IEEE Computer Society Grades Its 2020 Technology Predictions, Gets a B-

Leigh Porter — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 21:23:01 +0000

The IEEE Computer Society revealed the scorecard for its 2020 Technology Predictions, which were published in Computer magazine’s December 2019 issue. The 2020 Technology Predictions garnered a collective grade of B-.

(PRNewsfoto/IEEE Computer Society)

“Last year was the least predictable of all years for which we have conducted technology predictions, and—not surprisingly—our grade was B-,” said Dejan Milojicic, former IEEE CS president (2014) and current Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett Packard Labs. “The advancement of most technologies slowed due to the ongoing pandemic, but then a few were actually accelerated.”

The highest grades were given to AI@Edge, additive manufacturing, adversarial machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) and critical systems:

AI@Edge (graded A-) was driven by the need to automate and filter data close to the edge by applying AI; it was critical in collecting pandemic-related information.
Additive manufacturing (graded A/B) helped produce critical medical components and provided evidence that distributed, local manufacturing capabilities can be essential during times of supply-chain upheaval.
Adversarial ML (graded B+) was increasingly used as systems continue to incorporate ML, in particular through variants of reinforcement learning and neural networks.
AI and critical systems (also graded B+) were deployed increasingly in more systems that affect public health, safety, and welfare.

All 2020 Technology Predictions and Grades

1	AI@Edge (A-). Not surprisingly, the adoption of AI at edge dominated the predictions in 2020.
2	Additive manufacturing (A/B). The bulk of our predictions for additive manufacturing proved valid in 2020.
3-4	Adversarial ML (B+). We correctly predicted that adversarial ML would become increasingly important in 2020.
3-4	AI and critical systems (B+). We predicted that AI would be deployed in more systems that affect public health, safety, and welfare (as opposed to, for example, entertainment systems) over the next five years.
5	Non-volatile memory products, interfaces, and applications (B). Non-volatile memory enables next-generation computing in the data center, at the edge, and embedded in industrial and consumer products.
6	Legal and related implications to reflect security and privacy (B). We predicted that legal and policy responses to security and privacy concerns would continue to demand the attention of engineers, the public, and policymakers.
7	Digital Twins, including Cognitive Twins (B-). Digital Twins are now mainstream in business, particularly in the manufacturing area with availability of industrial platforms to support them (GE and Siemens are main players in this area).
8	Reliability and safety challenges for intelligent systems (B/C). Intelligent systems, which are capable of making autonomous decisions based on AI algorithms, are becoming increasingly widespread in several application fields (for example, autonomous robots and vehicles).
9	Applying AI to cybersecurity (B/C). We expected that AI/ML would start being widely adopted in cybersecurity and even envisioned broad participation of industry, government, and academia.
10	Practical delivery drones (B/C). Our team is largely in consensus that the promise of practical delivery drones hasn’t panned out during 2020.
11	Cognitive skills for robots (C+). We predicted that recent breakthroughs in large-scale simulations, deep reinforcement learning, and computer vision collectively would bring forth a basic level of cognitive abilities to robots that would lead to significant improvements of robotic applications.
12	Quantum computing (C+). Quantum computing gained tremendous visibility in 2020.

Visit the IEEE CS 2020 Scorecard to view the complete analysis and evaluation for each prediction.

The authors’ collective rating for the 2020 predictions resulted in a grade of B-, which was a bit lower than the 2019 and 2018 B grades, and lower still than the 2017 A- grade.

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IEEE Study: AI, Machine Learning, 5G and IoT will be the Most Important Technologies in 2021

Leigh Porter — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:01:29 +0000

IEEE, released the results of a survey of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) in the U.S., U.K., China, India and Brazil regarding the most important technologies for 2021 overall, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the speed of their technology adoption and the industries expected to be most impacted by technology in the year ahead.

2021 Most Important Technologies and Challenges
Which will be the most important technologies in 2021? Among total respondents, nearly one-third (32%) say AI and machine learning, followed by 5G (20%) and IoT (14%).

Manufacturing (19%), healthcare (18%), financial services (15%) and education (13%) are the industries that most believe will be impacted by technology in 2021, according to CIOs and CTOS surveyed. At the same time, more than half (52%) of CIOs and CTOs see their biggest challenge in 2021 as dealing with aspects of COVID-19 recovery in relation to business operations. These challenges include a permanent hybrid remote and office work structure (22%), office and facilities reopenings and return (17%), and managing permanent remote working (13%). However, 11% said the agility to stop and start IT initiatives as this unpredictable environment continues will be their biggest challenge. Another 11% cited online security threats, including those related to remote workers, as the biggest challenge they see in 2021.

Technology Adoption, Acceleration and Disaster Preparedness due to COVID-19
CIOs and CTOs surveyed have sped up adopting some technologies due to the pandemic:

More than half (55%) of respondents have accelerated adoption of cloud computing
52% have accelerated 5G adoption
51% have accelerated AI and machine learning

The adoption of IoT (42%), augmented and virtual reality (35%) and video conferencing (35%) technologies have also been accelerated due to the global pandemic.

Compared to a year ago, CIOs and CTOs overwhelmingly (92%) believe their company is better prepared to respond to a potentially catastrophic interruption such as a data breach or natural disaster. What’s more, of those who say they are better prepared, 58% strongly agree that COVID-19 accelerated their preparedness.

When asked which technologies will have the greatest impact on global COVID-19 recovery, one in four (25%) of those surveyed said AI and machine learning,

Cybersecurity
The top two concerns for CIOs and CTOs when it comes to the cybersecurity of their organization are security issues related to the mobile workforce including employees bringing their own devices to work (37%) and ensuring the Internet of Things (IoT) is secure (35%). This is not surprising, since the number of connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, sensors, robots and drones is increasing dramatically.

Slightly more than one-third (34%) of CIO and CTO respondents said they can track and manage 26-50% of devices connected to their business, while 20% of those surveyed said they could track and manage 51-75% of connected devices.

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IEEE – Digital IT News

IEEE Computer Society Grades Its 2020 Technology Predictions, Gets a B-

The IEEE Computer Society revealed the scorecard for its 2020 Technology Predictions, which were published in Computer magazine’s December 2019 issue. The 2020 Technology Predictions garnered a collective grade of B-.

IEEE Study: AI, Machine Learning, 5G and IoT will be the Most Important Technologies in 2021