2020 is Finally Here -- What to Expect in the New Year

As 2020 kicks off, we thought we’d take this opportunity to look back at some of the larger technology trends we followed last year, and maybe even make a few predictions about where we see them heading in the new year.  AI and machine learning are at the top of the list, to no one’s surprise.  Connectivity will also be a watch word in the 2020s as the world collectively upgrades to 5G, with PCs expected to join the ranks of connected devices.  Connectivity will also play a part in the assimilation of the Internet of Things, as the number of connected devices worldwide is expected to exceed 2 billion at some point in 2020.  Not all of the trends we followed in the past year were operating on such a macro-level, however.  The adoption of RISC-V computer architecture may ultimately have as big an impact on the industry as AI and IoT, that impact just won’t be as easily noticed by consumers.

Let’s start with artificial intelligence, as it’s currently at the center of technological innovation and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.  AI and machine learning will be the engine that drives everything from self-driving vehicles and image recognition to industrial automation and breakthroughs in healthcare. Last year we examined the significant investments both the public and private sectors were making in AI, and we expect a lot more of the same in the coming months and years. The big chipmakers are investing in AI like never before, with industry titans like Intel and NVIDIA leading the way.

IoT is just as ubiquitous as AI, and it’s being invested in just as heavily by both public and private concerns. Big cities and big corporations are both embracing the IoT’s potential for streamlining and automating complex processes and applications, everything from internal climate control and power consumption to traffic decongestion and city planning.  In order to service the expected surge in connected devices, developers are looking into incorporating different technologies to expand wireless connectivity within a building, a park, or even a city. 

You may not be as familiar with RISC-V computing as you are with buzzterms like AI and IoT, and while it’s still in its latent stages by comparison, we expect it to be big area of growth in 2020.  The ecosystem of software and development kits around RISC-V grew seemingly exponentially in 2019, and the next decade promises a lot more of the same. RISC-V is an especially promising alternative to CISC (complex instruction set computing) architecture for applications that require fast processing and low power-consumption, such as battery-operated IoT-connected devices. Although you may not know it, someday soon RISC-V may be as omnipresent in your life as Facebook and Google.

These are just a few of the growth areas we expect to continue to flourish as we head into the next decade. We’ll check in on AI, IoT and RISC-V throughout the year to see how those technologies develop in 2020 and beyond, while also keeping an eye out for the hot new trends that the new year has to offer. Welcome to 2020 – it feels like the future has arrived.