After three years of uncertainty caused by the pandemic and its post-lockdown hangover, enterprises in 2023 — even with recession looming and uncertainty abounding — face the same imperatives as before: lead, innovate and problem solve. AI is becoming the common thread in accomplishing these goals. On average, 54% of enterprise AI projects made it from pilot to production, according to a recent Gartner survey of nearly 700 enterprises in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. A whopping 80% of executives in the survey said automation can be applied to any business decision, and that they’re shifting away from tactical to strategic uses of AI. The mantra for 2023? Do more with less. Some of NVIDIA’s experts in AI predict businesses will prioritize scaling their AI projects amid layoffs and skilled worker shortages by using cloud-based integrated software and hardware offerings that can be purchased and customized to any enterprise, application or budget. Cost-effective AI development also is a recurring theme among our expert predictions for 2023. With Moore’s law running up against the laws of physics, installing on-premises compute power is getting more expensive and less energy efficient. And the Golden Screw search for critical components is speeding the shift to the cloud for developing AI applications as well as for finding data-driven solutions to supply chain issues. Here’s what our experts have to say about the year ahead in AI:
ANIMA ANANDKUMAR
Director of ML Research, and Bren Professor at Caltech
Digital Twins Get Physical: We will see large-scale digital twins of physical processes that are complex and multi-scale, such as weather and climate models, seismic phenomena and material properties. This will accelerate current scientific simulations as much as a million-x, and enable new scientific insights and discoveries.
Generalist AI Agents: AI agents will solve open-ended tasks with natural language instructions and large-scale reinforcement learning, while harnessing foundation models — those large AI models trained on a vast quantity of unlabeled data at scale — to enable agents that can parse any type of request and adapt to new types of questions over time.
MANUVIR DAS
Vice President, Enterprise Computing Software
Advances End AI Silos: Enterprises have long had to choose between cloud computing and hybrid architectures for AI research and development — a practice that can stifle developer productivity and slow innovation. In 2023, software will enable businesses to unify AI pipelines across all infrastructure types and deliver a single, connected experience for AI practitioners. This will allow enterprises to balance costs against strategic objectives, regardless of project size or complexity, and provide access to virtually unlimited capacity for flexible development.
Generative AI Transforms Enterprise Applications: The hype about generative AI becomes reality in 2023. That’s because the foundations for true generative AI are finally in place, with software that can transform large language models and recommender systems into production applications that go beyond images to intelligently answer questions, create content and even spark discoveries. This new creative era will fuel massive advances in personalized customer service, drive new business models and pave the way for breakthroughs in healthcare.
KIMBERLY POWELL
Vice President, Healthcare
Biology Becomes Information Science: Breakthroughs in large language models and the fortunate ability to describe biology in a sequence of characters are giving researchers the ability to train a new class of AI models for chemistry and biology. The capabilities of these new AI models give drug discovery teams the ability to generate, represent and predict the properties and interactions of molecules and proteins — all in silicon. This will accelerate our ability to explore the essentially infinite space of potential therapies.
Surgery 4.0 Is Here: Flight simulators serve to train pilots and research new aircraft control. The same is now true for surgeons and robotic surgery device makers. Digital twins that can simulate at every scale, from the operating room environment to the medical robot and patient anatomy, are breaking new ground in personalized surgical rehearsals and designing AI-driven human and machine interactions. Long residencies won’t be the only way to produce an experienced surgeon. Many will become expert operators when they perform their first robot-assisted surgery on a real patient.
DANNY SHAPIRO
Vice President, Automotive
Training Autonomous Vehicles in the Metaverse: The more than 250 auto and truck makers, startups, transportation and mobility-as-a-service providers developing autonomous vehicles are tackling one of the most complex AI challenges of our time. It’s simply not possible to encounter every scenario they must be able to handle by testing on the road, so much of the industry in 2023 will turn to the virtual world to help. On-road data collection will be supplemented by virtual fleets that generate data for training and testing new features before deployment. High-fidelity simulation will run autonomous vehicles through a virtually infinite range of scenarios and environments. We’ll also see the continued deployment of digital twins for vehicle production to improve manufacturing efficiencies, streamline operations and improve worker ergonomics and safety.
Moving to the Cloud: 2023 will bring more software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service offerings to the transportation industry. Developers will be able to access a comprehensive suite of cloud services to design, deploy and experience metaverse applications anywhere. Teams will design and collaborate on 3D workflows — such as AV development simulation, in-vehicle experiences, cloud gaming and even car configurators delivered via the web or in showrooms.
Your In-Vehicle Concierge: Advances in conversational AI, natural language processing, gesture detection and avatar animation are making their way to next-generation vehicles in the form of digital assistants. This AI concierge can make reservations, access vehicle controls and provide alerts using natural language understanding. Using interior cameras, deep neural networks and multimodal interaction, vehicles will be able to ensure that driver attention is on the road and ensure no passenger or pet is left behind when the journey is complete.
REV LEBAREDIAN
Vice President, Omniverse and Simulation Technology
The Metaverse Universal Translator: Just as HTML is the standard language of the 2D web, Universal Scene Description is set to become the most powerful, extensible, open language for the 3D web. As the 3D standard for describing virtual worlds in the metaverse, USD will allow enterprises and even consumers to move between different 3D worlds using various tools, viewers and browsers in the most seamless and consistent fashion.
Bending Reality With Digital Twins: A new class of true-to-reality digital twins of goods, services and locations is set to offer greater windfalls than their real-world counterparts. Imagine selling many virtual pairs of sneakers in partnership with a gaming company that are simply undergoing design testing — long before sending the pattern to manufacturing. Companies also stand to benefit by saving on waste, increasing operational efficiencies and boosting accuracy.
RONNIE VASISHTA
Senior Vice President, Telecoms
Cutting the Cord on AR/VR Over 5G Networks: While many businesses will move to the cloud for hardware and software development, edge design and collaboration also will grow as 5G networks become more fully deployed around the world. Automotive designers, for instance, can don augmented reality headsets and stream the same content they see over wireless networks to colleagues around the world, speeding collaborative changes and developing innovative solutions at record speeds. 5G also will lead to accelerated deployments of connected robots across industries — used for restocking store shelves, cleaning floors, delivering pizzas and picking and packing goods in factories.
RAN in the Cloud: Network operators around the world are rolling out software-defined virtual radio access network 5G to save time and money as they seek faster returns on their multibillion-dollar investments. Now, they’re shifting away from bespoke L1 accelerators to 100% software-defined and full-stack, 5G-baseband acceleration that includes L2, RIC, Beamforming and FH offerings. This shift will lead to an increase in the utilization of RAN systems by enabling multi-tenancy between RAN and AI workloads.
BOB PETTE
Vice President, Professional Visualization
An Industrial Revolution via Simulation: Everything built in the physical world will first be simulated in a virtual world that obeys the laws of physics. These digital twins — including large-scale environments such as factories, cities and even the entire planet — and the industrial metaverse are set to become critical components of digital transformation initiatives. Examples already abound: Siemens is taking industrial automation to a new level. BMW is simulating entire factory floors to optimally plan manufacturing processes. Lockheed Martin is simulating the behavior of forest fires to anticipate where and when to deploy resources. DNEG, SONY Pictures, WPP…