NTT Ltd., a leading global IT infrastructure and services
company, today announced its key technology predictions for 2024.
As IT teams start planning, and organizations adapt to 2023’s
biggest disruptor – Generative AI, the new year will see a mixture
of both new and key trends gaining traction across networking,
Edge, Private 5G, data centers and cloud.
“AI Adoption is growing exponentially and with AGI and
technological singularity still in the distant future, humans will
be a critical part of AI story,” said Shahid Ahmed, Group EVP, New
Ventures and Innovation, NTT Ltd. “Organizations must look beyond
the next year to ensure they have the capabilities to enable new
technologies of the future and strive to hit sustainability
targets.”
1. 'Dark NOC' will enter the lexicon of
the networking world. With the speed at which AIOps has
advanced, the idea of a completely automated, lights out Network
Operations Center is quickly becoming an ideal. Over the next 12
months, networking companies will further embed AIOps into their
broader operations to improve network quality, support engineers,
and modernize infrastructures. While automation lays at the heart
of a ‘Dark NOC’, human talent will be key to making it a success.
Network providers will need to focus on upskilling, as well as
ensuring they have made the necessary preparations from a
technological standpoint – from standardizing APIs to optimizing
data processes. Networking specialists must understand where
automation helps and where human talent is still an essential part
of the networking function.
2. AI will drive investment in more
disruptive energy supplies for data center infrastructure.
Typical data center racks consume around six to eight kilowatts of
electricity. AI is accelerating that increase in density, and it is
now common to see racks anywhere from 50 to 100 kilowatts, and
beyond. The expectation is that power consumption will double and
triple in the coming years. These racks, which consequently
generate more heat, and need more cooling, are playing havoc with
enterprises net zero targets. In 2024, more enterprises will work
in close partnership with their energy providers to explore more
sustainable options. Tightening data center regulations will
accelerate this disruptive trend, as more governments and
subscribers prescribe specific energy efficiency usage and/or
supplies, to meet their own sustainability goals. NTT is already
using techniques like liquid immersion cooling, district heating
projects, and researching solar panels in space to power its data
centers, among other things.
3. Sustainability will be integral to all
new tech solutions. Sustainability has previously been
identified as a top three driver of innovation and primary
consideration in the IT procurement process. Next year, it will
have a much greater impact on which technologies IT teams pilot,
invest in, procure and scale - particularly as regulations evolve,
newly develop and tighten. For example, as of 1st January 2024, 50
percent of the electricity used in German data centers must be
supplied by unsubsidized renewable electricity sources. From 2027,
the requirement will be 100 percent. On their path to net zero and
nature-positive operations, enterprises will increasingly look to
leverage new technologies like Private 5G networks, used by global
enterprises such as LyondellBasell and Schneider Electric, to drive
critical smart factory applications that contribute to ESG
initiatives – from carbon mitigation to circular economy of
infrastructure hardware. Greater pressure on IT suppliers will also
help industries achieve their sustainable development goals and
KPIs.
4. Optical networking will get closer to
mainstream. The increased focus on network efficiency,
reliability, sustainability and being future-ready will bring
optical networking to the fore in 2024. Recent trials prove the
potential – achieving 1.2Tbps transmission rates. Across all
industries, over 90% of senior executives are looking to modernize
their networks, ensuring they are set up for the existing
challenges they face, as well as those yet to come. There is also a
wider concerted effort to overcome the limitations of existing
infrastructure with optical technologies. More than 100
organizations are now partnering to drive the IOWN (Innovative
Optical and Wireless Network) forward, ensuring the world is ready
for future technologies and bringing optical networking closer to
mainstream.
5. IoT ecosystems will boost P5G and Edge
adoption. The combination of IoT, Private 5G, and edge
computing will enable organizations to gain real-time insights and
make better decisions. With enterprises accelerating digitization
efforts, more connectivity and even more devices are needed as
enterprises continue to digitize their physical environments. The
edge will significantly grow in importance as enterprises need data
to feed analytics platforms powered by AI/ML. Increased automation
due to labor shortages, computer vision, and digital twins will be
key use cases driving the need for robust edge capabilities. To go
further, organizations need outside help, with 8 in 10 expecting
their dependency on third-party edge services to grow over the next
2 years. NTT and its partners are using their combined expertise to
meet the need for 5G-enabled devices that support use cases, such
as push-to-talk devices, augmented reality headsets, computer
vision cameras and sensors at the edge across the manufacturing,
automotive, logistics and other industries, specifically around
private networks and P5G.
6. Human skills will be essential for the
uptake of AI. NTT’s 2023 Global CX Report found that the
majority of CX interactions still require a form of human
intervention, with executives agreeing that this will remain a
critical part of customer journeys. Despite 4 in 5 organizations
planning to incorporate AI into CX delivery within the next 12
months, the human element will be central to its success. As
enterprises turn their attention to how automation can complement
and enhance human capabilities, they will place greater emphasis on
closing the mounting skills shortages that will challenge AI
aspirations. The fundamentals of AI and big data analytics will
become baseline skills for a majority of jobs across industries,
but new hires won’t be the only pathway. Research by NTT DATA
uncovered that business leaders are more likely to have seen
profitability of more than 25% over the last three years because of
investments in reskilling and upskilling initiatives. This will
continue into 2024, with more curated teaching experiences to help
close skills gaps and meet the needs of organizations.
7. Invisible clouds will start to go
vertical. When working well, cloud environments become
invisible, leaving applications on stage, front, and center. This
has largely been achieved with office apps, project management
tools, CRM solutions and the like, but not quite yet mastered for
specific industries. That will change next year. In 2024, vertical
specific clouds package software, PaaS, and IaaS layers to deliver
industry-centric use cases focused on business outcomes, rather
than the technology itself will increase. Analysts have been
expecting this for some time, and there is now a great deal of
interest in these projects. A transformation services provider for
the transportation and defense industries, has already transitioned
to a managed cloud infrastructure to optimize spending and reduce
costs.
About NTT Ltd.
As part of NTT DATA, a USD 30 billion IT services provider, NTT
Ltd. is a leading IT infrastructure and services company serving
65% of the Fortune Global 500 and more than 75% of the Fortune
Global 100. We lay the foundation for organizations’ edge-to-cloud
networking ecosystem, simplify the complexity of their workloads
across multicloud environments, and innovate at the edge of their
IT environments where networks, cloud and applications converge. We
offer tailored infrastructure and ensure consistent best practices
in design and operations across all of our secure, scalable and
customizable data centers. On the journey towards a
software-defined future, we support organizations with our
platform-delivered infrastructure services. We enable a connected
future.
Visit us at services.global.ntt
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231213915990/en/
Hotwire for NTT Ltd. Hannah Lock
hannah.lock@hotwireglobal.com
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