Companies could never stress this enough that data is the new fuel. Even cybercriminals would go to great lengths to steal valuable customer information and use them for illicit activities.

Dell Technologies, an American multinational technology company, wants its customers to realize the value of their data and how they could make full use of it to optimize business operations. As the world moves to the new normal of the Internet of Things (IoT) where almost everything is automated, data is at the core of every innovation, solutions, and products.

“2020 marks the beginning of what we at Dell Technologies is calling the Next Data Decade,” said Jeff Clarke, Dell Technologies, Chief Operating Officer.

“We are entering this era with new – and rather high – expectations of what technology can make possible for how we live, work and play.”

Amid all the new technologies being introduced, Clarke believes that a handful of breakthroughs and trends will really set the tone for what’s to come over the next 10 years.

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Managing data

Data come in different forms: big data, meta data, structured, and unstructured data. Organizations are struggling to ensure the right data is moving to the right place at the right time. Data visibility — the ability for IT teams to quickly access and analyze the right data — is lacking because the sheer amount of data collected, zetabytes upon zetabytes, proved difficult to manage.

“CIOs will make data visibility a top IT imperative because after all,” Clarke said. “Data is what makes the flywheel of innovation spin.”

These data live in the cloud and Dell believes the marriage between public and private clouds will become an accepted reality this year. Multi-cloud IT strategies supported by hybrid cloud architectures will play a key role in ensuring organizations have better data management and visibility, while also ensuring that their data remains accessible and secure.

Dell said private clouds won’t simply exist within the heart of the data center.

As 5G and edge deployments continue to rollout, private hybrid clouds will exist at the edge to ensure the real-time visibility and management of data everywhere it lives. That means organizations will expect more of their cloud and service providers to ensure they can support their hybrid cloud demands across all environments.

Data consumption

In 2020, flexible consumption and as-a-service options will accelerate as organizations seize the opportunity to transform into software-defined and cloud-enabled IT. As a result, they’ll be able to choose the right economic model for their business to take advantage of end-to-end IT solutions that enable data mobility and visibility, and crunch even the most intensive artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning workloads when needed.

The “edge” continues to evolve – with many working hard to define exactly what it is and where it exists. Once limited to the IoT, it is hard to find any systems, applications, services – people and places – that are not connected. The edge is emerging in many places and it is going to expand with enterprise organizations leading the way, delivering the IT infrastructure to support it.

5G connectivity is creating new use cases and possibilities for healthcare, financial services, education, and industrial manufacturing. As a result, SD-WAN and software-defined networking solutions become a core thread of a holistic IT infrastructure solution – ensuring massive data workloads can travel at speed, securely, among edge, core and cloud environments. Open networking solutions will prevail over proprietary as organizations recognize the only way to successfully manage and secure data for the long haul requires the flexibility and agility that only open software-defined networking can deliver.

Intelligent devices

PC innovation continues to push new boundaries every year – screens are more immersive and bigger than ever, yet the form factor becomes smaller and thinner. But more and more, what is running at the heart of that PC is more transformational than ever. Software applications that use AI and machine learning create systems that now know where and when to optimize power and compute based on your usage patterns.

“With biometrics, PCs know it’s you from the moment you gaze at the screen. And now, AI and machine learning applications are smart enough to give your system the ability to dial up the sound and color based on the content you’re watching or the game you’re playing,” said Clarke.

Over the next year, these advancements in AI and machine learning will turn PCs into even smarter and more collaborative companions. Clarke projected, “They will have the ability to optimize power and battery life for our most productive moments – and even become self-sufficient machines that can self-heal and self-advocate for repair – reducing the burden on the user and of course, reducing the number of IT incidents filed. That’s a huge increase in happiness and productivity for both the end-users and the IT groups that support them.”

Dell said it will invest and uniquely innovate to deliver an autonomous future. But the steps Dell’s customers will take in the next year to get the most out of their data will also set forth new breakthroughs in technology, which in turn, will offer new experiences to all walks of life – whether it be a more powerful device, faster medical treatment, more accessible education, less waste, and cleaner air.