LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 10 December 2019 – IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) tech experts unveil their annual predictions for future years of tech, presenting what they believe would be the most widely adopted technology trends in 2020. Six of the top 12 technology predictions have been developed into peer-reviewed articles published in Computer magazine’s December issue, covering topics offering cognitive robotics, practical drone delivery, and digital twins. The tech future forecast by the world’s premier computer professionals organization consistently ranks as one of its most anticipated announcements.
“These predictions identify the top dozen technologies which have substantial potential to disrupt the market in the season 2020,” said Cecilia Metra, IEEE Computer Society President.
“In 2020, we expect you’ll see ever-increasing adoption of AI in several use cases such for example AI@Edge, cognitive robots and drones, as well as with verticals offering cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems, and adversarial machine learning,” said Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Distinguished Technologist and IEEE CS past president (2014). “We’re also anticipating a breakthrough in the adoption of non-volatile memory, digital twins, and additive materials. We’re excited about our predictions and the best we’ve made for 2020 technology trends.”
Intelligent systems, capable of creating autonomous decisions, are nowadays attracting an increasing economic investment worldwide. We expect that they will be increasingly adopted in several fields, including smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and autonomous robots. With regards to the application field, the autonomy of intelligent systems has been formalized by defined levels. Of course, the higher the degree of intelligence and consequent autonomous capabilities, the more robust specific requirements with regards to reliability and safety for the intelligent systems operation in the field, where dependability is defined while the likelihood of correct operation for a given amount of time, while security refers to the ability to avoid catastrophic consequences on the surroundings and users. Guaranteeing the necessary high degrees of reliability and safety mandated for highly autonomous intelligent systems will be one of many significant technological challenges to be faced by 2020 to enable a smarter world
The pursuit of practical quantum computing will move forward in 2020 yet remain incomplete. At the beginning of 2020, experimental quantum computer demonstrations consume about 1/10,000 the vitality of the world’s largest supercomputers while outperforming them by 1,000x or more–yet the demonstrated applications seem like quantum computer self-tests. If quantum computers are destined to be successful, they will come about by increasing relevance and generality, having already established a computational advantage. We project demonstrations to are more exciting next year. For example, a quantum computer might perform chemical simulation impossible by any standard supercomputer, ultimately causing a far more nuanced debate about whether the chemical that could be discovered will benefit society.
The tech predictions analysis included analysis technologies that are considered very promising yet aren’t likely to attain broad adoption until after 2020. Such technologies include seamless assisted reality, virtual reality for business, distributed (cooperative) robotics, simulating the whole world; autonomous vehicles; and printable bio-materials and tissue.
Technologies that were reviewed yet considered to have already reached broad adoption are photonic-based communication in data centers, facial recognition, 5G, multi-agent systems, the security of IoT devices, disaggregated servers, and Blockchain.
The IEEE CS team of leading technology experts includes Mary Baker, HP Inc.; Tom Coughlin, Coughlin Associates; Erik DeBenedictis, entrepreneur; Paolo Faraboschi, Hewlett Packard Enterprise VP and Fellow; Eitan Frachtenberg, data scientist; Danny Lange, VP of AI at Unity; Phil Laplante, professor, Penn State; Andrea Matwyshyn, Professor and Assoc. Dean of Innovation, Penn State Law – University Park, and professor, Penn State Engineering; Avi Mendelson, professor, Technion and NTU Singapore; Cecilia Metra, professor, Bologna University and IEEE CS President; Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Distinguished Technologist and IEEE Computer Society president 2014; Roberto Saracco, Chair of the Symbiotic Autonomous Systems Initiative of IEEE-FDC; and Jeffrey Voas, NIST. The technical contributors with this document can be found for interviews.
