Dell makes 5 big predictions for 2024

Generative AI will move from disruption to optimisation, with the dialogue shifting from theory to practice, in 2024.

That is the first of five big predictions for next year from John Roese, global chief technology officer at Dell Technologies.

“The center of the universe for 2024 is AI. Next year will be all about putting AI into practice at the edge, diversifying the hardware pool and securing it through Zero Trust,” says Roese. “We’re entering an AI era so need to recognise that long term, AI will drive architectural change across the entire IT ecosystem for many years to come. Actively think of AI but do not do it independent of other architectures – this is how you’ll make sure your visions and actions align for long-term success.”

AI takes center stage, moving from theory to practice

Roese expects that the GenAI dialogue will move from theory to practice with shifts from training infrastructure and cost to inference and cost of operation.

“While GenAI has sparked incredibly creative ideas of how it will transform business and the world, there are very few real-world, scaled GenAI activities. As we move into 2024, we will see the first wave of GenAI enterprise projects reach levels of maturity that will expose important dimensions of GenAI not yet understood in the early phases.”

Increasingly, enterprises will shift from broad experimentation to a top-down strategic focus on picking the few GenAI projects that can truly be transformational.

Looking further into the future, Roese expects that quantum computing will address the major issue of extreme demand for computing resources required for GenAI, and most large-scale AI. He anticipates that quantum computing will bring about a massive leap in the ability of AI systems. Roese expects that the computing foundation of modern AI will eventually become a hybrid quantum system where the AI work is spread across a set of diverse compute architectures, including quantum processing units.

The expansion of modern edge and continued reign of multicloud

As data continue to be at the center of our future, extracting value from it will be crucial in unlocking transformative business opportunities. Roese shared that enterprises will recognise that there are two ways to build a modern edge – the proliferation of mono-edges or as a multicloud edge platform. Choosing the latter to adopt an “edge platform” approach where modern edge becomes an extension of the multicloud infrastructure is the way forward.

Zero Trust fortifies the frontier

With the democratisation of AI, and as more data and intelligence move to the edge, data management will become increasingly important. As a result, the expanded threat surface heightens the importance of developing real Zero Trust architectures and mandating Zero Trust.

“Zero Trust will become the default end state people are moving towards,” says Roese. “It’s the right answer on how to change the curve on cyber so we expect to see more Zero Trust mandates to proliferate around the world.”

He says that Dell’s project Fort Zero will be delivered into the market in 2024 as the first commercial full Zero Trust private cloud system in the industry, paving the way for Zero Trust adoption across various industries.