Podcast

Explain IT: Season 3, Episode 7 - Futurism with AWS

Taking a look at Blockchain, Quantum Computing and Machine Learning

0:00:00 / 43:05

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Episode summary Key takeways

In this episode we take a little look into the future and the hot topics that are emerging in tech. Exploring blockchain, machine learning and quantum computing, as well as touching on the developments in video, our guests explain more about practical use cases that we may begin to see. Host Zac Abbott is joined by experts Craig Lodzinski, Softcat’s chief technologist for data and emerging tech, and Martin Beeby, principal advocate at AWS.

Blockchain is a digital distributed ledger, used to record transactions across a number of computers. It is created with a chain of blocks and records cannot be altered retrospectively.
Blockchain found its roots in cryptocurrency, but is still in its infancy and is finding other uses, for example within supply chain and creating secure logs. It can execute code as well as storing information.
Machine learning is how we teach computers without specific programming or information. It is becoming part of every kind of application, offering efficiencies and time saving as well as providing capabilities that have previously been non-existent.
Computers can now make predictions based on historic data, using this data to predict behaviours or make recommendations.
There’s a lot of hype over quantum computing, and some companies are starting to make it commercially available, but the conditions to support a quantum computer have to be so exact, we are still many years away from a truly commercially viable product.
Quantum computing is computationally complicated, but will be able to solve intricate problems for specific companies. The majority of organisations will never see this technology in their data centres.
We predict a revolution and rise in the use of video for a range of uses; using video intelligently as a sensor, in advertising, retail and real time television broadcasting.