Ericsson highlights 5 trends shaping innovation at 2017 ICT

Rafiah Ibrahim

Ericsson’s Group Chief Technology Officer Ulf Ewaldsson has identified five key technology trends that will stimulate innovation within the ICT industry in 2017, creating new value streams for consumers, industries and society.
“Tech companies often gain competitive advantage by causing market disruption through their ability to understand and act on technology trends. Like waves in the ocean, it’s much easier to ride these trends if you can see them coming and read them right. But of course, true technology leadership happens when you start making your own waves,” Ewaldsson said.
“As I see it, there are five key technology trends that will stimulate innovation within the ICT industry in the coming year, creating new value streams for consumers, industries and society. We need to see what fits them better. We need to be sensitive to their needs and plans,” Ewaldsson stated.
“Understanding our customers’ culture is very critical. In different parts of the world, operators conduct business in different ways. We need to understand that, and we respect the sensitivity of that issue,” said Ericsson Region Middle East and East Africa Head Rafiah Ibrahim.
According to Ewaldsson, the five key technology trends that will stimulate innovation within the ICT industry in 2017, the trends include spreading intelligence throughout the cloud-connected smart machines such as robots and autonomous vehicles; combining sensory data with AI techniques that enables the data from massive numbers of sensors to be merged and processed; evolving communication in a highly remarkable way over the coming years; the laws of physics being the only real restriction on the development of communication networks; and in a world where everyone’s personal and financial information is available online, cyber security and privacy remain very serious issues for consumers, corporations and governments alike.