Kevin Connolly, Dell EMC Canada's President of Commercial Sales, presents three key predictions from Dell Technologies for the coming year.

By Kevin Connolly, President of Commercial Sales at Dell EMC Canada

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More Data, More Clouds, More IT Demands – Welcome to 2019

As our planet ends its trip around the sun, we’re excited to look ahead and think about all the possibilities that are in store for 2019. We’re closing in on the next decade of innovation, leading us closer to 2030, a time where we at Dell Technologies predict humankind will realize the next era of Human-Machine Partnerships. A time when we will be fully immersed in smart living, intelligent work, and a frictionless economy, all while having an excess of data.

So, what does this mean for us and our customers, and how do we prepare them to be able to take advantage of these anticipated changes? In short, embracing digital transformation is critical for organizations to benefit from the data capital available during the Data Era.

As we enter the data-driven digital economy, here are Dell Technologies’ top IT predictions for what to expect this coming year:

 

The data forecast is calling for a multi-tiered approach to cloud, changing the face of the modern data center.

With data growing at the edge and the need for real-time powerful compute at scale to support AI and Machine Learning workloads, the data center is officially becoming distributed. Multi and hybrid cloud adoption models will further evolve and place cloud computing capabilities at every layer of the data journey to address the unique needs inherent at each layer. This shift closer to the edge will support analytics and data management outside of the core as an extension of on-premise cloud. Look for a combination of public, private and hybrid to become the new normal that will make multi-tier clouds a reality but now being distributed widely from huge public data centers to dedicated optimized enterprise data centers to real time edge clouds all the way to more intelligent end devices integrated into this multi-tier multi cloud IT model.

 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will lead to the largest productivity increases we’ve seen in years, not just for people, but for machines.

AI and ML applications will enhance and transform the user experience by reducing both technology and human complexity. The line between human and machine tasks will change and more of the thinking tasks of every business and system will be driven by machine intelligence. AI and ML will continue to leverage the influx of data to drive greater efficiencies and insights that will optimize both the apps and devices we use every day. PCs will be able to predict power consumption needs based on usage patterns while apps will continue to learn from user preferences and behaviors to deliver more personalized experiences. Even large-scale enterprise systems will use AI and ML to drive greater automation and intelligence, making it easier for humans to gather insights or make strategic decisions based on data as we move from peta-scale to exa-scale to zeta-scale. Gartner estimates that in 2021, AI augmentation will generate $2.9 trillion in business value and recover 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity.

 

Blockchain will create a chain-reaction

Blockchain continues to create buzz across the technology sector as organizations continue to look at how it can benefit their business — many will continue to evaluate whether it’s valuable to adopt today, and whether it will add security and trust in their supply chain or across financial transactions. 2019 will be a formative year for practical implementation of blockchain, as organizations work to understand if it’s right for them right now, and if they have the right infrastructure, systems and services to support it. We are now maturing to understand that distributed ledgers are a useful tool where issues of distributed trust and data immutability are critical. This will result in more targeted and useful applications of this new technology.

There is no doubt 2019 will be an exciting year for IT and technology alike as we lean into the Data Era! Be sure to follow our Luminaries in Innovation blog as we continue exploring where technology will take us in 2019 and beyond.