The pandemic has trapped us in our homes and we had to resort to technology to fill the void of communication and interactions.

Despite how this may sound depressing, there is some good news coming very soon that could revolutionise our way of using technology in the coming years – Starting with 2022.

Here are just some of the trends that you may be witnessing this 2022:

5G Becoming Mainstream

One feature that will continue to develop throughout time is faster internet speeds.

With 4K content available on YouTube and other streaming services, we need a rapid and more reliable internet connection is required to watch the content without buffering. And don’t even get us started on how close we are getting to 8K!

With peak speeds of 20Gbps and average speeds of over 100Mbps, 5G is far faster than 4G.

5G connections will have tripled to 670 million worldwide by 2021, and the technology will be accessible to a much larger market in the next 12 months.

In reality, complete 5G coverage is expected across the United States, with many more countries joining in the coming years.

Password-less Authentication

You won’t have to worry about remembering passwords anymore. Even the most secure passwords can be hacked with enough time and effort as AI and ML become more advanced. After all, a password can only be so long and complicated before it becomes unusable.

Almost everywhere, we’ll see a steady move away from password-based authentication in support of mobile devices, tokens, and even biometrics. Additionally, you will be less vulnerable to hacking attempts such as brute force and phishing because you won’t have to remember as many passwords.

Edge Computing

With the rise of AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, cloud computing has become a mainstream technology trend. Cloud computing’s popularity continues to rise, as more and more enterprises choose to use a cloud-based service.

However, this is no longer the newest technology… Edge computing is. Cloud computing’s drawbacks have become more apparent as the number of data enterprises continues to increase.

Edge computing aims to alleviate some of these issues by avoiding the latency associated with cloud computing and delivering data directly to the processing centre. It can be situated closer to where computing is required, if you wish. The processing of time-sensitive data in remote places with limited or no access to a centralised location can therefore be done via edge computing. Edge computing can serve as a substitute for small data centres in certain scenarios.

It’s inevitable that as IoT (Internet of Things) devices become more prevalent, so will the use of edge computing. Edge computing is anticipated to grow to $6.72 billion by 2022, according to market research firm Gartner. Software engineers will be among the most in-demand newcomers to the workforce as a result of this new technology trend.

Sustainable energy solutions

A sudden increase in renewable energy sources usage was reported during this pandemic. During the first ten weeks of the lockdown, the consumption of renewable energy in the United States surged by 40%. Emissions from all non-renewable energy sources were reduced by 8 percent around the world as industry shut down and people stayed at home. As a result, more money is expected to be invested in producing energy from renewable sources in the following years.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy production and consumption would increase by 40% in 2020 over the previous year, and this trend is expected to continue through 2022. Wind, solar, and tidal power have all seen their production costs drop by 7% to 16% over the past few years. To help countries and corporations achieve carbon neutrality or even carbon negative, this will tremendously help reach our goal globally. New energy sources including biofuels, liquid hydrogen, and even nuclear fusion are becoming more feasible, even if their full impact may not be noticed until after 2022 for some of them. In spite of this, advances in all of these areas are bound to generate headlines. Prototype generators for fusion energy are expected to be operational by 2022 from Helion Energy, a pioneer in the field of fusion energy that uses the same process as the sun to generate energy. The field of “green hydrogen” energy is also expected to develop practical uses. This new approach, which uses renewable energy instead of “dirty” fossil fuel energy to conduct electrolysis and separate hydrogen and oxygen without generating carbon, reduces the total environmental impact of hydrogen energy production.

A Rise in NFT Platforms

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are digital objects that convey ownership of something via the use of computer code and data. Virtual real estate in the digital realm, for example, or a piece of special equipment in a video game, are examples of online property. Real estate, a picture, or a ticket to a concert are all possibilities. As an example, Hybrid NFTs can be used to determine the right to decide who is allowed to live in a shared living space. If you have a one-of-a-kind item, like a baseball card, a vintage car, or a plot of land in Central London, you can transfer it to the NFT.

We may expect to see NFTs in movies, television series, books, and more in 2022. As part of the digital economy, NFTs allow people to own a piece of something larger than themselves, such as an artwork or a fictional character. This makes NFTs more mainstream. Games, virtual real estate, and even social media sites like Facebook are all part of the digital economy.

The 2008-2009 economic crisis and the pandemic have had a significant impact on the rapid transformation of our society during the last decade. As these tendencies come together, 2022 will be a wonderful year for NFTs as they take on established collectibles.

Blockchain Technology Prevails

Even without the support of financial institutions, blockchain, a cutting-edge form of distributed ledger, allows organisations to track transactions and conduct business with unknown parties. This new feature reduces business conflicts dramatically and provides other benefits such as append-only data structure, transparency, security, immutability, and decentralisation.

Many industries are being disrupted by blockchain technology, from gaming and governance to banking. According to International Data Corporation, businesses would spend about $6.6 billion on blockchain solutions in 2021, up 50% from the year before. By the year 2024, this figure is predicted to rise to almost $15 billion. In 2022, blockchain will become increasingly relevant because of the emergence of NFTs and the metaverse.

According to Statista, the worldwide blockchain technology market is estimated to expand to more than $23.3 billion by 2023, which is a huge opportunity for businesses to get involved. Walmart’s product supply chain database application is a significant example of a current supply chain database application that allows for the monitoring of individual blockchain deployments, effectively raising food supply standards. Amazon Web Services has offered distributed ledger solutions to its customers as part of its 2019 blockchain ambitions.

Quantum Computing

It’s time for quantum computing, which uses quantum phenomena like superposition and quantum entanglement to perform computations. The ability to query, monitor, analyse, and act on data, regardless of the source, is a major factor in avoiding the spread of the coronavirus and developing effective vaccines. For high-frequency trading and fraud detection, quantum computing is being used in the banking and finance sector.

In the Quantum Computing industry, companies like Splunk, Honeywell, Microsoft, AWS, Google, and many more are experimenting with new technologies that could revolutionise the way we work and communicate. By 2029, the global quantum computing business is estimated to contribute revenue of approximately $2.5 billion. Quantum physics and linear algebra, probability, information theory, and machine learning are all required for success in this new developing technology.

The Bottom Line

Here are just some of the trends that you may start to witness during 2022.

We’ve only covered just the tip of the iceberg and we don’t know what these advances will help facilitate other sectors such as the fashion industry, food industry, and many more!

Despite the pandemic having taken a toll on our economy and our daily lives, this has provided us the opportunity to think critically and thus, become stronger and become critical thinkers that may open the doors to a series of technological advances in the coming future.