Trends Identified
Novel Weapons
Out to 2040, the development and deployment of novel weapons is likely to become widespread. There is likely to be continuing demand for weapon systems to be tailored and adaptable, offering variable yields, detonation characteristics, degrees of precision coverage and reduced logistic burden. They will need the ability to defeat national strategic assets, infrastructure and forces in well-prepared defensive positions. This will often be in difficult terrain, such as the urban environment.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Big data, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence
Big data and IoT are new digital developments that make it possible to optimize business operations and facilitate the creation of new products, services and industries. The possibility of collecting unlimited amounts of data through Internet-connected sensors and monitoring of the web and social media allows prediction of demand, estimation of rural incomes (based on mobile phone activity) and anticipation of civil unrest. While such technologies add to the existing toolkit for development, the availability of fine-grained and increasingly personal data also introduces new risks (see section D.2). Such technologies therefore merit attention from policymakers. In the last few years, artificial intelligence has become a major focus of attention for technologists, investors, governments and futurists. Since it was first proposed more than 60 years ago, artificial intelligence has experienced periods of progress but also of stagnation, when it has been virtually sidetracked while other technologies advanced exponentially. However, recent breakthroughs have led to major advances, driven by machine learning and deep learning, facilitated by access to huge amounts of big data, cheap and massive cloud computing, and advanced microprocessors (Kelly, 2016:38–40).Artificial intelligence now includes image recognition that exceeds human capabilities and greatly improves language translation, including voice translation through natural language processing, and has proved more accurate than doctors at diagnosing some cancers.
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
3D printing
Another recent digital development, 3D printing, also offers potential economic, social and environmental benefits for developing countries. Invented three decades ago, 3D printing has become a viable technology for global manufacturers to produce critical parts for airplanes, wind turbines, automobiles and other machines as a result of huge reductions in its costs and complementary developments in computer-aided design, the Internet, new materials for manufacturing and cloud computing (Campbell et al., 2011).
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Biotechnology and health tech
Advances in ICT have allowed an increasing integration of synthetic biology, systems biology and functional genomics into biotechnology. Through convergence of an ever-expanding range of “omics” technologies – genomics, proteomics (proteins), metabolomics (biochemical activity), etc. – computational biology explores the roles, relationships and actions of the various types of molecules that make up the cells of an organism (Emerging Technologies, 2014), allowing the functions of organisms to be better understood, from the molecular level to the system level, and advancing biotechnology applications. The cost of sequencing a complete human genome has fallen faster even than implied by Moore’s Law (section C.2) to around $1,000, and is expected to cost no more than a regular blood test by the early 2020s (Wadhwa with Salkever, 2017:123–124).
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Advanced materials and nanotechnology
Nanomaterials are materials manufactured and used at an infinitesimal scale, on the order of one billionth of a metre, which behave differently from their larger counterparts, for example in terms of resistance, conductivity or chemical reactivity. They encompass a wide range of organic and inorganic materials, including nanocrystals and nanocomposites. Nanotechnology is a general-purpose technology with multiple applications, which has the potential to revolutionize many industrial sectors. Its applications include: (a) Water remedation and purification, for example through nanofiltration membranes used to treat wastewater in water-scarce countries; (b) Increasing the heat resistance of materials and the Flexibility and performance of electrodes in lithium-ion batteries; (c) Precise control of the release of agrochemicals, improving seed germination and reducing toxicity in the agriculture process, increasing agricultural yields and reducing environmental impacts; (d) Nanoelectronics include devices and materials that reduce weight and power consumption of electronic devices, for example the production of small electronic circuits, enhanced memory storage and faster computer processors; and (e) Medical applications such as the use of gold nanoparticles in the detection of targeted sequences of nucleic acids, and of nanoparticles as a delivery mechanism for medications.
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Renewable energy technologies
Using smart grids, big data and IoT technologies can help to reduce energy consumption, balance energy demand and supply, and ensure and improve the management of energy distribution, while increasing the role of renewable sources by allowing households to feed surplus energy from solar panels or wind turbines into the grid. The real-time information provided by smart grids helps utility companies to respond better to changes in demand, power supply, costs and emissions, and to avert major power outages (UNCTAD, 2015d:23). Zenatix, a Delhibased start-up, for example, uses smart meters and temperature sensors to help households and offices reduce energy consumption through message-based alerts, saving Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology nearly $30,000 annually.23 Renewable energy technologies can provide electricity in remote and isolated rural areas inaccessible to centralized grid systems (UNCTAD, 2017c); and costs have declined dramatically, especially for solar power, which is now cost-competitive with coal and natural gas. The cost of solar cells has dropped by a factor of more than 100 in the last 40 years, from $76.67/watt in 1977 to $0.029/kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2017 (Clark, 2017). Solar energy is now the cheapest generation technology in many parts of the world.24
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Satellites and drones
Communication satellites have been used for Internet access in rural areas and developing countries since the early days of the Internet, and the industry has remained viable as a result of technical progress in launch technology (public and private), antennas, solar power, radios and other electronics, as well as tuning of TCP/IP protocols to account for the quartersecond latency due to the orbital altitude. It has been suggested that these technologies have progressed to the point where high-altitude platform stations (HAPSs) and lower orbit satellites are now viable as well. HAPSs are non-rigid airships, drones or balloons that hover or circulate around 15–30 km in the stratosphere (UNCTAD, 2014a). HAPSs have lower transmission delay (latency), but their signal cover (footprint) tends to be lower compared to other technologies (ibid.:38). An example of a project that offers broadband Internet using satellite communications is the Google Project Loon (ibid.), which uses HAPSs to create an aerial wireless network with up to 3G-like speeds.
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Blockchain
A blockchain is a form of exchange that is permanent and transparent between parties, which does not rely on a central authority (Mulligan, 2017). The premise of the exchange is that each party on a blockchain has access and means to verify the entire database. Further, all transactions are visibly recorded across a distributed peer-to-peer network (Mainelli, 2017). Applications include the following: (a) “Smart contracts”25 are a form of a trusted third party which can automate transactions such as licencing, revenue collection and social transfers, significantly lowering costs. (b) approximately 1.5 billion people who lack it, which would otherwise leave them vulnerable to legal, political, social and economic exclusion.26 Blockchain has been used in identity management, which aids in validating individual identities. For example, Estonia offers citizens a digital identity card based on blockchain, which allows citizens to access public, financial and social services, as well as pay taxes.27 (c) Blockchain is increasingly being used in land and property registration, to validate government related property transactions, reduce paperwork and potentially to reduce property fraud. Examples of countries that are using blockchain for land registration are Ghana,28 Georgia and Sweden.29 (d) Blockchain has been piloted with WFP30 through a humanitarian aid project of cash and food assistance transactions in Jordanian and Syrian refugee camps. The aims are to reduce overhead, improve security and speed up aid in remote areas. (e) In trade finance, which is characterized by many stakeholders and largely paper-based documentation, blockchain can simplify processes, reduce settlement times, errors, fraud and disputes, and increase trust between all parties to a transaction. A group of banks has partnered with blockchain service provider IBM on implementing a new blockchain-based global system for trade finance. Similarly, IBM has teamed with another set of banks to build and host a new blockchain-based system for providing SMEs with trade finance.
2018
Technology and Innovation Report 2018
UNCTAD
Trends in income poverty
Income poverty has fallen sharply in some regions of the world in the past 20 years, although considerable challenges remain, with recent economic shocks and escalating conflicts leading to a resurgence of poverty across different regions and countries.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Multidimensional poverty
During the MDG period the world has seen significant progress in economic and human development.
2017
Global trends
UNDP