Predictions for 2023 are Predictable

It is the time of year when analysts make predictions about what comes next in the new year. It might be correct to say such predictions are mostly what we already know, and can extrapolate and foresee. It is the black swans we most want to know about, but, by definition, we cannot foresee such disruptions.

As always in the computing or connectivity business, most of the trends are extrapolations from what happened this year. In businesses as capital intensive and scale-dependent as computing and connectivity, very little that moves the revenue, products or operations volume needles can be started or finished in only a year. 

Consumer price hikes might trigger regulator attention while service providers continue to seek cost cuts. Investment in 5G will continue, as will efforts to align connectivity with higher-bandwidth, low-latency xReality applications and use cases, Analysys Mason suggests.

Some service providers will continue to push into and operate in adjacent areas of the internet ecosystem, such as content and banking. Service providers will make additional efforts to ensure their services support enterprise multi-cloud strategies. 

In the broader technology industry, much the same is true: if a trend was important in 2022, it will be important in 2023. In the connectivity realms, premises networking such as Wi-Fi, 5G rollouts and commercial deployment of low earth orbit satellite constellations will be top of mind. 

source: Zdnet 

Other current trends, such as attention to extended reality use cases, applied artificial reality and machine learning will continue. Effort to reduce energy consumption will continue as well. 

While some might add perspective on sales trends for digital infrastructure, private equity interest in digital infra assets or the possible impact of recession on consumer behavior--most observers probably noting some possibility of slowdowns for such reasons--the underlying trends will remain intact. 

Personally, I am always more interested in all the things that will happen that nobody really predicted. But, of course, we cannot predict such occurrences.