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Enabling information and communication technologies

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) will continue to have a significant impact both in developing and developed countries. Like other technologies the rate of change will continue to increase and new ICTs will surely make a major difference to the functioning of societies over the next twenty years. There will be new ways of communicating and social networking – with implications for science and the production and maintenance of the scientific record.

2011

ICSU Foresight Analysis

International Council for Science (ICSU)

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The triumph of globalism

There is recognition that the socio-economic challenges do not recognize national boundaries and are best addressed cooperatively. Global governance has received new lifeblood with the full support of the traditional world powers and the newly industrialized countries. While states have taken the lead in establishing this new global order, the emergence of an active global citizenry, together with a newly invigorated UN system, has played an important role in the formation of new issue-focused networks that tackle a range of pressing grand challenges around energy, food, environment, health and poverty.

2011

ICSU Foresight Analysis

International Council for Science (ICSU)

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Science supplying national needs

After a series of major global economic crises over the preceding two decades, there is public disenchantment with globalization and a strong push towards new localized growth models with sustainability at their core. The goal is to be more self-sufficient, to increase local production for internal and regional markets, and to improve quality of life and societal satisfaction, rather than growth per se. At the same time, efforts to build effective global governance structures have largely failed and instead, complex national and supranational regional alliances have formed among states, businesses and civic groups to address pressing challenges. Diverse national and regional solutions prosper in a widely experimental society.

2011

ICSU Foresight Analysis

International Council for Science (ICSU)

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Science for sale in a global market place

The global free-market economy reigns and intense levels of interaction occur between economic agents across national borders. Thousands of multinational companies constitute powerful international players and drive the ever-faster pace of globalization. New scientific discoveries and technological developments have created whole new industries that power economic development in advanced and a few rapidly emerging economies. Countries have increasingly specialized in supplying only certain products to global markets, but still compete intensely for the investments of foot-loose capitalism. These investments include R&D facilities and funding, which are much more widely dispersed across advanced and emerging economies than in previous times.

2011

ICSU Foresight Analysis

International Council for Science (ICSU)

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Rise of aggressive nationalism

With the rise of the new and emerging economies, an ongoing power struggle for global leadership and resources has created a great deal of uncertainty and instability in the international state system. Largely unresolved sustainable development issues and the competition for finite resources present a potential trigger for war. In the uncertain geopolitical environment, nation states are the key actors. Economic powerhouses, including the USA, Germany and a number of the newly industrialized countries, act as leadership poles and dominate international decision-making structures. With an increase in international tensions, the economies of the leading powers are largely driven by national military-industrial complexes.

2011

ICSU Foresight Analysis

International Council for Science (ICSU)

view report

Deep learning accelerators

Deep learning accelerators such as GPUs, FPGAs, and more recently TPUs. More companies have been announcing plans to design their own accelerators, which are widely used in data centers. There is also an opportunity to deploy them at the edge, initially for inference and for limited training over time. This also includes accelerators for very low power devices. The development of these technologies will allow machine learning (or smart devices) to be used in many IoT devices and appliances.

2018