Technology has a purpose to address the issues of our world and perfect our lives as far as possible. Like every January, we are at the doorstep of another important year that promises bigger developments across the tech lanes. While 2022 witnessed many new platforms and products, 2023 will testify to their worth amidst the growing concerns of a recession, says Yash Mehta, an IoT and big data science specialist.
In this post, I pick my top 6 technologies that shall dominate the narrative for 2023.
Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT had a great stint in 2022 which is most likely to continue this year. Till now, we have seen successful case studies in home automation, healthcare, vehicles etc.
However, the arrival of 5G makes 2023 more special for IoT. It enables advancements in edge computing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) which accommodates the increasing demand for connected devices. As far as the sectors are concerned, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain and automobiles may lead the pack.
The IoT’s collective market value may touch USD 486.7 billion by the end of this year which testifies to the increasing adoption among the masses.
As IoT technology continues to evolve, it will play an increasingly important role in shaping the way we live, work, and communicate. And that’s the first step towards actualising our vision of fully automated smart cities.
Since IoT is a multidisciplinary industry, the key players here include enterprises from both hardware and software domains. In 2023, CISCO, Intel, Rockwell Automation, ABB and Honeywell are a few of the promising names.
AI & ML
Global AI spending will reach USD 57 billion by the end of 2023. Against the popular speculation that AI is killing jobs, it’ll create more jobs for professionals, and the coming year will be a testimony of the same. Jobs in development, programming, testing, support, and maintenance will pay more, with salaries ranging from USD 1,25,000 to USD 1,45,000 per year (ML Engineer).
This also hints at the increasing adoption of AI-enabled apps in consumer markets. From lightweight integrations in digital media to automating complex industrial processes, AI success stories will continue to grow and attract more businesses. As an important pillar of Web3, AI & ML will further address key gaps in our systems.
While we are at it, Forrester predicts that AI and ML will create 9% of all new jobs by 2025; these will include robotic monitoring professionals, data scientists, automation programmers, content curators, and marketing professionals.
This one has a long list of key players, including IBM, Salesforce, C3.AI, H2O.AI, AWS and others.
Data fabric and Mesh
For data scientists, easy access to governing secure data is of paramount importance. It is crucial for creating smarter dashboards, reporting, advanced analytics, machine learning and other AI projects. In the pursuit of the same, both mesh and fabric are equally instrumental in ensuring an end to end data success for enterprises.
In the past 2 years, the implementation of micro-databases has been the key attraction. In this approach, the data for every business entity is stored in its exclusive micro-database while the fabric (or the mesh) stores millions of such databases.
K2view, a popular data fabric platform has been at the forefront of successfully executing the technology. Their data as a product platform is perfect for many applications including data masking. Their data masking tool organises data from disparate sources for different schemas. Furthermore, it masks and stores the data of a particular business entity in an exclusive micro-database. For example, customer name, and financial details (credit card no, account no etc.), are all stored in a micro-database for customer-1 while the fabric stores millions of such micro-databases.
Such an approach implements data masking dynamically for varied operational use cases such as Customer 360, Test Data Management, Tokenisation, Pipelining and others. Not to miss, the fabric’s in-flight data masking eliminates complex batch data masking processes where unmasked data is exposed to breaches.
The comprehensive data management platform provides end-to-end lifecycle management including data fetching, processing, orchestrating, integrating and others.
Other key players include Talend, Oracle Coherence, Denodo, and SAP Data Intelligence. In 2023, expect more mid-to-large scale enterprises embracing micro-database-enabled data architecture.
RPA
To put it simply, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technological implementation to build, deploy, and manage software-triggered robots. Like AI, RPA also automates tasks, and in most cases, both technologies work in sync with each other.
Business processes such as interpreting applications, transaction processing, data handling, triggering conversations, etc. are just a few of the things that RPA can do.
Its ability to optimise repetitive tasks has led sectors such as healthcare, retail, and BFSI to embrace RPA-enabled automation in some of their processes.
No matter the rising fears around automation taking jobs, Mckinsey, in its report, states that less than 5% of the jobs are eligible to undergo total automation. RPA offers a plethora of career opportunities across roles such as programmers, business analysts, solution architects, managers, and others.
In 2023, RPAs, along with low-code platform development, will be a preferred choice for IT and communication enterprises to cut the chase and mark early arrivals. Furthermore, we’ll also witness low-cost RPA implementations and increased adoption of managed RPAs.
Key players in this industry include Blue Prism, Contextor, Inflectra Rapise, Ui Path, and others.
Metaverse & extended reality
Who would have thought ‘faking’ the real world would propel you into a billion USD industry? With the onset of the metaverse, enterprises, developers and users want to do everything in the unreal world.
Be it hosting events, celebrating festivals, conducting workshops, selling, playing and even training, the metaverse is eliminating the gaps that confined engagements in the physical world.
Although a metaverse operates closely with blockchain in the best interest of web3, its singular impact is so massive that it deserved a spot of its own in this list. In collaboration with NFTs and crypto tokenisation, the metaverse is enabling new dimensions of the digital realm such as GameFi, SocialFi, Meta-commerce, meta-tech and others.
In 2023, expect this space to grow further and attract hardware tech companies to build interface devices. Renowned names in this space include Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Decentraland, Minecraft and others.
Blockchain
In all honesty, web3 gained enterprise adoption with the backing of blockchain. A technology that has defeated all speculations is now the most tech term on the internet today. Be it Ecuador declaring bitcoin as a legit tender or the otherwise conservative Indian government inviting POCs around blockchain in policy reforming, 2022 has been a happening year. Among many, Defi, DAOs, layer-1 chains, metaverse and custom public and private blockchain development are a few of the popular applications in this domain.
Blockchain became a massive success in 2022 because it put the users in charge of their data, identity, and money. In the true spirit of Web3, decentralisation and automation are bare minimum qualifications, and blockchain delivers both. Starting in 2022, the technology’s market cap is expected to grow at a CAGR of 85.9% till 2030.
As far as players are considered, the list here’s long Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Polygon, Algorand etc. are all popular layer-1 networks.
At the same time, it would be unfair not to mention, AR, edge computing, and low-code platforms.
Future: Technology for a sustainable world
Listings change every year depending on the ongoing socioeconomic and political climate. But what remains unchanged is the ultimate goal of making the lives of common users convenient and safer. In this post, I hovered over the top 6 technologies that hold the most potential to make 2023 better. On what technology did you place your bet? I am eager to know your opinion.
The author is Yash Mehta, an IoT and big data science specialist
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