Market research firm Gartner recently released China's information and communication technology maturity curve in 2024, in which the development trend of emerging technologies represented by artificial intelligence, cost optimization and operational efficiency enhancement technologies represented by cloud computing, and system resilience and security technologies represented by classified computing are worthy of attention.
In the field of artificial intelligence, China's domestic artificial intelligence chips are at the top of the “expectation expansion period”, and will enter the “production maturity period” in 2 to 3 years. In this regard, Gartner research vice president Ji Xinsu said in an interview with reporters: “more and more enterprises on China's domestic artificial intelligence chip demand increases, the overall market heat of the technology continues to rise.” As to whether China's domestic AI chips can occupy a place in the global market, he said, “Although there is still a gap in the technological capability of China's domestic AI chips compared to international chip giants, China's domestic AI chips aren't bad if the number is enough and the cost drops, and it takes some time to bring up the production capacity.”
In contrast, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is in the whereabouts stage of the “expectation expansion period”. “In the face of a number of unfavorable factors in the current global economic environment, companies are more cautious about investing in digital technology, especially in terms of sustained and large-scale investment.” Ji Xinsu said, “Many enterprises in the research said that although AI-related technologies are most likely to change the rules of the industry in the future, their investment in AI will be more rational.” He added that this does not mean that GenAI will “cool off”, because the landing of emerging technologies need time and go through a trial and error phase, and more need to be supported by more application examples and scenarios in order to mature.
In response to fierce competition in the market, more and more Chinese enterprises are focusing on cost optimization as an annual priority, and technologies such as industry cloud, cloud-native, low-code application platforms, robotic process automation, and DevOps are being used in the technology maturity curve to support sustainable business development. Considering that IT spending is one of the major expenditures of an organization, and the initiatives of the organization to improve operational efficiency cannot be achieved without a strong collaboration of the IT department, the agency said. As a result, more and more businesses and organizations are introducing embedded low-code platforms and robotic process automation through which they can reduce business delivery costs. Some organizations are improving the efficiency of data analytics with the help of data middleware, while many are using DevOps to improve the agility and efficiency of their IT infrastructure. These technology areas are also of equal interest to telecom operators, with Ji Xinsu saying, “Digital intelligence centers and cloud computing are two technology areas that Chinese telecom operators are investing more in, as the cloud may turn out to be a platform for pervasive infrastructure in the future.”
Confidential computing, sustainable data centers, and digital immune systems are in the “infancy” of the technology maturity curve. The agency said that Chinese companies can improve system resilience and stability with platform engineering and digital immune systems. In addition, focusing on the security and autonomy of IT systems will enhance supply chain resilience.
