Business growth – what organizations should watch out for

business growth IT — Image by LadadikArt | Bigstockphoto

IT operations have majorly evolved over the last three years, with c-suite leaders and IT decision-makers prioritizing IT transformation for business growth. Businesses are already leveraging Cloud, Edge, and AI to enable resilient and sustainable operations. Use cases are everywhere: better patient monitoring in healthcare, improved traffic management, building smart factories, and remote asset management in the oil and gas industry.

As digital progress continues to gain momentum against the backdrop of an accelerated rate of digitization, here are five key IT trends that we expect will transform businesses in 2023:

5G to revamp IT infrastructure

The deployment of 5G in Singapore is set to boost IT services like never before. According to the International Trade Administration, one of Singapore’s primary telecom service providers announced in July 2022 that it had achieved over 95% standalone 5G nationwide coverage, making Singapore the first country in the world to have complete standalone 5G coverage. With 5G set to bring high-speed networks to process data faster, businesses can modernize infrastructure and experience enhanced performance complementing IoT, AR/VR, experiential platforms, and other technological advancements. IoT (Internet of Things) and edge computing will significantly impact industries such as banking & finance, e-commerce, healthcare, and civil services, among others. As organizations continue to migrate to the cloud, efficient workload and application management will necessitate advanced enterprise IT solutions.

The business benefit of as-a-Service (aaS)

IT decision-makers (ITDMs) are constantly on the lookout for avenues to reduce complexities and gain ultimate flexibility for their IT infrastructure investments. According to an Equinix report released in July this year, more than two-thirds (69%) of IT decision-makers in Singapore are moving to an everything-as-a-service (XaaS) model, citing the simplification of IT infrastructure (70%), improved user experience (61%) and flexibility (59%) as the key reasons for doing so. An everything-as-a-service offering, such as TruScale, can enable businesses of all sizes with flexibility, they need to stay competitive with a scalable, cloud-like consumption model, and this trend will see an uptake in the coming year. TruScale deploys hybrid cloud and data recovery solutions as-a-service where enterprises pay for only what they use – managing costs more efficiently.

Businesses in Singapore are benefiting from infrastructure scalability, improved performance, and reduced costs by adopting XaaS. As the as-a-Service gains prominence in 2023, more businesses can access flexible IT infrastructure through one solution provider and one contract and accelerate their transformation.

Innovations in energy efficiency will become a part of IT strategy

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities are transforming government compliance resoluteness to an absolutely ‘must do’ initiative. In 2023, businesses will continue leveraging innovative technologies to reduce their carbon footprint. Technologies such as warm-water and air-assisted liquid cooling help businesses reduce energy consumption while increasing agility, resiliency, and performance. We are one step ahead of this trend at Lenovo with our fifth-generation Lenovo Neptune™ Direct Water-Cooling technology. This technology extends industry-leading data center efficiency to a broader range of servers, recycling loops of warm water to cool systems and enabling customers to reduce power consumption by up to 40%.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)will gain more prominence

GPUs are evolving from being used just for gaming to strengthening computers in effectively solving difficult algorithms. They are equipped with deep learning and super samples, enabling GPUs to learn independently, eliminate bottlenecks, and support high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. This technology will continue to help businesses with interoperability with desktops, laptops, and servers in the coming year.

5G will boost Edge, HPC, and AI

The speed of a 5G network is approximately ten times faster than 4G – edge computing will become viable as real-time processing improves. With 5G and Edge poised to gain stronger traction in 2023, HPC supported by AI will gain prominence. 5G will provide high-speed transfers of large volumes of data. The Edge architecture will aid in employment management and maintenance of application workloads closer to the source of data, i.e., the HPC system, making it more accessible. Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has been focusing its efforts since 2019 on driving industry technical trials to demonstrate the transformative impact of 5G for enterprises as well as supporting the 5G innovation and research ecosystem.

In 2022, the Singapore government invested SGD$2 billion, more than double the amount from $0.79 billion last year, on projects that utilize emerging technologies such as HPC/AI, ML, IoT, edge, and Big Data to improve IT and enhance business outcomes. The acceleration in the adoption of digital technologies results from increased demand by businesses prioritizing streamlined operations, better speed to market, and seamless digital experiences for customers. A positive observation is that businesses in Singapore are moving from the whiteboard to implementation. ITDMs are adopting different technologies to improve overall efficiency and deliver value in today’s hybrid environment, and this trend will further accelerate in 2023.