A lot has happened in the tech industry over the last 12 months and today feels like a good opportunity to look back across a sector that has taken huge strides, but also encountered considerable head winds.
The past year has been dominated by AI. Nvidia has just become the world’s most valuable company and the first one to break $4tn market capitalisation. But it is not just the creation of wealth that makes AI so special; what has really stunned the industry, and the world, is the speed of its absorption into everyday life.
AI has been embedded across the board in every sector. MHP Tech has the privilege to work with many of the leaders in the field, including: Efekta, which has launched a personalised AI tutor for language learning; VEON whose LLMs for minority languages like Kazakh, Pashtun and Ukrainian are democratising access to AI; and appliance giant Beko which is bringing AI into our homes.
MHP has not only been involved in how AI is deployed, but also in how it is delivered through our datacentre client Equinix and AI infrastructure specialist NexGen Cloud, which recently celebrated a successful $45mn Series A funding round.
But concerns have been raised over the use of AI in daily tasks, as well as longer-term ethical questions. Similarly, cybersecurity has become weaponised by criminals and state agents alike, with the threat to bring down businesses and sow chaos at will. The progress of technology in defending the world has not kept pace with its ability to enthuse us.
In telecoms, we saw the generational excitement over 5, 6 and even 7G give away to a new era of ubiquitous connectivity based on direct to cell (D2C) technology. This promises to eliminate dreaded dead zones and to reach rural and sparsely populated areas of the world. We were delighted to announce one of the first deployments of D2C in Ukraine, where it will support people trapped in conflict zones where traditional mastheads and backhaul fibre are easily damaged, causing services to be cut. It is remarkable that it is the war-torn Ukraine that will be the first European country to put D2C into action, and testament to the intrepid and determined team at the Ukrainian operator Kyivstar.
Clean technology has had a frenetic year, as governments wrestle with energy policy and reach remarkably different conclusions. The reality is that much of the promise of the energy transition is now in motion and beyond the point of no-return. From grids powered by renewables and backed up by energy storage, to the decarbonisation of industry through hydrogen, we are seeing remarkable progress with huge reasons to be optimistic.
Interest in Robotics also resurged in the past year, with news focussing on advancements in humanoid robots, particularly with the deployment of Agility Robotics’ Digit in its first official job, and the development of more advanced humanoid robots like the PUDU D9. Investment in robotics is a major trend, with notable funding rounds and the growing integration of AI and machine learning that will transform the capabilities of robots, enabling them to perform more complex tasks and operate with greater autonomy.
Maybe the most unremarked on breakthrough in the past year, however, has been in quantum computing. A technology that could literally change the world as we know it through everything from cures for cancer to incredible new materials came a major step closer to reality. In December, Google announced that the Willow quantum chip has purportedly cracked the error correction conundrum that has stymied the development of quantum for the past 30 years. Rather than being defeated by the huge increase of errors as the number of qubits is scaled up, Willow actually reduces errors exponentially as more qubits are added. This means the prospect of deployable quantum computers is real; to give an idea of the performance they could deliver, Willow completed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion (that is, 10^24) years – a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe.
Whether it is AI, D2C, cleantech, robotics or quantum, the first 12 months of MHP Tech has been a golden year for the technology industry with amazing prospects for the years ahead.
