Moving into 2022, we will see many more tech trends that will make a large impact on the world's everyday use of technology.
With this in mind and looking into these next top trends to make a larger impression then before, there are 3 key winners and the ones to watch out for. Quantum, AI and Cloud.
Quantum –
Although not yet commonly available, it’s safe to say a quantum capability is coming. There is a potential for rogue actors to capture encrypted information (IP, government data and so on) now in the anticipation that quantum will enable its decryption in a few years.
Predictions for quantum computing and quantum technology for 2022.
1. Go Public, Or Go Home
Not all quantum computing and quantum technology will go the SPAC route. The industry will likely see start ups go public through traditional initial public offerings — IPOs. These organisations may favour the longer — but more credible — IPO method.
2. Schrodinger’s Cat SPAC Fever
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies — or SPACs — are increasingly favoured by start ups looking for a head start to trade publicly. The approach is favoured over the slower, red-tape heavy initial public offering route. As noted in The Quantum Insider, more and more companies have interest from some of the world’s biggest investment firms. Critically, more quantum companies are on the cusp of commercialisation. As more quantum companies drive hard toward commercialisation and investment interest continues to grow, 2022 should see even more quantum SPACs.
3. Profit Pressures
The flow of easy money may be tightening and the proliferation of quantum start-ups will make competing for that cash much more difficult. Investors will want to see more black on that bottom line — that means contracts, customers, clients and money. This will be the year that we might see quantum start-ups being punished — financially, at least — for not proving their business case to investors. Public quantum companies may also begin to pay closer attention to their bottom line, as well as tightening focus on ways to monetize quantum.
4. Failures and Fraud
We don’t expect all good news in 2022. In fact, as the financial incentives grow in quantum and the pure complexity and difficulty of competing in the industry remains a significant barrier, organisations will be more willing to cut corners and, in extreme cases, commit fraud. Other companies will not be able to compete and choose other ways to exit the market — bankruptcy, acquisition, etc.
5. China’s Year to Shine, or Fade
Next year will be a pivotal year for China’s quantum future. It is grounded in a dazzling technological display of 2021, which featured a duo of quantum computers that used two different approaches — superconducting and photonic — to achieve quantum supremacy. This established that the country is now a leader in quantum. But, this year will be the most challenging yet for the country. Cracks in the research engine that produced these breakthroughs are beginning to show. Western countries are also worried that China will use its progress in quantum tech to threaten national security is another problem that could curtail progress. Finally, uncertain business conditions — and open arms elsewhere in the world — may pull entrepreneurial and scientific talent from the country and into competing ecosystems.
6. Urge to Merge
2021 saw the first quantum super-merger between Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum, now Quantinuum. This year, we will see a boost in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity. Companies will take a hard look at the competition, assess their own strengths and build relationships with potential partners. Investors will be looking to acquire synergistic combinations of companies, too.
7. Supply Chain, Labour Shortage Woes Continue
For at least the first part of the year, supply chain problems will be a source of frustration for the quantum industry. The usual suspects — seemingly endless new waves of COVID and COVID-stroked fears and a nagging labour shortage — will cause most of the disruption. While these sources will begin to release their hold on the day-to-day business operations in quantum, expect longer-term interruptions. Hiring trained staff will continue to be a problem and quantum nationalism will make supply chains less than efficient and effective.
8. Philosophers Join the Conversation
Quantum computing offers vast economic, business, entrepreneurial and scientific potential. This potential — both positive and negative — has already attracted ethicist. But quantum science, which powers the quantum computing and quantum technology revolution, also offers intriguing insights into how our reality exists. The conversation will broaden beyond how does quantum computing work to what does quantum computing mean. They will be critical for integrating this technology, which may be era-changing, into society and paving the way for a safer, more prosperous future.
9. The Beginning of Quantum Betterness
Quantum Betterness, the point at which quantum is a bit better than classical approaches and better enough to warrant further investment. Quantum Betterness could be a transition state that allows domain experts to rely on quantum or hybrid quantum-classical approaches that might be slightly better than pure classical approaches and seen as a baby step to better position their organisations toward unlimited growth of quantum advantage and supremacy.
10. Quantum Biology Lives
The world will just start to adapt to the weird world of quantum information science when an even more science fiction-sounding advance will begin to emerge from the nexus of quantum and biological sciences. Quantum biology — not using quantum computers to understand biology — is the investigation into quantum processes that may lie hidden in living matter.
AI -
The discussion will move even more to the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence (AI) and how we protect the datasets upon which it bases decisions.
AI is as biased as the world in which it operates, so we need to design in the ability for it to question and be sceptical of the datasets it ingests and ask for advice to keep it on the straight and narrow.
Seven areas where artificial intelligence will have a tremendous impact in the year 2022
1. Workforce Augmentation
It is a looming fear that machines or robots will eventually replace the human workforce and may even render certain roles obsolete or redundant. But that is not the fact, and we are well aware of that. The reality is that as companies start using machines to crunch data and leverage AI to interpret data and extract meaningful information out of it, it becomes even more pertinent for the human workforce to work hand-in-hand with such technology. It will encourage the workforce to enhance their skills and become more cognitive in the approach.
2. Efficient language modelling
An area where we can see a significant surge in the usage of machines is language modelling. What it means is the use of machines to communicate with humans in a language that humans can understand. We are also looking at converting human languages into codes to execute and run applications.
3. Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity
Even though World Economic Forum(2) has declared the criticality of cybercrimes, it doesn’t need rocket science to know that cybercrimes and cyber-attacks are on the rise. As we see more and more involvement of machines in every facet of our lives, there is a potential risk of cybercrime, and it continues to be a problem.
The logic is simple – more devices you add to your network, it creates a potential failure point those attackers can leverage to access your data and misuse it. Today, we also see that networks are getting complex day by day. This is where artificial intelligence can play a significant role. AI can identify patterns and around network traffic and highlight suspicious activities through smart algorithms. We can expect a considerable amount of AI development in the area of cybersecurity.
4. Metaverse & Artificial Intelligence
Metaverse is a terminology coined for an environment, a digital environment to be more specific, where multiple users can work and play together. It is a virtual world, just like the internet, but that delivers amazing experiences, and it is created by users for users.
5. Low/No code AI
One of the major challenges that organisations are facing today is the dearth of skilled AI engineers, who can develop the required tools and algorithms. With the advent of no-code or low code solutions, this challenge can be addressed by providing simple and intuitive interfaces, that can be used to create complex systems on Artificial Intelligence, theoretically.
6. AI-driven vehicles
Another area where AI will play the brain of a system will be vehicles, such as cars, aircraft, and boats. This will allow respective companies to deliver exceptional travel experiences to consumers. Tesla is a classic example of AI-driven cars, which give a breath-taking driving experience. Moreover, it also ensures the prevention of accidents because the inbuild AI engine can foresee upcoming obstacles and prevent any kind of road accidents. On average 1.3 million people die of road accidents every year. So, if we look at these alarming statistics, then AI does have a critical role to play to stop this from happening.
Tesla confirms that its cars will have the self-driving capability, which will be available by 2022. However, there is a minuscule possibility of it being commercially available in the market in 2022. We are also anticipating the usage of AI in ships with the coming up of Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS), which has an artificial intelligence component of IBM.
7. AI in creativity
All of us are well aware of the usage of artificial intelligence to create music, poetry, and even video games. We are expected to see models such as GPT-4 and Google’s Brain that will completely revolutionise the concept of AI in creativity and redefine new boundaries, to help us know about possibilities. We shall also see the implementation of artificial intelligence in day-to-day tasks such as creating headlines for articles and newsletters, creating logos and infographics. Though creativity is a human skill, we are seeing more possibilities of machines doing these tasks.
While we are aware of what AI is capable of and how people can harness the possibilities that artificial intelligence brings to the table, there is always a question on whether there is any area or task where AI is not required. Not sure that is something that we can think of at this juncture because every step of our life, we see AI being a very pertinent component.
Cloud-
The cloud is still someone else’s server, and there has to be a mutual understanding of what your data needs and the security your cloud provider offers. We are likely to see more complex multi-cloud environments to enable data to be physically located within countries where required. This will add to the complexity of cyber monitoring and security.
1. Revenge of the Rushed Cloud Migration
"The pressure of the business imperative to adopt cloud at rapid speed during the pandemic will begin to unravel as it becomes apparent that security slipped through the cracks in rushed migration. As a result, we will witness the rise of huge breaches due to simple cloud security misconfigurations and permissions errors. This will fuel the mushrooming of startups based on automation of cloud configuration, permission analysis and remediation platforms.”
Archie Agarwal, Founder and CEO, ThreatModeler
2. Major Growth in Hybrid and Multi-Cloud
“Expect to see dramatic growth in hybrid and multi-clouds in the new year. Hybrid and multi-cloud solutions allow the business to choose the best fit for their workload without compromising the fidelity to their service management and integrations. Efficient and effective enterprises will want to lean into this natural affinity to get the most value, resulting in multiple cloud environments.”
John Annand, Director of the Infrastructure Team, Info-Tech Research Group
3. Hybrid Cloud Conversation Driven by Public Cloud Vendors
“For the last few years, hybrid cloud was championed by technology vendors who sold on-premises technologies, but now public cloud vendors are offering cloud-like experiences on premises. This is not a good or bad thing, but as companies decide how they will approach their hybrid cloud strategy they need to consider how much control they want to maintain. By handing their private cloud to a public cloud vendor, companies may lose some control and ability to customize, but they will gain a unified, consistent private cloud experience. Companies need to decide what will be best for their business, but overall the conversation has shifted with public cloud vendors taking the wheel.”
Jesse Stockall, Chief Architect, Cloud Management, Snow Software
4. Service Mesh Will Solidify its Role as a Critical Component of the Cloud Native Stack
“In 2022, service mesh adoption will continue to cross the chasm from early adopters to majority adoption within the cloud native ecosystem. There will be a widespread realization that “just throw it on Kubernetes” is not enough for a functioning cloud native application, and that the addition of a service mesh solves fundamental concerns about security, observability, and reliability. In 2022, the service mesh will become the norm, not the exception, for Kubernetes applications.”
William Morgan, CEO, Buoyant
5. Database Migrations and Cloud
“Database migrations will become central to any cloud strategy. Databases are the foundations of every IT architecture, and data access as well as processing capabilities make for a critical competitive advantage. Migrations will probably be the single most important IT project of 2022 — and beyond.”
Mike Waas, founder and CEO, Datometry
So while there is likely to be a continued increase in reliance on digital and data and a commensurate increase in attacks, we need to take various actions to embed cybersecurity in our systems, processes and mindset. Doing these well will mean we can seize the opportunities offered by new technologies to grow safely in the digital world.
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