Page 16 - Issue 1 2023

COMMENT
networks. We expect even broader
adoption of virtualization, software
defined architectures, open systems
and open interfaces with early
adoption of concepts like Open RAN.
While Dell is directly working in
telecom to make this happen,
indirectly every enterprise’s
digital transformation
should benefit from
increased openness and
faster innovation in our
communication systems.
In 2023, we
expect accelerating
innovation to focus
on making the entire
technology ecosystem
work as a platform for
your digital transformation.
We also expect organizations
to lean into technology that gives
them flexibility and open access to
innovation, and to partners who
can coordinate the sprawl into an
automated working system.
And there’s good reason – no
single solution, platform or provider
will deliver on the full promise of
technology. That means that the
proverbial “walled gardens” of
“closed” ecosystems will crumble.
AI will reach an inflection
point
We’ve been talking about the promise
of AI for years. 2023 is a year that
we expect acceleration of real-world
use of AI and machine learning. We
have the tools and software systems.
We have accumulated significant
data sets. We also have invested in
training across almost every industry
so our teams can graduate from
experimentation to real world AI
projects.
At Dell, we have been on this
journey and today have around 1000
projects, products, or efforts focused
on using AI to advance our business.
We are seeing our customers following
a similar path, and in 2023, we’ll begin
to see more real impacts of AI/ML.
That means, we also need more infrastructure optimized for these highly
demanding workloads. Advanced servers and storage to power AI are doing that work
for customers today, but in 2023, there will be an even broader range of acceleration
chips entering the market and a correlating increase in
performance and efficiency.
We also need to make it simpler to
share data between clouds so that
training and inferencing activity
can be distributed. In fact, it is
estimated that by 2025, 88%
of servers for AI workloads
deployed at the edge will be
used for inferencing and the
distribution of not just data,
but also the AI/ML processing
of that data is already
underway.
Organizations that ride the
second wave of AI will see a
distinct competitive advantage as
AI becomes able to better perceive,
learn and reason – and give developers
and data scientists more freedom to deliver
applications and outcomes. Organizations can
enhance productivity and efficiency, lower power
requirements, and accelerate multicloud and edge strategies. As the industry matures,
AI will also become more democratized as open-source AI becomes prevalent and
accessible to larger communities.
Momentum will accelerate for Zero Trust architectures
The digital transformation of the global economy is significantly increasing the number
of potential attack surfaces. The lack of a true perimeter puts organizations at greater
risk to their data, their supply chain and anywhere along that continuum. Today,
ransomware attacks are the #1 threat for most organizations, occurring every 11
seconds and costing $13 million per occurrence.
With so many of our customers globally transforming their security strategies, many
are looking at Zero Trust architectures to better secure their environments. The three
main tenets of Zero Trust aren’t that challenging: universal continuous authentication
of everything; robust authoritative policy driven behaviour; and deeply integrated
threat management.
The real challenge is the current state of the industry, and technology makes the
design and integration of Zero Trust too complex for most customers. Our job is to ease
that burden and simplify the process. This includes assessing an organization’s current
state and delivering actionable insights to mature their cybersecurity programs and
align to Zero Trust. Through the continued development of roadmaps, best practices
and standardization, we can make adoption much quicker and easier. Ultimately, Zero
Trust will become the foundation for a new level of data security and trust in a highly
distributed multi-cloud world where everything is connected.
This shortlist is at the top of my mind for the next year, but if there’s one thing 2022
taught us, it’s how hard it is to predict the future. No doubt, 2023 will be full of
unknowns and surprises. But as a tech optimist, I am confident that innovation will
drive amazing progress. And I’m excited for what lies ahead.
EngineerIT | Issue 1 2023 | 16