Top tech trends to watch out for in 2022

Phew! Another pandemic year has gone by. Welcome to yet another year of hope and recovery. In 2021 we saw many tech trends accelerate in response to the ‘living with Covid’ world. If the past two years have proved anything, it’s that the world needs to adapt quickly to our new reality. In 2021, companies focused on operational agility more than ever before.

Tech has sustained us through the pandemic and continues to redefine and restructure how we work, live and interact. But what does next year hold in store?

The ETtech team picked the biggest technology trends to watch out for in 2022 and beyond.

Automation

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Automation tech has entered everyone’s daily lives in different ways and most of us don’t even realise it. Self-driving vehicles, the data cleaning system of your smart devices, and smart home notifications are some basic examples of automation technology.

Around half of all existing work could be automated in the next few decades, as next-level process automation and virtualization become more commonplace.

“By 2025, more than 50 billion devices will be connected to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT),” McKinsey predicts. Robots, automation, 3D-printing, and more will generate around 79.4 zettabytes of data per year.

Automated processes are consistent and auditable, which can help reduce errors and improve quality. It can also free skilled tech talent to focus on higher value-added tasks, according to Deloitte, which said that early participants in this trend have already seen gains in efficiency and lower labour costs.

In a recent survey of IT and engineering leaders, 74% of respondents said that automation has helped their workforce work more efficiently. Fifty-nine percent reported cost reductions of up to 30% on teams that have embraced process automation.

Metaverse

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Popularised by Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson, the metaverse refers to a collection of shared online worlds in which physical, augmented, and virtual reality converge. People can hang out with friends, work, visit places, buy goods and services, and attend events. While many virtual worlds exist online, users currently can’t move between them while retaining their identities and assets.

The eventual metaverse could solve this problem, turning disparate online worlds into a single, seamless entity. It has even been dubbed the next evolution of the internet.

Some tech CEOs are betting on Metaverse as being the successor to the mobile internet. In 2021, CEOs of tech companies from Microsoft to Match Group discussed their roles in building the metaverse. In October 2021, Facebook
renamed itself to Meta to reflect its new metaverse focus.

Early builders of the metaverse, including NFT artists, musicians, and crypto-native companies, are investing in digital pieces of land in popular virtual worlds such as Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Sandbox to showcase their work and build dedicated communities around it.

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Security: Cyber AI

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Despite technological advancements, organisations still struggle with security breaches.

The cost of cybercrime continues to climb; it’s expected to double from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion by the end of 2021 and grow to $10.5 trillion by 2025. The average cost of a single data breach in 2021 was $4.24 million, a 10% jump from 2019, according to Deloitte.

In 2019, more than 8.5 billion data records were compromised, says McKinsey.

AI capabilities: Artificial intelligence’s ability to learn and detect novel patterns can accelerate detection, containment and response, easing the burden on security operations centre analysts and allowing them to be proactive.

One approach to building a secure infrastructure is the use of distributed ledgers, such as blockchain. Which brings us to the next trend.

Blockchain and DLTs

Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT) are changing the nature of doing business and helping companies reimagine how they manage tangible and digital assets.

As companies adopt blockchain and DLT, creative use cases are cropping up, transforming the nature of doing business across organisational boundaries. The use cases include self-sovereign data, trusted data-sharing, supply chain transparency among others.

Also read:
Blockchains and their disruptive power

Tempted by the promise of safer, more efficient transactions, the financial services industry has been leading the way in making full use of blockchain and DLT platforms.

A majority of participants in Deloitte’s 2021 Global Blockchain Survey said their industries would see new revenue streams from blockchain, digital assets and crypto solutions.

Connectivity

Digital connections, powered by 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), have the potential to unlock economic activity. Implementing faster connections in “mobility, healthcare, manufacturing and retail could increase global GDP by $1.2 trillion to $2 trillion by 2030,” McKinsey believes.

“Far-greater network availability and capability will drive broad shifts in the business landscape, from the digitization of manufacturing (through wireless control of mobile tools, machines and robots) to decentralized energy delivery and remote patient monitoring.”

Cloud tech

In the last two years, cloud computing has exploded as organisations went virtual and focused on delivering digital services. There was no other option but to do or die.

Industry-specific cloud solutions can enable companies to automate manual tasks and shift their focus to competitive differentiation.

According to a McKinsey report, 70% of companies will be using hybrid-cloud or multi-cloud platforms by 2022 as part of a distributed IT infrastructure. It will mean data and processing can be handled in the cloud but made accessible to devices faster.

A growing number of businesses will start examining industry clouds in the next 18 to 24 months, sparking a $640 billion market by 2026, according to a Deloitte technology trends report.

Clean tech

With climate change being the topic of discussion for decades, companies are transitioning towards cleaner resources, fuels, energy, and technologies. Each technology sector’s evolution is being driven by major policies aimed at arresting climate change.

As the costs associated with clean-tech fall, their use is becoming more widespread and their disruption is being felt across a growing number of industries.

“Companies must keep pace with emerging business-building opportunities by designing operational-improvement programmes relating to technology development, procurement, manufacturing and cost reduction,” McKinsey said in a report.

“Advancing clean technologies also promises an abundant supply of green energy to sustain exponential technology growth, for instance, in high-power computing.”

Bio revolution

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Propelled by AI, automation and DNA sequencing, the bio revolution promises the development of gene-therapies, hyper-personalised medicines and genetics-based guidance on food and exercise.

There is, McKinsey said, a “confluence of advances in biological science” that “promises a significant impact on economies and our lives and will affect industries from health and agriculture to consumer goods, energy and materials”.

“Organisations need to assess their bQ or biological quotient – the extent to which they understand biological science and its implications. They should then sort out the resources they need to allocate to biological technologies and capabilities and whether to integrate those into their existing R&D or partner with science-based start-ups,” McKinsey said.