The New Renaissance
We are reaching infinite computing power sooner than you’d think. A major contributor to this is Moore’s law – transistors per microprocessor. Microprocessors are becoming more and more compact. This will continue for the near future as ASML released its newest machine late last year and is now working on the next generation of this machine and on the next generation of this next generation. These microprocessors will eventually become smaller than a dust mite. Nanotechnology will be a great influencer here. Think of it this way: nanotechnology is akin to building Legos out of atoms. It creates enormous new possibilities and will be a monumental force in creating the new Renaissance. With nanotechnology, you can make very, very, tiny windmills. Windmills build by atom on an atom. This is building on nanoscale. Hence you can put a windfarm in paint, paint your house and when the bus drives by your house creates energy. Hence everything can become an energy creator. This causes an abundance of energy. When you have an abundance of energy, you can recycle everything. When you recycle everything, you create an abundance of resources. Next to that you can have robots doing all the dirty and boring work, which creates freedom in time. Then you have an abundance of energy, an abundance of resources, and an ocean of time. The new Renaissance is right around the corner.
Computer in your pocket
Computing power is increasing and will keep on increasing. In 40 years we have moved from the first Pacman Arcade cabinet to the full spec computer in your pocket right now – the smartphone. How awesome is that? The next level of computing will be here within five years. It’s called quantum computing and it has the computing power of the whole universe. The one after that will have the computing power of parallel universes. It is like inventing the microscope the electron microscope and the atomic force microscope in one go. To put it into a concrete example: every new government plan is always extensively calculated on its effect and consequences. This calculation period lasts about six weeks. In the future, when a decision is to be made in parliament, members can press a button on their quantum computer and, within minutes maybe even seconds, get a full calculation of all possible consequences and effects of this decision.
Cloud
When you consider all calculation power in the world, you end up roughly with four cloud parties that hold all the (cloud) computing power. The ownership of your cloud usage and cloud data lies entirely with them. They are:
Amazon
Microsoft
Google
Tencent
If the current battle is allowed to continue, we will end up with only one company processing all of the computing power in the world. This is due to the “one winner effect.” People are already being monitored while they work in factories or drive trains. It’s even possible to fine people when they ignore a red light at a pedestrian crossing. And when they do this, their internet bandwidth can be slowed down, and their friends can lose points on their ranking simply by association. If they really mess up, their bank accounts and financial products such as mortgages can even be frozen. How is this possible? Take for example WeChat. Europeans usually call this the Chinese WhatsApp. But it is far more than that:
You get up with WeChat
You buy your breakfast with WeChat
You connect with friends through WeChat
You travel with WeChat
Your work is integrated with WeChat
You go to bed and your last thing before you sleep is WeChat.
This influence and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, make it possible for a government to control, steer, and influence its citizens.
It would be very nice if we had public access to the different levels of computing power– much like a library but for computing power. It would be even better if everybody had access to all computing power. This can happen if there is an abundance of computing power. By having this in abundance, it is of no value to keep computing power for yourself. This may sound like a fairytale, but it will happen sooner than you think. Just think back to the SMS-days and then compare that to the WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal period we are in now.
Do you like to be pushed forward by this trend wave of computing power, instead of being washed away by it? Contact us for an explorational meeting how we can assist you with that.
Sicco Maathuis is Innovation Manager NL for the Capgemini Group, Netherlands. You can contact him at sicco.maathuis@capgemini.com or +31 6 55485835.