Trends Identified

Putting Einstein to the test - The nearest supermassive black hole will give astronomers a great laboratory
In 2015, almost exactly a century after he concocted it, Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity got a spectacular confirmation when scientists detected gravitational waves. These undulations, launched by the dances of distant, massive objects, minutely stretch the weft and warp of space time itself (and thereby of experiments designed to intercept them).
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Quantified Self (Predictive Analytics)
The quantified-self movement has existed for many years as a collaboration of people collecting continual data on their everyday activities in order to make better choices about their health and behaviour. But, with today’s Internet of Things, the movement has begun to come into its own and have a wider impact. Smartphones contain a rich record of people’s activities, including who they know (contact lists, social networking apps), who they talk to (call logs, text logs, e-mails), where they go (GPS, Wi-Fi, and geotagged photos) and what they do (apps we use, accelerometer data). Using this data, and specialized machine-learning algorithms, detailed and predictive models about people and their behaviours can be built to help with urban planning, personalized medicine, sustainability and medical diagnosis. For example, a team at Carnegie Mellon University has been looking at how to use smartphone data to predict the onset of depression by modelling changes in sleep behaviours and social relationships over time. In another example, the Livehoods project, large quantities of geotagged data created by people’s smartphones (using software such as Instagram and Foursquare) and crawled from the Web have allowed researchers to understand the patterns of movement through urban spaces. In recent years, sensors have become cheap and increasingly ubiquitous as more manufacturers include them in their products to understand consumer behaviour and avoid the need for expensive market research. For example, cars can record every aspect of a person’s driving habits, and this information can be shown in smartphone apps or used as big data in urban planning or traffic management. As the trend continues towards extensive data gathering to track every aspect of people’s lives, the challenge becomes how to use this information optimally, and how to reconcile it with privacy and other social concerns.
2014
Top 10 emerging technologies for 2014
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Quantum communication
(Definition) The technology is a method to deliver the password created using quantum technology safely; when there is a bug, the password key will be damaged. (Application) Tapping and monitoring are blocked initially providing a new paradigm of security system for areas such as financial network where personal information pass around. (Impact) Not only information leakage can be blocked at source, but the transmission speed can be vastly increased. Quantum communication technology is worth $ 3.3 billion world wide.
2014
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2014
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Quantum computing
Quantum computing is a type of nonclassical computing that is based on the quantum state of subatomic particles that represent information as elements denoted as quantum bits or “qubits.” Quantum computers are an exponentially scalable and highly parallel computing model.  A way to imagine the difference between traditional and quantum computers is to imagine a giant library of books. While a classic computer would read every book in a library in a linear fashion, a quantum computer would read all the books simultaneously. Quantum computers are able to theoretically work on millions of computations at once. Quantum computing in the form of a commercially available, affordable and reliable service would transform some industries. eal-world applications range from personalized medicine to optimization of pattern recognition. This technology is still in an emerging state, which means it is a good time for businesses to increase their understanding of potential applications and consider any security implications. Aside from a select group of businesses where specific quantum algorithms would provide a major advantage, most enterprises could remain in exploration phase through 2022 and begin exploiting the technology later.
2018
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019
Gartner
Quantum computing
Quantum computers’ almost limitless potential has only ever been matched by the difficulty and cost of their construction. Which explains why today the small ones that have been built have not yet managed to exceed the power of supercomputers. But progress is being made and in 2016 the technology firm IBM provided the public access to the first quantum computer in the cloud. This has already led to more than 20 academic papers being published using the tool and today more than 50 start-ups and large corporations worldwide are focused on making quantum computing a reality. With such progress behind us, the word on people’s lips now is “Quantum Ready.”
2017
These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2017
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Quantum Computing – Using Particle Physics for Computation
Quantum Computing uses the characteristics of quantum mechanics, i.e. the superposition and entanglement of subatomic particles. The so-called quantum bits (qubits) allow for an exponential gain in computing power compared to classical bits and promise to solve certain problems that are intractably complex and go beyond todays computing power. Quantum computing might threaten cryptography and cryptocurrency, as the unlimited computing power could make many encryptions ineffective. Potential application areas of quantum computing are quantum chemistry, encryption and security, optimization problems, large database search and operations, machine/deep learning, cryptography, DNA and other forms of molecular modeling. Quantum computing is at the very early stage of basic research mainly on quantum computational hardware, with no unambiguous quantum speed up observed yet and with few known algorithms,. The probabilistic nature of quantum computers makes utilization challenging for now. The technology is currently driven by research institutes, big corporate players like Google, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, and most recently investors. According to Gartner, quantum computing is more than 10 years away and it is questionable if we will ever realize general purpose quantum computers. We might instead see rather narrow use cases. At this stage of research, we see the biggest potential in hybrid approaches like using classical FPGA’s in a quantum inspired way. Another idea would be to use build hybrid computers where classical and quantum CPUs are co-located on the same computer. Blind quantum computing could be used to delegate the computation to a quantum server without leaking any information, which might solve some of the expected security issues.
2018
Trend Report 2018 - Emerging Technology Trends
SAP
Quantum Computing AI Applications
2019 will be the year of quantum computing AI applications. Quantum technology recently became available for the public on the cloud and is now set to have a large transformative impact on many industries, providing solutions and answers to problems that supercomputers couldn’t solve before. Major applications are expected in health care (material science), trading and in cybersecurity.
2018
2019 Tech Forecast: 11 Experts Predict The Next Wave Of Breakout Technologies
Forbes
Quantum computing continues to advance
Quantum computing continues to make strides toward quantum supremacy – the point at which a quantum computer does something faster than an ordinary computer. The race to build commercially viable quantum computers is largely motivated by the shear amount of technological disruption this machine is expected to bring. Yet, several breakthroughs will be necessary before construction of a faulttolerant universal quantum processor capable of surpassing present-day supercomputers can be built. It is possible, however, that “imperfect” quantum computers can find interesting applications long before fully fault-tolerant quantum computers are available. In fact, the quest for “quantum supremacy” has paradoxically led to a boom in quasi-quantum classical algorithms. Further, hybrid approaches using both a classical and quantum computer in parallel will allow for running algorithms that demonstrate quantum advantage. Quantum computers may never perform some functions as well as classical computers. For example, no one anticipates streaming a film with a quantum computer. To this end, certain classes of problems will likely remain in the classical domain, and other classes of problems will be handled by quantum computers, such as cryptography, modeling and optimization, machine learning and prediction, and searching big data. Similar to the GPU co-processors that operate alongside classical CPUs, a quantum computer may take on much the same role for co-processing of problems that they are good at. As such, we may be headed toward a landscape of specific purpose quantum computing where classical machines do much of the heavy lifting and sub-portions of problems are handled by quantum machines. This capability is expected to initially be available in the cloud - Quantum Computing as a Service - which will lower the barrier to entry and provide an ability to quickly climb the learning curve. As with all disruptive technologies, quantum computers are both an opportunity and a threat, and Nasdaq is doing R&D to understand their impact on financial services. Our analysis indicates that concerns about quantum computers disrupting existing security solutions are real, and the time to prepare is now. Moreover, programming of quantum computers requires a significant learning curve and a different technical skill set. Finally, there is a need to identify business solutions and design quantum algorithms to solve them.
2019
NASDAQ DECODES: TECH TRENDS 2019 -The technology trends that are driving the world of markets forward
Nasdaq
Quantum Cryptography
Signals are transmitted or decrypted by saving the information in polarized light or phase difference of a photon, using the quantum-mechanical characteristics of the photon. The communication system that can fundamentally block the network attack can be developed using the quantum-mechanical characteristics of the signal.
2011
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2011
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Quantum safe cryptography
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Alphabet/Google (US), KETS (UK), IDQ (Switzerland), Isara (Canada).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London