IBM Just Posted 5 Predictions About What Life Will Be Like in 2022

By Pushp Sirohi, Onboarding Success coordinator & partner at IBM

IBM’s annual “5 in 5” technology predictions showcase five ways how technology will fundamentally reshape business and society in the next five years, informed by work occurring within IBM Research’s global labs and broader industry trends.

Here is latest 5 in 5 of IBM 2021: Five ways technology will change our lives within five years where we cover below mentioned 5 ways through which we make human and planet smarter in upcoming years with the support of right tools at our disposal to make it happen—namely, AI, data augmentation using traditional and quantum computing, generative models and laboratory automation accessible through the open, hybrid cloud.

1) Capturing and transforming CO2 to mitigate climate change

In the next five years, we will be able to capture CO2 from the air and transform it from the scourge of the environment into something useful. The goal is to make CO2 capture and reuse efficient enough to scale globally so we can significantly reduce the level of the harmful CO2 in the atmosphere and, ultimately, slow climate change.

2) Modeling Mother Nature to feed a growing citizenry while reducing carbon emissions

In the next five years, we will replicate nature’s ability to convert nitrogen in the atmosphere into nitrate-rich fertilizer, feeding the growing world while reducing the environmental impact of fertilizers. We’ll come up with an innovative solution to enable nitrogen fixation at a sustainable scale and help feed the world’s rapidly growing population.

3) Rethinking batteries before we have to rethink our world

In the next five years, we will discover new materials for safer and more environmentally-preferable batteries capable of supporting a renewable-based energy grid and more sustainable transportation. Many renewable energy sources are intermittent and require storage. The use of AI and quantum computing will result in batteries built with safer and more efficient materials for improved performance.

4) Sustainable materials, sustainable products, sustainable planet

In the next five years, we will advance materials manufacturing, enabling semiconductor manufacturers to improve the sustainability of their coveted products. Scientists will embrace a new approach to materials design that enables the tech industry to more quickly produce sustainable materials for the production of semiconductors and electronic devices.

5) Learning from our past for a healthier future

In the next five years, we aim to help facilitate the generation of treatments to aid physicians and front-line workers in combating novel, life-threatening viruses on a larger scale than is currently possible. A combination of AI, analytics and data can potentially help with the rapid analysis of real-world medical evidence to suggest new candidates for drug repurposing and speed clinical trials. In the future, these tools may reach widespread adoption across industries, effectively becoming one of the means of rapidly responding to global, life-threatening viruses.

How do we get there? For the first time in history, we have the right tools at our disposal to make it happen—namely, AI, data augmentation using traditional and quantum computing, generative models and laboratory automation accessible through the open, hybrid cloud.

The convergence of these computing technologies allows us to address the discovery process in a fundamentally new way. The use of AI will consolidate all of humanity's knowledge on a specific topic. Traditional and quantum simulations will cover the knowledge gaps. The corresponding data can be used to create inference models to generate a hypothesis on materials and automate their making and testing, with the help of hybrid cloud technologies.