With digitisation taking the centre stage amid the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, the adoption of technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Cloud Computing and 5G have swelled at a much greater pace, according to a lets study says a study led by technical professional organisation IEEE.
According to the study, the new technologies will emerge as most relevant in 2022. The study included 350 chief technology officers, chief information officers and IT directors in India, the US, China, UK and Brazil.
The study covered the most important technologies in 2022, industries most impacted by technology in the year ahead, and technology trends through the next decade.
Among the total respondents, more than one in five (21%) said AI and machine learning, cloud computing (20%) and 5G (17%) will be the most important technologies next year.
Because of the global pandemic, the technology leaders said in 2021 they accelerated the adoption of cloud computing (60%), AI and machine learning (51%), and 5G (46%), among others. About 95% agreed that AI will drive the majority of innovations across nearly every industry sector in the next five years.
Further, the tech leaders said that 5G will most benefit telemedicine, including remote surgery and health record transmissions (24%); remote learning and education (20%); personal and professional day-to-day communications (15%); entertainment, sports and live event streaming (14%), among others.
As a result of the shift to hybrid work and the pandemic, more than half (51%) of technology leaders surveyed believe the number of devices connected to their businesses that they need to track and manage — such as smartphones, tablets, sensors, robots, vehicles, drones, etc, — increased as much as 1.5 times, while for 42% of those surveyed the number of devices increased in excess of 1.5 times.
Further, the cybersecurity concerns are issues related to the mobile and hybrid workforce including employees using their own devices (39%) and cloud vulnerability (35%).
The vast majority of those surveyed (92%) believe that compared to a year ago, their company is better prepared to respond to a potentially catastrophic interruption such as a data breach or natural disaster. Of that majority, 65% strongly agree that Covid-19 accelerated their preparedness.
