KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • By using IT effectively, leaders can gather meaningful and detailed insights into their business, that allow for optimization of current operations in addition to preparing for capitalizing on future trends.
  • Key trends shaping the IT landscape in 2023 and beyond – such as AI-enabled smart connected products, virtual worlds, and quantum computing – support decision-making in formulating business strategy.
  • Research and development into the relationship between IT, business, and personal and social behavior is helping us identify ways to address the global risks associated with new forms of IT, as well as understand the commercial opportunities. 
  • Companies that excel in technology will be able to realize new forms of business, grow trade areas with unprecedented collaborative relationships, and transcend boundaries.
  • IT service companies will be expected to transform in line with their responsibilities to the global environment and human society, and garner more trust. As IT plays an increasingly fundamental role in society, data security will become evermore crucial.
  • Mainstream technology (such as cloud and smart things) will support growth, near-future technology (such as space infrastructure and robotics) will transform our relationship with the natural and virtual world, and emerging technology (such as bioinformatics) will expand the possibilities of the future for organizations and individuals alike.

As the world continues to embrace technologies into virtually every area of everyday life, understanding what technological trends are coming down the road can be make-or-break for businesses.

Having foresight serves as a compass, using observations of the current state of businesses that achieve continued growth through the best and smartest use of IT, to reveal future trends. NTT DATA’s analysis of the most influential and exciting areas of technology shaping 2023 and the coming years is summarized below, along with examples of how developments in the Metaverse and quantum computing are creating new avenues of growth for businesses and new experiences for consumers.

This report, directly related to our technology strategy, will help those who use IT to meet the many challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.

Introduction: IT will drive growth, transcend borders and lay the foundation for future generations

Growth driven by information technology > IT is at the center of corporate activities, both as a touchpoint to provide customers with the best possible services and as a powerful tool for informed decision-making. In particular, AI supports advanced and intelligent decisions, changing how people work and do business. At the same time, IT poses a global risk as a means to commit various crimes and destabilize society – but research and development (R&D) into the relationship between IT, business, and personal and social behavior is helping us identify ways to address the negative aspects. 

Borders transcended by IT > IT-driven organizations have the power to overcome existing business and industry barriers. Smart things – advanced digital technologies like cloud, internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence which have led to the interconnectivity of a wide range of products – are changing manufacturing and service-oriented industries. Companies that excel in IT will be able to realize new forms of business, grow trade areas with unprecedented collaborative relationships, and transcend future boundaries.

The first challenge is maintaining technological innovations, the source of growth.

The future of IT > The continuation of an IT-driven society is a major challenge. The first challenge is maintaining technological innovations, the source of growth. Additionally, IT service companies will be expected to transform in line with their responsibilities to the global environment and human society, and garner more trust. As IT plays an increasingly fundamental role in society, the need to securely handle (and preserve the integrity of ballooning quantities of) data will become evermore crucial.

2023 trends: AI-enhanced everything, space technology and next-generation computing

Growth-supporting mainstream technology > A set of technologies that will support the continued growth of IT and determine when new utility businesses will materialize.

Border-transcending growth technology > Near-future growth technologies are undergoing trials and constantly evolving to secure new areas of differentiation. We foresee the following possibilities and evolutions:

  • Earthly barriers are transcended using space infrastructure.
  • Robotics will achieve intelligence.
  • Virtual worlds will more fully integrate with people.

Future-pioneering emerging technology > A number of elemental technologies that are beginning to show signs of materializing through efforts to explore innovative growth in the near future. 

 

New technologies in action: R&D to advance how we operate in the Metaverse

The Metaverse, which offers services through virtual reality spaces, is poised to drastically change traditional IT uses. NTT DATA is verifying and evaluating technologies that enable the Metaverse, and is conducting proofs-of-concept (PoCs) to realize new business use cases.

Previously NTT DATA has developed services related to the Metaverse such as conferencing systems and health-and-safety courses that utilize virtual spaces. New research is focusing on technologies such as:

  • Head-mounted displays that provide highly-realistic experiences, 
  • Photogrammetry – the science of extracting 3D information from photographs – that facilitates the development of Metaverse spaces by copying the physical world into virtual spaces, and
  • Platforms that provide the basic functions of the Metaverse.

With simulations in the Metaverse, we’re able to drastically improve production processes, saving time and resources, and allowing for more efficient and accurate evaluations of production line performance.

Maximizing the use of the technologies, we are continuously verifying new business use cases for the Metaverse. For example, with simulations in the Metaverse, we’re recreating new production lines in factories in order to confirm functionality without the need for physical lines. This drastically improves production processes, saving time and resources, and allowing for more efficient and accurate evaluations of the production line performance. Additionally, with virtual offices within the Metaverse, we’re facilitating improved communication and streamlined business activities.

Through these R&D efforts, we will accumulate the necessary technologies and business know-how to continue to support our clients’ use of the Metaverse.

 

New technologies in action: the future envisioned by quantum computing and next-generation architecture

Quantum computing and its derivative technologies have the potential to perform traditionally difficult large-scale computations, which will lead to the creation of new business methods in various industries.

NTT DATA’s Quantum Computer/Next-Generation Architecture Lab Service supports PoCs to create these new businesses in a wide range of fields, including manufacturing, finance, logistics and chemicals.

To give one example, NTT DATA, NTT and Komi Hakko Corporation have started joint experiments on the instantaneous and automatic synthesis of scents. 

Komi Hakko has a proprietary technology for describing all the information on scents that humans perceive as digital data. With quantitative scent data, it may be possible to automate the scent formulation process, which was previously performed by experts using their actual noses. However, scent data is exceedingly complex, and can frequently change over time: some scents are perceived immediately, while others linger in the air, creating many factors that need to be considered. Therefore, the data analysis process for prototyping and evaluating this technology was extremely time consuming. NTT DATA is improving its calculation technology to perform the analysis instantaneously using NTT’s LASOLV coherent Ising machine.

The efforts of our Quantum Computer/Next-Generation Architecture Lab Service are both domestic and global in scope, helping our clients grow their businesses in innovative ways by optimizing, streamlining, automating and scheduling across all industries.

 

​​Originally published by NTT DATA.

See all from NTT DATA Technology Foresight.