The leaders of the IEEE Computer Society (CS) – the world’s leading membership organisation dedicated to computer science and technology – announced their 2024 technology predictions and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is topping the list. 

Generative AI applications are predicted to experience the most advancement and largest market adoption, being that AI substantially enables nearly all other technologies on the list. 

The IEEE CS focused on 21 emerging technologies on which to base their predictions. Each of these technologies were judged based on anticipated 2024 metrics, including potential technology development success, technological maturity, impact to humanity, and market adoption. The results were:

1. Generative AI Applications: Generative AI use will increase with rapidly expanding efficiency and new applications and services both beneficial and detrimental. Ethical and societal issues will continue to rise. Expect strong short-term impacts on business, education and society.
2. Next Generation AI: The evolving advancements and developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence that push the boundaries beyond current capabilities. It is the next generation of AI systems that is expected to be more advanced and sophisticated than the current ones.
3. Advances in Cybersecurity: Cybersecurity advances will enhance public confidence and will enable reliance on the cyber infrastructure for large scale applications including energy production and distribution.
4. Managing Misinformation: AI deepfakes (text, audio, visual) will become regular tools that will require careful management.
5. Remote Healthcare: Monitoring sensors and system-level data integration will enable patients to obtain remote medical assistance, physicians to improve diagnosis and treatment, optimal utilisation of individuals’ medical history, and efficient health care delivery protocols.
6. Digital Twins for Vertical Applications: These applications will advance the  state-of-the-art of predictions, what-if-analysis and oversight in a number of industries, such as data centres, medicine, geo-physical hazards, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and many others.
7. New 3D Printing Applications: These will evolve towards customised and automated solutions in many domains.
8. New Programming Models: Advances in AI, broader adoption of script-based languages, and further digital transformation into non-programmers’ world will further increase ease of development and require new programming models and methodologies.
9. Reliability: This topic will emerge as a major concern in a widespread set of application fields.
10. Autonomic Autonomous and Hybrid Systems: These systems will see increased development and adoption in areas, such as driving, laboratory work, agriculture, and many others.
11. Distributed Energy Resources for Powering Data Centers: Engaging renewable energy based on distributed energy resources for powering data centres will have a high impact on clean energy requirements for data centres.
12. Sustainable Information and Communications Technology (ICT): Sustainable ICT will evolve by designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of electronic systems efficiently and effectively for new use cases, with minimal or no impact on the environment.
13. Regenerative AgriTech: As a holistic, circular approach to farming that strives to improve the health of agroecosystems and the natural ecosystems that support them, regenerative AgriTech will rise in importance.
14. Non-Terrestrial-Networks: Satellites and high-altitude platforms will expand and augment the capabilities of terrestrial networks involving wireless and cabled communications in the quest to connect everything to everything in real time.
15. New Battery Chemistry and Architecture: This evolution will replace Lithium and will make it possible to make batteries that are cheaper and more sustainable.
16. Low Power AI Accelerators: This technology will provide key-components for practical, compact, cost-effective, long-term reliable computation units for self-driving vehicles and AI robots, data-centres, Large Language Models, systems, smart phones, games.
17. Alternate Materials for Electro Machines (EV motors)): Inadequate raw materials for conventional high-performance electro machines motivates discovery and engineering.
18. Cost Effective Recycling of Batteries (e.g. Lithium): Recovering materials for reuse will reduce the need for mining and increase the general sustainability of battery technology.
19. Metaverse: The metaverse will bridge the gap between the real and the digital worlds, by solving real world industrial problems digitally.
20. Accessible Quantum Computing: This technology will improve public understanding and access to the power of quantum computing, increasing ‘conventional’ computing efficacy exponentially.
21. Satellite (Constellation) Recycling: This initiative will enable circular economy in space ensuring long term sustainability. It’s expected to be an initial success in 2024 with increasing awareness of the tremendous impact on Humanity.

From these 21 predictions, three megatrends were recognized, arranging advancements into the categories of artificial general intelligence, digital transformation, and sustainability. 

You can access the full document containing the list registering here.