Trending Exponential Technologies which Businesses are Adopting for Promising Growth

Advanced technologies are increasingly supporting global competitiveness and economic prosperity, which is impacting as well as changing industries like manufacturing, healthcare, media, BFSI, telecom, retail, to name a few. Several leading industries are congregating digital and physical worlds in which sophisticated infrastructure combined with innovative software, sensors, as well as huge amounts of data and analytics is expected to produce smarter products, more efficient processes, and better-connected entities like vendors, suppliers (as applicable) and customers.

In this article, I would be discussing on the trending exponential technologies, with an objective to discover the latest opportunities and hurdles organizations are facing in evaluating and embracing technologies, as well as to explore how global enterprises can capitalize better on evolving technologies. Exponential Technologies are those that enable change at a rapidly accelerating, nonlinear pace facilitated by substantial progress and cost reduction in the areas of computing power, bandwidth, data ingestion, data preparation and data storage. Technology leaders Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Apache and several others are investing heavily in order to stay atop.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the fastest growing modern technologies that is impacting several industries and bringing about positive transformation. Artificial intelligence (AI, also machine intelligence, MI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence (NI) displayed by humans and other animals. According to latest statistical data analysis report, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market is predicted to grow from $8 billion in 2016 to $72 billion in 2021, attaining a 55.1% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). AI is being deployed today to enable collaborative robotics, automated workflows based on predictive analytics, improving hiring and retention, optimizing equipment and plant effectiveness, providing better healthcare, increasing agricultural output and much more.

There are thousands of prospective use cases for AI in industries today, making this area one of the most lucrative and invested-in by the universal venture capital community. Technologies that originate from AI, more commonly referred to as cognitive technologies, include machine learning, computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, robotics optimization, rules-based systems, planning, and scheduling. Specifically, machine learning refers to the ability of computer systems to improve their performance by exposure to data, without the need to follow explicitly programmed instructions.

Robotics is an emerging technology that is getting into almost every industry where there is a drive for automation. It is a branch of technology which deals with robots, which are programmable machines that interact with the physical world via sensors and actuators, as well as carry out a series of actions autonomously, or semi-autonomously.

Advanced Robotics expense is predicted to increase from $92 billion in 2016 to $225 billion in 2021, attaining a 19.7% CAGR with healthcare, manufacturing, consumer services, and resource industries being the largest segments today. According to experts, robotics is increasingly being adopted in aerospace manufacturing to enhance product quality, yield rates, reduce operating costs and improve quantitative productivity.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a trending topic of discussion both in the workplace and outside. It's a concept that not only has the capacity to impact how we live but also how we work. But what exactly is the "Internet of things" and what impact is it going to have on you, if any?

IoT is a computing concept that describes the idea of common physical objects being connected to the internet and being able to identify themselves to other devices. Kevin Ashton, an expert on digital innovation says it best when he explains "If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things – using data they gathered without any help from us – we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss, and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best".

Investment in the IoT solutions is predicted to grow from $737 billion in 2016 to $1.521 billion in 2021, attaining a 15.6% CAGR. IoT is revolutionizing many aspects of industrial operations including real-time production monitoring, improving the accuracy of key metrics including Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), production yield rates and production efficiency. IoT’s fastest growing segments include consumer, insurance, healthcare, and retail.

With the increase in cybercrime globally, Cybersecurity is evolving at a fast pace, which encompasses the techniques of protecting computers, networks, programs and data from unauthorized access or attacks that are aimed for exploitation. Analysts projected that the Cybersecurity market will grow from $81 billion in 2016 to $117 billion in 2021, attaining a 7.7% CAGR. The role of cybersecurity becomes even more pivotal today as significant operational hazards for connected, smart manufacturing, digital supply networks, and entire industrial ecosystems emerge, highlighting risks at the intersection of cyber and physical worlds. Strategists expect there could be 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs unfilled, globally, by 2021.

Analytics is another encompassing and multidimensional technology that uses mathematics, statistics, predictive modeling and machine learning techniques to find meaningful patterns as well as knowledge in recorded data.

Today, we add powerful computers to the mix to store increasing amounts of data and to run sophisticated software algorithms in order to produce the rapid insights needed for fact-based decision making. By putting the science of numbers, data and analytical discovery to work, we can find out if what we think or believe is really true. Also, produce answers to queries we never thought of asking. In other words, this is the power of analytics.

Advanced analytics global expense is forecasted to grow from $136 billion in 2016 to $232 billion in 2021, attaining an 11.3% CAGR. Discrete and process industries are accelerating their adoption of advanced analytics to improve product quality, reduce production delays and improve time-to-market for new products.

Quantum computing and high-performance data analytics are predicted to be the fastest growing market segments over the next three years. The High-Performance Computing (HPC) market is expected to grow from $25 billion in 2016 to $40 billion in 2021, attaining a 9.3% CAGR.  HPC refers to the practice of aggregating computing power in a way that delivers much higher performance, that is, systems which typically function above a teraflop or 1012 floating-point operations per second, to solve large highly complex problems in science, business or engineering.

It is the use of super computers and parallel processing techniques for solving complex computational problems. It focuses on developing parallel processing algorithms and systems by incorporating both administration and parallel computational techniques.

The Blockchain market is expected to grow at a 61.5% CAGR between 2016 and 2021, growing from $0.2 billion to $2.3 billion in 2021. The largest segments are in business, financial services, technology, media and telecom domains. The largest protocols include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. Fintech experts have reported that banks have reportedly saved between $8 billion to $12 billion annually using blockchain technologies to improve operational efficiencies.

According to statistical analysts, the nations which invest in exponential technologies and innovation ecosystems will emerge more competitive than those who opt to compete on price alone. Same holds true for all enterprises having a global presence. Higher value, advanced products, and processes that require excellent product quality and deliver greater margins are driving faster, permanent innovation. Staying updated on the latest technology is the mantra of being far ahead of the competition.