At GITEX Technology Week 2019, Dell Technologies revealed the Future of Connected Living – research study that explores how emerging technologies will transform how we live by the year 2030. The research, conducted in partnership with Institute for the Future (IFTF) and Vanson Bourne, surveyed 4,600 business leaders from over 40 countries that included the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The findings detail a future brimming with opportunity as advancing technologies hold the potential to drive human progress across the world.
Emerging technology driving major shifts
IFTF and forum of global experts forecast that technologies such as edge computing, 5G, AI, Extended Reality (XR) and IoT will combine to create five major “shifts” in the coming decade. These shifts will have the power to change lives across the globe.
IFTF forecasts the following shifts between now and 2030:
- Networked Reality: Over the next decade cyberspace will become an overlay on top of our existing reality as our digital environment extends beyond televisions, smartphones and other displays.
- Connected Mobility and Networked Matter: The vehicles of tomorrow will essentially be mobile computers. We will trust them to take us where we need to go in the physical world as we interact in the virtual spaces available to us wherever we are.
- From Digital Cities to Sentient Cities: Cities will quite literally come to life through their own networked infrastructure of smart objects, self-reporting systems and AI-powered analytics.
- Agents and Algorithms: We will each be supported by a highly personalized “operating system for living” that is able to anticipate our needs and proactively support our day-to-day activities to free up time.
- Robot with Social Lives: Robots will become our partners in life – enhancing our skills and extending our abilities. Robots will share newfound knowledge to their social robot network to crowdsource innovations and accelerate progress, in real time.
Anticipating Change
Many businesses in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are already preparing for these shifts. For example, the survey found that among the business leaders surveyed in those countries:
- 83% expect they will restructure the way they spend their time by automating more tasks.
- More than half of businesses surveyed indicated that they anticipate Networked Reality to becoming commonplace
- 53% say they would welcome day-to-day immersion in virtual and augmented realities
- 70% say they would welcome people being fitted with technology that controls computers with their mind (brain computer interfaces)
- 76% believe they will travel in a self-driving car by 2030
Navigating Challenges
These major technology-led shifts may challenge people and organizations that are grappling with change, according to the research. Organizations that wish to harness the power of the new emerging technologies will need to take steps to effectively collect, process and deploy data to keep pace with rate of rapid innovation.
Additionally, concerns around the fairness of algorithms that do everything from decide how companies hire to who is eligible for loans must be addressed, as will growing concerns from the public about data privacy. Governments will need to learn how to work together to share and deploy their data if cities are to go from digital to sentient.
Business leaders in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are already anticipating some of these challenges:
- 74% of surveyed businesses leaders say they consider data privacy to be a top societal-scale challenge that must be solved
- 37% call for AI regulation and clarity on how it’s used
To execute the research, IFTF relied on its decades-long study on the future of work and technology, the latest Dell Technologies research, and experts from across the globe. The Future of Connected Living is the third and final part in a three-part research series that includes The Future of the Economy and The Future of Work, both of which were released earlier in 2019.
Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President, Middle East, Russia, Africa and Turkey at Dell Technologies said: “It is clear that organizations and governments across the world and in particular the UAE and Saudi Arabia, understand how emerging technologies like 5G, AI, Extended Reality, IoT and more, can have a positive impact on building the digital economies of the future. With disruption and change, comes opportunity and growth. Organizations that invest in technologies that are agile and can easily adapt to the changing landscape will deliver game-changing transformation, as they prepare to enter this next era of human and machine partnerships. At a time of unprecedented change, Dell Technologies is committed to delivering the most innovative technologies to help customers in the region reach peak potential in the digital future, that in turn will help power the innovation agenda of the ambitious ‘Digital Transformation’ strategies outlined in the UAE Vision 2021 and Saudi Arabia Vision 2030.”
