By Tunde Abagun, Channel Sales Manager at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tunde Abagun, Channel Sales Manager at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa.

It is that time of year when thoughts turn to a bit of crystal ball gazing and trying to predict the technology trends that will be important to watch in 2023. Given the global market volatility, especially with the ongoing war in Ukraine, companies are looking to tighten budgets even more while still trying to maintain growth.

Distributed manufacturing

One thing that is certain is that the semiconductor chip shortage has put the spotlight on the importance of having a more distributed manufacturing environment. The likes of Broadcom, Nvidia, Intel, and other companies will continue to decentralise their chip manufacturing beyond existing operations in the US, China, or Taiwan.

The benefit of this is that each region will have more sovereignty and can take charge of their own supply chains. This will lead to more cost-effective manufacturing that will spill over to the rest of the supply chain, bringing with it significant cost savings.

In turn, this could serve as a tailwind for digital innovation and drive further adoption of cloud-based technologies.

The decentralised Web

Web3 will arrive in a big way in 2023. This decentralised Web will drive the implementation of blockchain, machine learning technology, synthetic intelligence, and faster connectivity.

It could be the year where decentralised functions and distributed computing technology get even broader adoption. From a security perspective, the spotlight will turn very much to Zero Trust as a means to effectively protect the data and decentralised systems.

With so much ransomware and other advanced threats emerging in recent years, more companies will focus on investing in Zero Trust-ready technologies. This will see them spend less time curating cybersecurity from the inside and more on delivering strategic value to shareholders.

Convergence of OT and IT

A convergence between operational technology (OT) and IT will likely start taking place in 2023. This will likely lead to a centralised platform that hosts both these functions as opposed to the separate way it is currently taking place.

Driving these technologies on the same platform not only results in greater simplicity, but it also brings about increased efficiencies in the processes of organisations. These environments are already being targeted by the same kind of cybersecurity threats like ransomware and denial of service, so it makes sense to integrate them and defend them as part of a cohesive whole.

Metaverse

The elephant in the room is the metaverse. Love it or hate it, chances are it will start making a positive impact for entirely virtual offices in the coming year. As interest in the metaverse grows, so will investments in related technologies like augmented and virtual reality.

Eventually, corporates will start leveraging these technologies to achieve fully virtual offices. In doing so, different use cases for the metaverse will be unlocked as business, and consumer users start becoming more comfortable with the technology. Already, hybrid work has been normalised. It is not a stretch to think that the metaverse will start giving rise to a much more virtual way of work while still giving companies and employees a more flexible environment.

This could also contribute to driving investments in desktop-as-a-service and other distributed technologies. With distributed computing and cloud technologies becoming more integrated into existing business operations, the metaverse and the related solutions will spur further investments into such environments.

Low code / no code

A final trend to consider is the rise of low code / no code technologies. As companies rely on having fewer people on the ground to manage their data centre infrastructure, they will become more reliant on low-code / no-code technologies.

As the labour market takes a dip, these technologies will start surging. This means solutions that enable Dev Sec Ops, automation of Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, micro-services architectures, and even database-as-a-service will become highly sought after. For instance, Nutanix has a database-as-a-service offering that enables enterprises to automate the lifecycle management of the entire database estate, irrespective of the size, type, and scale of these of those databases.

That said, it will be an exciting year for technology. Once the situation in Ukraine has been resolved, the repercussions must be dealt with, which will likely impact everything from food and fuel prices to technology investments.