8 top tech trends you should not ignore, from Kyndryl

Technological advances are revolutionising the way businesses of all types interact with their customers. Chief Technology Officer, Kyndryl Australia and New Zealand, Jim Freeman, recently discussed a handful of the most impactful trends during his appearance at the Forbes Australia Business Summit in Sydney.

Intelligent refrigerators, cyber-crime-busting technology, and the mind-blowing power of quantum computing and generative AI. These are just some trends that should be top-of-mind for successful business leaders today, says Chief Technology Officer, Kyndryl Australia and New Zealand, Jim Freeman. 

Spun out of IBM in 2021, Kyndryl is the world’s largest provider of IT infrastructure services. In partnership with businesses and their customers, Kyndryl creates solutions that help enterprises of all types adapt in the face of rapid technological shifts. 

Freeman explored seven trends in seven minutes in a fast-moving presentation at the recent Forbes Australia Business Summit. 

1. Generative artificial intelligence

Kicking off with GenAI, Freeman urged us to think of it as “a very, very smart administrative assistant who speaks 27 languages, can read every digital format in the world and can respond to any of your complex queries.” 

“But it’s only as smart as the data it reads – it’s ‘garbage-in, garbage out’,”  he warned. 

Freeman touched on other challenges, including the extreme energy demands and power consumption required by CPUs that crunch vast volumes of data. 

He also highlighted the ethical challenges AI has presented for those  industries trying to adopt the technology. 

2. How is ai being used?

“It’s currently the pasta process – they’re taking use cases, throwing a heap of spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks because nobody understands the full potential,” Freeman said.  

Freeman urged users to get back to basics: “Find a three-year-old and ask them what you would want a supercomputer to do. I’m serious – it’s the people who can think way outside of the box who are going to win.” 

“It’s the people who can think way outside of the box who are going to win.”

James Freeman

Finally, he emphasised the view that given the scale of the opportunity. “It’s virtually impossible for a firm to over-invest in generative AI,” he said. 

3. The internet of things

Freeman used the popular imagery of a refrigerator that automatically senses when it’s running out of food and sends an order for more supplies to set the scene.  

“The big problem right now is resilience – it’s the pacing parameter for us to realise the potential of wearables, smarter cities and the many other things we want to do, including collecting and controlling data. IoT needs a resilient technical platform to ensure these things perform their functions accurately and reliably,” he said.  

“In the next couple of years, we’ll see a lot of investment in IoT platforms to increase their resiliency.” 

4. Blockchain

Freeman noted that the encryption platform has been around since 2009, having been popularised through the rise of Bitcoin. He also discussed the emergence of NFTs – Non-Fungible Tokens – as an example of how the use cases for blockchain have continued to develop.  

Pointing to the scourge of “deep-fake” videos and other fraudulent content, Freeman suggested we may in the future see widespread use of blockchain NFTs as “seals of authenticity” on digital products. 

5. Cloud computing

In the sphere of software application, Freeman discussed the rapid rise of cloud-based services as a transformative long-term theme supporting organisations to adapt new, innovative solutions more easily.  

“With the cloud, as the IT manager, I no longer have to worry about any of the traditional infrastructure headaches; configuration, performance, upgrades. I can capitalise on innovations as they come, such as GenAI and analytics, which are now available in the cloud,” Freeman said. 

6. 5G

On a related note, he also discussed the role that the rising adoption of all these technologies is having in boosting demand for higher-speed data services.  

“Over the next five years, we expect consumption to grow 14 times the current level on the back of IoT, GenAI and cloud. That enablement of computing is going to see huge bandwidth consumption,” Freeman said. 

7. Quantum computing

Freeman discussed what this evolution of computing technology means for the global economy.  

To demonstrate how quantum computing compares to traditional processing power  today, he used the example of website encryption technology. 

“HTTPS decryption using today’s computing power would take 37 billion years – the universe’s age. With quantum, the same problem could be solved in eight hours. That’s how much more powerful quantum is than what we have today.” 

However, Freeman notes that quantum technology hasn’t yet moved outside the lab, and there are key challenges in manufacturing.  

“Qubits need to be developed in absolute-zero temperatures and when wired together with traditional silicone technology that doesn’t work well. So right now, they can work in the lab but aren’t yet commercially viable.” 

8. Hybrid – The collision of the old and new

Freeman suggested this is today’s biggest headache within the IT space, where  managers seek to marry up existing applications running on traditional IT platforms with those running on the cloud. 

“It’s like having 45 kids, aged from 2 to 18 years, and you’ve got to take a 22-hour bus trip, keeping them all safe, fed and happy,” he said. 

“Kyndryl has been investing in our observability platform, Bridge, a single pane  of glass that allows businesses to create homogeneous ‘managers of managers’ within these hybrid environments so that applications can work consistently across traditional and cloud environments. And that manager of managers is AI-powered. 

For more information, visit kyndryl.com/au/en