Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on leading AI industry coverage.
Without a doubt, 2023 was the year of AI. And it’s not surprising: next year is expected to focus on AI as well, said John Roese, global CTO for Dell, in a year-end forecast. While AI has been more experimental and inspirational until now, its evolution is rapidly outpacing traditional technology. Soon, businesses will move from theory to practice, fully embracing AI’s fast adoption.
Next year marks the second year of the AI era, Roese emphasized. We’ll start seeing practical, in-production AI systems in enterprises.
In 2024, as companies begin implementing AI, they need a top-down strategy. Roese advised focusing on the core aspects that define the company and applying AI where it matters most. For instance, Dell has around 380 AI-related ideas in the pipeline but can realistically handle only a few. Businesses must learn to prioritize their AI projects effectively.
As they transition to AI inferencing in 2024, companies must plan how to design and place infrastructure efficiently. The tech world is distributed, and so will be AI. Security is crucial, as bad actors might target inference processes. Roese stressed the importance of understanding the security measures needed for AI.
Economically, the discussion around AI will shift from training costs to operational costs. While training can be expensive, it’s only a small part of the investment. The real ongoing costs come from inferencing, which depends on usage patterns, data types, and maintenance needs.
AI systems are massive, and we need more tools, technology, and a bigger ecosystem to make them work. Roese predicts that 2024 will bring more tools and models, with an expanding and diversifying ecosystem of AI resources. There will be more options for building systems using various frameworks and tools.
Cybersecurity needs a new architecture: zero trust. This concept means everything is authenticated and authorized in real-time. So far, it has been challenging to implement, especially in existing setups. However, with AI being new, zero trust can be incorporated from the start. Dell’s Project Fort Zero aims to validate this approach with the U.S. Department of Defense and make it available in 2024.
To maximize data use, companies should process data close to the source. This shift will lead to “modern edge” multi-cloud platforms, where workloads are increasingly handled at the edge rather than in data centers. Dell’s NativeEdge platform supports software-defined edge workloads from any system, addressing the complexity of having multiple edge systems.
Looking ahead, quantum computing will power AI as it evolves. Large-scale AI involves massive parallel problems that quantum computers can handle exceptionally well. Though commercial quantum systems are still a few years away, they promise to revolutionize AI capabilities by solving complex optimization problems.
Stay informed by subscribing to our newsletters for the latest AI news.