Deloitte Highlights Tech Trends to Watch

Technology has been evolving fast and government agencies will need to figure out what has potential use for their missions, according to Deloitte’s annual Tech Trends report released today.

The report highlights eight trends to watch for: unbounded IT, dark analytics, machine intelligence, mixed reality, inevitable architecture, everything-as-a-service, trust economy and an "exponentials" watch list for advancements in synthetic biology, energy storage, quantum computing and nanotech.

For example, Redwood City, California, features a machine-learning project that is a robotic delivery system “designed to cut down on traffic congestion.”

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“At launch, humans will control the small robots remotely. But the machines are designed to gather information, build 3-D maps of the neighborhoods they operate in, and work autonomously,” the report states.

Mixed reality also offers a new venue by which the government can serve both its customers and internal stakeholders. The report cites an Office of Naval Research project to develop augmented reality glasses “that can send critical data to warfighters on the battlefield.”

“Without losing situational awareness, a Marine can see his comrades’ vital statistics, view live video feeds, and push out alerts and commands to soldiers,” according to the report.

Each of these trends has the potential to disrupt government and the way in which agencies deliver services over the next two years.

“As in the past, we seek to shed light on the anticipated level of government relevance and readiness for each trend. Because government organizations are diverse, broad and complex, our scoring of relevance and readiness is designed to represent overall patterns,” the report states.