The promise of new technologies bombards us. As a manager, investor, entrepreneur, or innovator, which of these technologies should you monitor closely in 2022? Is it AI and its promise of penetrating more businesses and practices, or should you focus on Web 3.0 and its disruption of Web 2.0?
In this post, I present my thinking and how I came up with the shortest list in the world for technologies to watch in 2022.
Key Core Technologies
While working on my list of technologies to watch, I stumbled across a research paper by Lei Mi from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shannxi, which I found inspirational.
In his paper, Mi introduces the term "Key Core Technologies" that are the "cornerstone to boosting economic and social progress." Mi explains that as technologies continuously evolve, all new technologies are combined and integrated from earlier ones. As technologies upgrade and deliver greater value, we see a dramatic increase in productivity that facilitates rapid social and economic advances that are enabled by a shortlist of "key core technologies."
Mi explains that Key Core Technologies is the "cornerstone of the technical system" and are based on "scientific discovery and technological invention." Most importantly, Key Core Technologies have these three attributes:
- They are revolutionary because they provide a radically original technology accompanied by scientific accumulation. These are the disruptive technologies that can change our lives.
- They are essential. These technologies are at the core of driving economic development. We must use these technologies to enable our businesses or quality of life objectives.
- They are leading. Each of these technologies generates a series of sub-technologies.
Technology Waves
In many cases, the Key Core Technologies, with their powerful attributes, kick off new "Technology Waves." For example, we went through the "Connectivity" wave not too many years ago. Web and Mobile technologies were the "Key Core Technologies" of the day, and companies like Apple and Google were the day's heroes.
With more web pages to browse and mobile devices to carry around, we discovered the value of data and leaped from the "connectivity" to the "data" wave. That's when big data captured our imagination, and companies like Facebook and Netflix served as excellent examples of how big data can benefit client experiences through personalization, for example.
With enough data under our possession, we arrived at the "wave of intelligence," where we are today. AI and Machine Learning come to our aid to make sense of our data and turn data into insights and insights to actions.
What lies ahead is open to interpretation. Some argue the next big tech wave will not be digital at all. Instead, it will be the age of disruptive technologies such as Synthetic Biology and Nanotech. Others claim we have yet to scratch the surface of AI, that technology enablers such as Augmented and Virtual Reality will take us to the Metaverse. While at the same time, Blockchain and Decentralization will open up the way to Web 3.0.
Vocabulary
The exciting thing about the different technology waves, and the Key Core Technologies enabling each wave, is the "vocabulary" of these technologies.
If you think, for example, of the initial wave described above, the wave of connectivity, it had its unique and new vocabulary: cloud computing, touch screens, app's, 3G, or GPS, to name a few terms of the day. The companies that were first to understand this vocabulary how to utilize it to product and venture building are the biggest in the world.
Companies that did not understand the "vocabulary" were pushed back or diminished altogether.
The lesson to learn is that understanding what the current tech wave is, which are the Key Core Technologies to monitor, and understanding the vocabulary of these waves and technologies is existential to business success. If, for example, there is good reason to believe NFT's will disrupt the gaming industry, and your company plays in this domain and does not understand the unique vocabulary of NFT's - expect troubles on the way. Even if it's just because your competitors can speak fluent "NFTish" and will grab the business opportunities they unlock. Sometimes it's as simple as Nokia CEO's message from his farewell speech: "We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost." So that "somehow" could very well be the illiteracy of the day's technology.
The Key Core Technologies of the near term
So which Key Core Technologies should we pay attention to in 2022? The list is surprisingly short, which speaks loads to these technologies' Revolutionary, Essentiality, and Leadership powers.
First on the list is AI. It may sound like Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time, but actually, we are just starting to benefit from this technology's capabilities. The big AlphaGo neural network breakthrough is just as old as my laptop, six years old. AI is revolutionary in that it is the first time we can train machines to learn independently. Admittedly, for the first few years of deploying AI, 90% of what we did was look for patterns in data. We could do beautiful things by looking for patterns in data, such as personalized experiences or utilizing assets in more beneficial ways.
But now, there are new advancements. For example, with Generative Adversarial Networks (when two machines can compete with each other to become more accurate in their predictions) or Transformers (a deep learning model that adopts the mechanism of self-attention), we can leap forward to new functionalities.
Here's an example; you can find a trace of these technologies in your Gmail — when you type a sentence, AI can complete it for you, or if we push these tech capabilities to the extreme, an autonomous robot in a warehouse can train itself on how to move about safely- which is impressive because machines are starting to teach themselves how to complete very complicated tasks.
The second core key technology to consider is IoT - and the unique thing about IoT is that it enables us to connect the Physical and Cyber worlds. So what does it mean to join the cyber and physical worlds? Here's an example: Think of an Amazon website. Every item a visitor to the Amazon website "click" links to a unique page; every decision triggers algorithms to help personalize the experience. But when you think about the physical world in comparison, it is mostly not intelligent and not connected, so you and I can double-tap a bottle of wine at the shop all day long, and it will not provide me with any helpful information. Now think about the "amazon go" store, that's the shop where you can pick up a product from any shelf and walk out, as there is no queue to pay.
It's a great example where IoT digitizes the physical world, and products, environments, and spaces can become intelligent and automated. This combination of AI and IoT (also known as AioT) provides us with a new perspective on how people move and interact in physical spaces. In addition, it can seamlessly connect with existing cameras and generate insights using out-of-the-box AI-powered skills. For example, AioT can transform and disrupt commerce and enable fraud detection in the real world. Furthermore, it can help improve employee safety. Finally, we must understand the vocabulary of AioT as it will continue to evolve and impact businesses in the coming years.
Which technologies did not make my Key Core Technologies watch list, but I'll watch anyway? A few have the potential to evolve into KCT in the future and already have the potential to disrupt industries. If you are looking for near-term returns, the biggest challenge with these technologies is how long it will take these technologies to mature and scale. There is enough evidence that once they hit sufficient maturity and scalability level, they will disrupt many industries; however, it is unclear how long this maturity phase will take.
Augmented and Virtual Reality.
I'm a bit split of AR and VR fall under the definition of "Key Core Technology." For example, one could argue that AR and VR devices combine commoditized software tools and cutting-edge IoT and AI capabilities. In that sense, AR and VR are tail technology of AioT. Even if we go beyond the devices up the tech stack and climb towards platforms and applications layers that provide the complete package of an AR/VR solution, those layers use existing technologies.
However, we need to watch these technologies because of their disruptive potential. I'm not convinced either AR or VR will become "Leading" technologies as Lei Mi defines them. Still, they will create drastically different user experiences and new business models. They deserve to be on the "watch us" list of technologies on these two fronts alone.
So why should we be excited about AR and VR? If we use AI to understand the context of what is happening and use IoT to connect the physical and digital worlds, we can use AR and VR to mesh these worlds together.
We hear more and more about the Metaverse and how we will experience it using AR and VR. AR and VR, or XR, or another name used to describe these capabilities, is "spatial computing." All point in the same direction of new ways to interface with data & collaborate in additive (augmented reality) and immersive (virtual) ways.
As these technologies mature, we should expect some exciting things will happen:
- For example, the world will be "overlaid" or "augmented" with data, and using Augmented Reality; we will have new opportunities to interact with this data. For example, I could point an autonomous Uber in the street, and if it's available, it will stop to pick me up. Bye-bye Uber app.
- Imagine meeting in a virtual space, a precise copy of a physical environment. Every change or improvement we make in the virtual space will impact the physical world. Such an experience is not science fiction. Recently Ericsson built a virtual model of an actual city to help plan the position of cell towers. As the Ericsson engineers positioned the cell towers in different locations in the virtual town, they could see in real-time the effects various obstacles such as trees or buildings will have on cell reception in the actual city. Companies such as Nvidia claim that the next revolution is when the physical world will become a copy of the digital world. Both AR and VR will play a role in such a future.
Blockchain
Here the plot thickens even further. First off, some would argue Blockchain is not a "technology" compared to the way AI is a technology. Regardless, Blockchain could become Revolutionary, even if what we see to date is more of an evolution of Blockchain and not a revolution.
It's been over a decade since the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto published his (hers?) white paper establishing a model for Blockchain. Ten years have passed since Laszlo Hanyecz traded his Bitcoins to get two pizzas from a local pizza store, which may very well be the first-ever Bitcoin trade.
We must ask ourselves a difficult question. Over this decade, did Blockchain disrupt any industry? The short answer is it did not. It did disrupt many people's bank accounts as the volume of trading in crypto and now NFT's is constantly growing. To this end, it is hard to claim Blockchain is "Essential" in the same way IoT or AI have become, and it is not "Leading" either. But oh... the potential. Many talented people are backed by smart and not so smart money, focused on making Blockchain reality in contracts, finance, healthcare, and yes, possibly even rebuilding the world wide web to a new Web 3.0 configuration. So no, Blockchain is not a Key Core Technology yet, but if things go as planned (or wished), it will graduate to this level. So let's continue and monitor this "technology" closely.
5 and 6G
True, many of us worldwide don't have a stable 5G connectivity, but the midnight oil is already burning in faraway labs where 6G is under development. As expected, it will be tremendously faster than 5G; some numbers claim 100X faster. And the reason this matter is because, for the IoT, AI, Blockchain, and AR/VR world we are envisioning, a vehicle to transport data at faster speeds is a must. On the flip side, without the advancements of 5 and 6G, some experiences and business models we hear about will never mature. 5 and 6G are more of a critical enabler than a Key Core Technology. If these faster modes of communication will cover the world, or if an alternative will arise, both will help disrupt multiple markets and industries in collaboration with IoT, AI, AR/VR, and Blockchain.
Now, You might be wondering why there are only two key core technologies?
It just shows the Leading strengths of IoT and AI. these core technologies are so powerful that if we combine IoT and AI, we get digital twins; autonomous vehicles, AmazonGo style shops, and an endless number of other Intelligent and Automated applications.
But there is one other thing that is super interesting about these technologies: they define new business opportunities.
Combining technologies to create a more significant business impact
When these technologies (including their long-tail of sub-technologies) combine, different opportunity areas emerge with unique & fundamentally better ways to solve business problems - ways that were not possible before the emergence of these technologies.
For example, when we combine the power of AI and IoT we achieve intelligent automation: we can shift responsibilities from humans to machines. So we can move from human-led operations to bionic operations. In Bionic environments, AI augments our capabilities; it's like having a little secret helper that whispers in your ear and helps you complete tasks in a better way.
If you used Waze to drive to work this morning, it's one example of how AI augments our ability to get more efficiently from one place to another. At its extreme, Intelligent Automation leads to fully autonomous operations, where humans are entirely out of the loop.
An excellent example of a company that pushed Intelligent Automation to the extreme is Ocado, an online supermarket in the UK with one of the most advanced automated robotic warehouses. This warehouse was not designed for people or to streamline the operation between people and machines. It was designed with a "robots first approach," - and this allowed to build an environment where robots can operate and collaborate autonomously in fulfilling online shopping at an extreme speed and efficiency.
Another business opportunity lives in the intersection of Blockchain & AI that enables Decentralization and Trust. Once we "decentralize," we can bring trust, security, and traceability into many use cases. An example of Decentralization to bring "trust" to the food we eat and improve supply chains' impact on climate and sustainability is OpenSC, a .org I had the pleasure of supporting during its incubation.
OpenSC uses AI and Machine Learning, IoT sensors, and Blockchain to verify claims about sustainable food production, trace products across supply chains, and share this information with businesses and consumers. Nestle is a recent joiner to OpenSC "to provide consumers with the ability to trace their products right back to their origins." There are other aspects of Decentralization that can benefit businesses beyond the hyped Crypto and NFT opportunities that grab the headlines; companies like OpenSC will bring the benefits of Blockchain to more industries.
Another is the opportunity for Key Core Technologies (and soon to be KCT,) to converge and enable Spatial Creation & Collaboration. These are the more futuristic worlds of AR, VR, Metaverse, and Web 3.0. As I discussed in my post on Metaverse opportunities, there is still some work before these technologies mature and scale. But we are already seeing initial Proof of Concepts and Minimal Viable Products that hint at their hidden potential. Here's an interesting example:
At the last CES in Las Vegas, Hyundai, which collaborates with Boston Dynamics, (that's the company that makes Spot the dog-robot and all of the videos of the parkour robots you can see on youtube) announced a Metaverse collaboration.
This collaboration will enable users to enter a virtual world representing a different location on Earth or another planet. At the same time, a robot will be present at the physical site that the virtual world is simulating. By bringing the virtual and physical worlds together, the human operator in the virtual world will manipulate objects or machines at the remote physical side. The on-site robot will repeat every movement the human operator makes—genuinely fantastic stuff.
2 other business opportunities worth mentioning:
- Climate tech - these core technologies will help us meet net-zero targets and
- Nature co-design - going beyond digital, and using biotech and nanotech to bring new solutions to the market, covid vaccinations is one great example.
Making use of Key Core Technologies in decision making
So we have the core technologies and the broad opportunity areas that they create. Still, to deliver value with these technologies, there is one more thing we need to do, and that is to align desirability, Feasibility, and Viability. Let's unpack what I mean:
- Feasibility is the ability to understand the maturity of the technology, simply put, is the tech ready for scale or not.
- Desirability is the ability to innovate and find a use case that uses a technology to deliver a solution that will be desirable to the end-user.
- And Viability is the business model, which without, there's no reason to build anything.
We need to align the stars between the Feasibility & maturity of these technologies to the desirability of use cases and the Viability of business models.
Going through such an exercise can help identify technological maturity, our client needs, and business models. Such an exercise also helps identify opportunities in the near or far term.
But more importantly, it helps us understand which technologies hold the most significant potential for us, so we can keep them on our "important technologies to watch" list.
