What Innovations Will Be the Most Significant by 2023?

Future prediction is difficult and dangerous. Due to rapid technological advancements and insurmountable obstacles to innovation, predicting the future in the computing sector is considerably harder and riskier. The majority of breakthroughs fail to significantly alter the state of the art. Some are ahead of their time, some are not cost-effective or feasible, and some just don’t have a market. There are many instances of superior technology that were never accepted because others came into the market sooner or performed better. As a result, this text is only an attempt to comprehend where technologies are headed. The Innovator’s Dilemma and its successors are the books that best explain how innovation and disruption occur.

Future of Technology: 23 Technologies by 2023

Cross-Cutting Security Issues

Large data repositories’ development and the development of data analytics, together with intrusions by businesses, governments, and malicious actors, have created a Pandora’s box of problems. How can privacy and security coexist in this setting?

Movement for Open Intellectual Property

The open IP movement is here, encompassing everything from open source software and standards to open-access publishing. What are the consequences?

Sustainability

Can new battery and chip technologies, LED lights, electronic autos, and a greater reliance on renewable energy sources fend off growing energy costs and a meteoric rise in computing adoption?

Large-scale open online courses

By drawing students away from traditional colleges and changing the roles of professors and students, MOOCs have the potential to drastically change the higher education landscape. How much of an influence will they have?

The Quantum Computer

Quantum computing, which is solely constrained by the rules of physics, has the ability to continue Moore’s Law for the ensuing 10 years. Innovations are happening more quickly when commercial quantum computing becomes feasible.

Nanotechnology and apparatus

It is obvious that MEMS technology, nanoparticles, and applications utilising these technologies are here to stay. Sunscreen, tyres, and ingestible medical gadgets have previously been produced thanks to nanotechnology.

Integrated 3D Circuits

Printed circuit boards are being replaced with 3D-ICs in the mobile industry, and this trend will eventually expand to all types of IT products.

Global Memory

Architectures and software will undergo a seismic upheaval as universal memory replaces DRAM.

Multicore

Multicore will be commonplace by 2023, appearing in everything from wearable technology and smartphones to cameras, video games, cars, cloud servers, and exa-scale supercomputers.

Photonics

In order to overcome the bandwidth, latency, and energy concerns in the structure of high-end systems, silicon photonics will be a vital technology.

Connectivity and networking

Research and the Internet economy will continue to be driven by advancements at all levels of the network stack.

Networks defined by software

Networks will become more functional, secure, transparent, and open thanks to OpenFlow and SDN.

Computerized High Performance

Others researchers are bent on pushing HPC to the cloud, while some governments are focused on exascale.

Utilizing the Cloud

Cloud computing will be more widely used by 2023, and more computer tasks will be moved there.

“Internet of Things”

Except for our worries about protecting privacy in the midst of such ease, the Internet of Things has no limitations, ranging from clothing that tracks our travels to smart homes and towns.

Organic User Interfaces

It is already possible for computers to communicate with us through touch, gesture, and speech, and even more radical interfaces are on the horizon.

3D printing

With numerous potential to build designs that would have been unaffordable, 3D printing promises to revolutionise fabrication.

Data Analytics and Big Data

Numerous data-driven choices have the potential to be significantly improved by the expanding availability of data and the demand for its insights.

Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems

Our lives are becoming more and more reliant on machine learning, whether it’s for search result ranking, product recommendations, or improving environmental modeling.

Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision

Consumers have benefited much from the ability to unlock information in images and movies, and more big developments are forthcoming.

Life sciences technology has played a crucial role in enhancing both human and animal health as well as addressing environmental problems.

Information technology and computational biology

The development of human health and the solution of the riddles of life are made possible by the vast volumes of data.

Large-scale open online courses

By drawing students away from traditional colleges and changing the roles of professors and students, MOOCs have the potential to drastically change the higher education landscape. How much of an influence will they have?

The Quantum Computer

Quantum computing, which is solely constrained by the rules of physics, has the ability to continue Moore’s Law for the ensuing 10 years. Innovations are happening more quickly when commercial quantum computing becomes feasible.

Nanotechnology and apparatus

It is obvious that MEMS technology, nanoparticles, and applications utilising these technologies are here to stay. Sunscreen, tyres, and ingestible medical gadgets have previously been produced thanks to nanotechnology.

What Motivates and Disruptors Underlie Technological Advancements?

A large number of IEEE members were polled by the 2023 Report team to learn more about the factors driving technological progress. As key disruptors, 3D printing, the use of robots for work, and cloud computing were placed higher than the need for sustainable energy, accessibility of wireless/broadband connectivity, and use of technology for medical treatments.

Drivers

• Increases in average life expectancy
• Increasing ratio if retirees to workers
• Public concern over control over access/amount of personal information
• Desire for sustainable energy sources
• Reduction in availability of grants and philanthropic resources
• Widening economic inequality worldwide
• Reduced job security in a global market economy
• Climate change
• Global terrorism
• Use of big data and analytics
• Reduction in cost of data collection and retention (for use in analytics)
• Quickening pace of knowledge transfer
• Long-term availability of certain energy sources
• Alternative distribution chains (such as manufacturers selling directly to consumers)
• Use of technology for medical procedures
• Wireless/broadband connectivity

Disruptors

• Crowdsourcing/open-sourcing of hardware development
• Changes in educational structure/design (e.g. MOOCs)
• Virtual/alternative currencies (such as Bitcoin)
• Smartphone use as a device for payment
• Cloud computing
• Use of robots as a source of labor
• Nonvolatile memory influencing big data accessibility and portability
• Quantum/nondeterministic computing
• Use of 3D printing
• Green computing
• New user interfaces (e.g. Siri, Kinect, instead of traditional keyboards)