Technology trends — 2025, 2030, 2040 & 2050

After or during Generative AI hype, UNESCO announced 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). Recognizing 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics. What does that really mean?

Even after 100 years of studies, quantum science and technology are perceived as human dreams, not real science. But quantum science is evolution and attracts scientists and investors because they see quantum science as the key cross-cutting scientific discipline of the twenty-first century. On the most fundamental level, it provides the basis for an understanding of the physical world, from the elementary constituents of matter to the origin and structure of our universe. The report launched by UNESCO mention: “Quantum science and technology has enormous potential to impact on critical societal challenges such as climate, energy, food production, healthcare, and clean water as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (the “SDGs”) of the United Nations Agenda 2030.”

But quantum computing has 7 challenges to be solved:

1. Scalability — Scaling up the number of qubits and improving their coherence is a challenge to fully utilize quantum computers’ capabilities.
2. Hardware limitations -There aren’t enough resources to manufacture high-quality, quantum-ready components at a reasonable cost.
3. Cost and accessibility — Quantum computers require sophisticated infrastructure and extremely low temperatures to operate, making them expensive to build and maintain.
4. Quantum error correction -Quantum systems are prone to errors due to external noise, decoherence, qubit interconnection, and their fragility. Quantum errors are more difficult to correct than traditional computer errors because qubits can take an infinite number of states.
5. Security concerns — Quantum computing can break existing encryption methods, but implementing secure communication protocols and quantum-safe encryption is a challenge.
6. Ethical considerations — As quantum computing technology evolves, ethical considerations such as privacy, equity, and environmental impact must be considered.
7. Quantum decoherence — Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum behavior when a system interacts with its environment.

For 2025 we have some news announcements from big-techs as IBM Quantum Experience, what provides access to real quantum computers where you can execute quantum circuits and learn from practical experiments, Google Quantum AI, who offers research-focused quantum services, including access to quantum simulators and processors. And AWS’s quantum computing service, providing access to various quantum processors and development environment.

But overall costs and the quantum computer’s fragility (noise, temperature) and energy consumption makes the usability of that technology still restricted.

For 2025 the big star still will be the generative artificial intelligence and its application, as multi-agents, knowledge augmented generation and micro and mini-LLMs to teach and optimize the LLMs training process.

But what goes ahead and think about 2041? The author Ka-Fu Lee on his book 2041, has a optimistic expectation about the responsible use of AI, quantum computing, autonomous cars, augmented reality, bitcoins and blockchain. He believes that countries will achieve a consensus about the responsible use of disruptive technologies and all society will get benefits from that.

And how to think longer? 2050! Teleportation, or the science of disappearing in one place to immediately reappear in another, is something that I hope to be alive to see happening! Quantum teleportation can share information instantaneously from one point to another, no matter. Austrian and Chinese scientists got to transfer particles of light (with zero mass) over short distances in 2019. Further experiments in quantum entanglement led to successful teleportation of the first complete atom. This was followed by the first molecules, consisting of multiple atoms. Logically, then, we could expect the first complex organic molecules such as DNA and proteins to be teleported by 2050.

But let’s talk more about future technologies in my next article.

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Bibliography:

Proposal for the proclamation by the United Nations of 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Sciences and Technologies — https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000385142

Roadmap for Learning New Technologies in 2025 — Quantum Computing — https://medium.com/@teja.ravi474/roadmap-for-learning-new-technologies-in-2025-quantum-computing-98537cba3b4b

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future KA-FU Lee, Chen Qiufan — https://www.amazon.com.be/-/en/Lee-Kai-Fu/dp/0753559021

Complex quantum teleportation achieved for the first time — https://phys.org/news/2019-08-complex-quantum-teleportation.html