Technology’s ‘the next big thing’ in 2022 – Times of India

If 2021 was the year for novel technologies that took a leap of faith in enabling our fight against COVID-19, 2022 will be the year where IT’s ubiquitous influence will transform our lives to make it more seamless and connected. Like the internet of the yore and SMAC of last decade, the DARQ and digital twin stacks will no longer just stand when called out, they will simply live and evolve with us every moment.
That brings to some upcoming technology trends that appear to be running front and center:
Power to the Immersive Stack:
With meta, omni and other verses seeping into today’s digital universe, we are moving beyond impersonal text-based interactions and delving into gestures, postures and “near real” interactions. In the near future, one would be able to smell the aroma of food oceans away or be able to walk in lanes with a bunch of friends, that to absolutely remote! There are numerous challenges such as security, internet bandwidth, maturity of immersive products, and many more, but it is imperative to overcome them, and turn them into opportunities to make it mainstream.
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) to take the center stage:
Every year, the world continues to witness catastrophic events that have severely impacted our environment. That said, now corporations across the world are emphasizing on each innovation across the spectrum (hardware, software, and services) to positively impact Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), and build a sustainable tomorrow. Businesses will be implementing measures and innovations to become carbon neutral by offsetting their carbon footprints in various ways, such as using cleaner fuel, adopting wind and solar power, smarter and efficient consumption enablers, and the likes of it.
Digital transformation:
The technology is continuously evolving at an unimaginable pace, from digital to human-centered transformation feeding on megatrends of remote working, increased cybersecurity, fusing CX and EX, and many more. Numerous technology innovations that have taken place in the past few years, will stop becoming eye-popping delighters and will start becoming more humane. They will also begin to develop a digital EQ to deliver more informed and personalized actions.
MedTech, EdTech, and FinTech:
The ongoing pandemic has brought these domains to the forefront, and they will lead to the next thrust in technology enablement using innovations that has been spurred by industrial, manufacturing, and retail where the margin for error is more or the benefits of automation are real. Finance as an industry lags the innovation cycle by a couple of years – both due to security concerns and the higher entry barriers for new players. With mobile payment apps breaking the entry barrier, we are well on the brink of a new revolution.
Data fabric:
It will provide a flexible and resilient integration of data sources across platforms and business users, making data available everywhere it’s needed, regardless of where the data lives. Data fabric can use analytics to learn and actively recommend where data should be used and changed, which can reduce data management efforts by up to 70%.
Cybersecurity mesh:
It will play an imperative role due it’s flexible and composable architecture that will integrate widely distributed and disparate security services. Cybersecurity mesh will enable best-of-breed, stand-alone security solutions to work together and improve overall security while moving control points closer to the assets they’re designed to protect. It will quickly and reliably verify identity, context, and policy adherence across cloud and non-cloud environments.
AI ethics and AI governance:
They will start attracting more investments as AI is becoming a common enabler across numerous industries. What the machine can and cannot be allowed to do is not a hypothetical debate anymore and it’s time to think of what – if any – boundaries need to be drawn around non-human intelligence.
If we believed that the world was all hunky dory with these advancements, we would not be farther away from truth.
The prime spoilers are: So much of augmented/immersive technology may take away a part of the human race far away from reality. If the social media platforms give the dopamine high and the following addiction/depression cycle; imagine what an immersive meta could be capable of!
With more intelligent AI comes superior hacking technologies. It seems the intelligent genes do not differentiate between the good and the bad personalities. The result would be a mandatory hardening of the layers of security, inconveniencing the less tech savvy masses.
Forced and rapid acceleration of technology will worsen technical debt for 60% of firms. As per Forrester’s report, for 55% of firms globally, prioritizing speed over maintainability will result in inflated tech debt, further jeopardizing their ability to modernize their IT organization.
In all, like I have always maintained, these are the best times to live in as a technologist. To imagine that you can impact and shape the world and also to be able to actualize it, is most rewarding. To able to define the new world order and also being a critical enabler is not only soul satisfying but also something all of us have or are wishing to be… Change makers!
By Piyush Jha, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Technology APAC, GlobalLogic