microsoft Teams multinational cloud telephony solution, which enables enterprises to deploy unified communications across global regions with consistency and compliance. The platform addresses the complexity of managing telephony across multiple countries, delivering streamlined operations, improved user experience, and significant cost efficiencies for multinational organizations.

Recognizing Excellence in Cloud Technology

As enterprises continue to embrace multi-cloud and hybrid strategies, the importance of reliable, scalable, and intelligent cloud solutions has never been greater. The 2026 Cloud Tech Ascension Award winners exemplify how forward-thinking organizations are leveraging cloud technologies to drive growth and resilience in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Temenos’ Barb Morgan on Winning Best Compliance Solution and Redefining AI-Driven Financial Crime Compliance

We sat down with Barb Morgan, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Temenos, which won Best Compliance Solution in the 2025 Tech Ascension Awards to learn more about banks navigating rising regulatory and financial crime pressures. Barb also explains how the company's FCM AI Agent achieved less than 2% false positives using explainable, regulator-accepted AI.

Temenos recently won the 2025 Tech Ascension Award for “Best Compliance Solution.” What does this recognition mean for you and your clients? 

This recognition shows that Temenos is leading the way in AI-driven financial crime mitigation (FCM). For our clients, it means they’re working with a partner that delivers proven, regulator-accepted AI innovation, helping them reduce risk, cut costs, and deliver frictionless customer experiences. It’s about turning compliance from a burden into a competitive advantage through fewer manual reviews, faster straight-through processing, and significant operational savings. 

2. The FCM AI Agent has achieved less than 2% false positives — a remarkable benchmark. What makes this technology so effective compared to other compliance screening tools? 

Precision is the differentiator. Our proven AI model learns from context and historical patterns, dramatically reducing false positives compared to traditional rules-based systems. However, data science alone doesn’t move the needle. The real value emerges when AI is embedded directly into workflows, where autonomous, goal-driven agents can make intelligent, context-aware decisions within complex processes. That’s where banking compliance truly changes the game. 

Explainable AI is a key theme in Temenos’ approach. How does the “explainable” element of your AI model help build trust with regulators and clients? 

Transparency is non-negotiable in compliance. Our AI doesn’t operate as a black box; it provides clear, auditable reasoning for every decision. This builds trust with regulators, accelerates adoption by banks, and ensures ethical AI principles like bias mitigation and accountability are embedded from day one.  

Many banks are still cautious about adopting AI for compliance. What lessons have you learned from live Tier-1 deployments that might help others accelerate their journey? 

Start small, prove value, and build trust. Our “shadow mode” allows banks to validate AI performance in a safe environment as part of a phased rollout. Demonstrating measurable outcomes, like reduced false positives and improved customer experience, helps overcome internal resistance and builds confidence across the organization. 

Financial crime management is evolving fast with generative AI and real-time data. How do you see compliance solutions adapting over the next few years? 

The future of compliance is about confidently harnessing AI to drive speed, precision, and trust at scale. AI will enable smarter alert handling and faster investigations, while advanced analytics will anticipate risks before they occur. The future is about combining automation, explainability, and agility to keep pace with increasingly complex financial crime threats. 

The FCM AI Agent is cloud-native and API-driven. How important is flexibility and interoperability for financial institutions managing complex compliance environments? 

It’s essential. Banks operate across diverse jurisdictions and technology stacks. A cloud-native, API-first architecture ensures seamless integration, scalability, and rapid deployment, whether on-premises, private or public cloud or as SaaS. This flexibility minimizes implementation risk and future-proofs compliance strategies as regulations and technologies evolve. 

What’s next for Temenos? 

We’re continuing to push the boundaries of AI-driven innovation. Expect deeper automation, enhanced explainability, and scalable solutions that make compliance faster, smarter, and more intuitive. 

Splunk’s Kirsty Paine on Resilience, AI, and Empowering the Next Generation of Woman in Cyber

We sat down with Kirsty Paine, Field CTO & Strategic Advisor at Splunk, a Cisco Company, and the 2025 Women in Cyber Leader of the Year winner, to discuss her journey from mathematician to cybersecurity leader and trusted advisor on global resilience.

Paine also shares how she’s helping shape the next generation of women in cyber, while driving innovation and resilience across the evolving security landscape. What first inspired your interest in cybersecurity, and what continues to drive your passion for the security industry today?

I fell into this career a little bit by accident. I was (still am) a big mathematics nerd and I ended up at the National Cyber Security Centre, where I focused on cryptography and broadened out to cyber security more generally, focusing on privacy, AI and internet tech. My background in cryptography and data analysis still shapes how I tackle today's security challenges.

I thrive on tackling tough problems and finding creative fixes by thinking differently - that's what keeps me passionate about security. I’m proud to work for Splunk; I see the difference it makes to our customers and how we are advancing the status quo in security as a market leader. Splunk is the heartbeat of so many SOCs and IT teams, allowing them to leverage data to take the best actions, with fast detection, investigation, and response.

Looking back on your career, is there a particular project or professional experience that has been especially meaningful or fulfilling for you?

I immediately thought of building the world’s first international standard for consumer IoT device security: EN 303 645. That’s truly raising the cyber hygiene baseline across the globe, which must make it a career highlight, and something I never thought I’d be able to do (especially not in my 20s, relatively early in my career).

Since then, I’ve realised we can really move the needle in security if we have the right people, direction and engine power. Working with CISOs and regulators across Europe has positioned me as a trusted advisor at the crossroads of policy, practice, and innovation – which is a privilege and an honour that I take very seriously.

Recently, I’ve been breaking new ground through collaborating with the World Economic Forum on reports like The Cyber Resilience Compass, which is a collection of best practices for our industry, and publishing new ideas like “demand chain security”. Now, I’m preparing to launch a toolkit with the Forum for measuring cyber resilience. You can’t know what you don’t measure! So, this will give security leaders a tangible way to benchmark progress, because cyber resilience (not only cyber security) is what we aspire to build.

  In your role at Splunk, how have you helped to accelerate innovation and strengthen the company’s impact across the EMEA region?

My job is perhaps the coolest job; I get to meet with our most strategic security customers all over EMEA and listen to them. Hearing their problems, sharing our vision and direction, and getting their feedback is so rewarding, interesting and downright fun. Security isn’t short-term, so our customers need confidence and trust in Splunk for their futures, which I’m building with them. I’ve elevated Splunk’s presence and messaging across EMEA, inspiring our customers by drawing lessons from sectors such as Formula 1 where constant innovation means survival. I have spearheaded security briefings, co-authored the State of Security and CISO Reports, spoken on stage, and helped to shape Splunk’s security strategy by sharing what our customers are asking for. I help build the trust and credibility that keeps Splunk ahead.

From your perspective, how have you seen the cybersecurity landscape evolve in recent years, and where do you think it’s heading next?

It’s only getting tougher out there, but we have a game-changer with the widespread adoption of AI. It’s reshaping cyber security on both sides, bringing new defences and new risks, but also new challenges like, how do you reward your people and talent when they are AI-enabled? What do your L1 analysts do if AI can do all of their work? Do we need a L4 analyst role to be created in the SOC?

  As emerging technologies like quantum computing advance, what potential impact do you foresee them having on the future of cybersecurity?

Quantum computing is advancing, but a bigger push is the government advice around it. It’s prompting organisations to assess the impact of quantum computing in their organisation and make plans to address it. Organisations are challenging their vendors on their roadmaps and simultaneously recruiting for post-quantum cryptography knowledge.

Because this change programme will be multi-year, it’s important to designate a person with longevity (such as someone on the board) to have oversight and make sure that clear steps towards preparedness are being taken, rather than kicking the can down the road. Developing a clear strategy will be critical as the field evolves.

A phased, risk-based approach – with calm, not panic – is the best approach to plan for the quantum threat. What advice would you give to women aspiring to build their careers in cybersecurity or join pioneering organizations like Splunk?

If you are curious and into solving problems, cyber security is for you! For women, don’t ever feel like you don’t belong, because you do. You have a network of people just waiting to work with you, who will be inspired by what you bring and who you can learn a lot from too. If you’re looking to join any particular organisation, make sure they have a good culture, because everything else you can build or fix – but it has to start with culture. I’ve always found Splunk is fantastic for its culture, collaboration, and humour.

And, in this high-pressure field, a healthy sense of humour and perspective is essential! Not just for growth, but for not burning out too. There’s always more to do but you must protect your brain and rest properly. If you can show up as the best version of yourself, you can easily square up to the complex challenges we have in this industry.