HP Innovation Journal Issue 09: Spring 2018 | Page 27

D I G ITA L T R A N S FO R M AT I O N
Innovation
Yet, looking to the not-so-distant future, the staggering
power of today’s devices will seem antiquated. Smart-
phones, computers, and many of the technologies that
define our modern life will be one billion times more
powerful than they are today. AI will not be an emergent
technology anymore, but deeply enmeshed in our world,
powering our productivity and simplifying our daily lives
(think: “Cortana, write the report on the sales numbers for
me... and send the car to pick up my shopping.”).
At the same time, virtual reality, augmented reality,
blended reality, hypermobility, and haptic holography will
grow exponentially and become more advanced, merging
the 2D and 3D worlds and building on immersive com-
puting platforms like Sprout by HP—which lets users
take physical items and import and merge them into a
digital workspace.
3D printing, which can be better described as short-run
manufacturing, is poised to disrupt the $12 trillion global
manufacturing industry. HP tools like 3D Multi Jet Fusion
technology can produce parts 10 times faster and at half
the cost of the previous generation of 3D printers. Stepping
beyond traditional 3D printers, we are now able to redefine
the broader design-make-build process so dramatically as
to create a new, “Fourth Industrial Revolution”—a revolu-
tion that will truly mature over the next decade.
Impact
Digital disruption does not just offer promising tools that
dramatically boost productivity; rather, it will trigger a
seismic shift in the way our economy operates. To succeed
in this future, we must focus on three core trends: rapid
urbanization, a changing workforce, and—as I’ve men-
tioned before—the mind-blowing pace of innovation. The
changes we’ve seen over the course of our lives are just a
small preview of what the next decade will bring.
By 2030, there will be 8.5 billion people on our planet.
According to McKinsey, by 2025, 1.8 billion new consumers
will join the world economy, with most of them living in
cities. These cities are going to be smarter than ever before,
leading to massive government investment cycles in tech.
At the same time, tighter living will lead to an increasingly
shared economy. It’ll be service-led and on-demand, and
it’s why we’ve created our enhanced Device-as-a-Service
offering—an opportunity to provide more managed ser-
vices, generating recurring revenues, and getting closer to
customers. All while staying in step with urban spending
patterns, which will continue to move over the next decade.
As we become more urbanized, our notion of work is
also changing. Enter: the gig economy. Once a trendy catch-
phrase, today it contributes more than $1 trillion to the
global economy. In the gig economy, professional life and
personal identity are no longer separated, and professional
technology is personal. As the 2.6 billion members of Gen-
eration Z on this planet enter the workforce over the next
few years, there is enormous opportunity to provide devices
and solutions that are more personal and more flexible.
These will power a mobile, connected, and design-oriented
workforce like never before.
And those devices and solutions, they’re going to be
clever. Very clever. Did I mention, one billion times more
powerful? With the rise of AI, we’re entering an era of
“omni-intelligence”—where data flows through every aspect
of life and work. We’ll see a massive growth in data—44
Zetabytes by 2020, the equivalent to 352 million years of
UHD video. This information will be harnessed by AI to
reduce complexity and unlock new business models that
will change the world.
But, with all this innovation, cyber criminals will
innovate in step. Organizations will spend more than $90
billion on security protection in 2018 alone. Through HP’s
The Wolf and The Fixer content series, we’re driving aware-
ness of the importance of security. We’ve also created our
Security Advisory Board. This is a trio of former hackers,
welcomed into our company to act as a reconnaissance
team, providing insights from the front lines of the cyber
war that we’ll use to reinforce our own security work.
Our shared responsibility
While we can envision that future, we also recognize many
may fear the incredible disruption which these advances
will bring to our society. Many worry that their privacy will
be intruded upon, their jobs will become obsolete, or that
human interaction will be lost. Especially when it comes
to jobs, we must be realistic in the context of the evolu-
tion of chatbots, deep-learning AI, self-driving vehicles, or
advanced factory robotics—most jobs that are based on a
routine will be automated in the future.
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