Written by The arrival of smart phones and social media resulted in an explosion in big data.
The growth in big data will continue to proliferate as we move into the world of 5G from 2019 onwards which will be based around smart intelligent devices and sensors.
The growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) will be driven by greater adoption of sensors and cameras that can detect objects (Amazon Go being an example) in shops, hospitals, transportation, homes, factories and offices will be commonplace.
AI will move towards what is termed the edge. Essentially this means more data processing and smarter decision making occurring on the device itself rather than on the cloud. The reason for this is due to the risk of latency. A self driving car or autonomous robot needs to make real time decisions within milliseconds and cannot risk the delay for communication back and forth with a remote server. Hence with edge computing the device itself becomes a smart server. The car can then process the data on board and make real-time decisions.
We will likely see a growth in a hybrid approach with both cloud servers and edge computing being utilised. Large volumes of historic and aggregated data or data that does not need real-time processing will continue to be stored on the cloud.
Ensuring security will be key and hence manufacturers of devices will need to ensure that they have invested appropriately in embedding security into the devices and also to ensure that it is easy for users to update security measures in the future.
Deep learning and machine learning techniques will play essential roles in crunching thought the vast amounts of data that will be generated from multiple sources at a velocity that is far beyond the realm of the human mind to deal with.
Computer vision algorithms will be essential in areas such as security (intruder detection), health care (disease detection) and self driving cars (object detection).
5G networks will play a key role in enabling the volume of data that will need to be transmitted and communicated to enable self driving vehicles to become truly effective.
We are on the verge of an exciting technology revolution and moment in human history as we move towards what is termed the 4th industrial revolution.