At Microsoft’s Ignite 2021 conference, which kicked off in the early hours of this morning, the company unveiled a series of more developer-friendly tools and feature updates. This includes a new version of Visual Studio 2019 and Mesh, a mixed-reality platform based on Azure. Microsoft also confirmed that Office 2021 will be delivered on time.
In addition to the product update, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also delivered a speech at Ignite 2021. Satya said that as the epidemic recovers, the world’s demand for cloud computing will increase dramatically and will require innovation from cloud computing to devices. At Ignite 2021, Satya outlined his vision for five “key attributes” that “drive the next generation of innovation in the cloud.”
Here are Satya Nadella’s five key features that will drive the next generation of cloud computing.
1. Decentralized computing everywhere
Satya Nadella believes that more pervasive and distributed computing power will be needed in every country, in every industry, and in every organisation, large and small. We are going through fundamental changes in computer architecture — from materials to semiconductors to systems, from clouds to edges. The result of all this will continue to be exponential growth in computing power.
However, we are now at the pinnacle of concentration. As computer technology becomes ubiquitous, it changes the way we interact with people, places and things. As the physical and digital worlds merge, we will need more sovereignty and decentralized control. Cloud and edge computing will evolve to meet all of these real-world needs.
Data sovereignty and environmental intelligence
The amount, diversity, and speed of data will experience an explosion of cloud growth, especially at the edge of the cloud, which will drive the distributed computing architecture mentioned in point 1. In this world, data will be more private and independent. Data governance and provenance will take on new importance. Large-scale, multi-modal models will become first-class platforms for creating environmental intelligence around us. We will develop new joint machine learning approaches to drive the next generation of personalization and privacy services. Business logic will shift from written code to code learned from data, creating a complete next-generation business process and productivity system.
We will also see that this new approach to software tools is fundamental to addressing these huge unsolved challenges. In the AI we create by harnessing the immense power of cloud computing, we will look for higher levels of predictive and analytical ability, common-sense reasoning, and consistency with human preferences. Perhaps most important of all is to enhance human capacity.
Empowered creators and ubiquitous communities
Our economy will find a new balance between consumption and creation. Over the past decade, we’ve seen a number of technological advances driving more consumption. We believe that the next decade will require technological advances that will fundamentally democratize creativity. We need to expand access to skills, tools and platforms, as well as connections and collaboration across communities so that everyone can create. Whether it’s in a virtual world where students complete assignments with short videos, knowledge workers create formulas in spreadsheets, professional developers write code, or domain experts build applications using low-code tools. This democratization of creation will drive new innovations in end-user computing.
The form and function of the device will be reimagined across the entire stack — from silicon to the operating system to the experience itself. These computational experiences will be further amplified by the community, which will learn from each other, promote each other, and further amplify and accelerate creation.
Expanding economic opportunities for the global workforce
For our current and future jobs, we need to create these constant feedback loops between work, skills, learning, and the credentials we need. We need to define productivity more broadly to include collaboration, learning, front-line workers and knowledge workers, as well as new graduates and employees already on the job. All this requires flexibility in when, where and how people work.
5. Build trust
Fundamentally, a technology provider is only successful if it helps the world around it be successful. No one wants to build a rapidly expanding technology by breaking through the world around them. No customer wants to rely on a supplier who sells them technology on the one hand and competes with them on the other.
We need ethical principles to guide the design, development and deployment of AI. Our technology requires security by design and advocates the zero-trust architecture principle. We need to protect the fundamental rights of all people, including the design intent of privacy, to build technologies, and to enhance those technological constructs that we rely on for our survival. We need technological progress to protect our most limited resource, the planet we live in.
Advantages of cloud computing
With these five key points to drive cloud computing, Satya summarizes the advantages of cloud computing. He says that each organization needs to leverage these five attributes to build its own digital strength so that they can create the know-how needed to generate lasting competitive advantage.
Advances in cloud computing will enable every organization in every sector to create more economic value in every community, in every country. Cloud computing will help small businesses become more productive, multinational corporations become more competitive, and nonprofits and governments do their jobs more efficiently. Cloud computing can improve health care and educational outcomes and enhance human creativity.
Satya emphasized that what Microsoft’s cloud computing offers forms the basis for everything on display at Ignite 2021. “Microsoft Cloud is built to accelerate both today’s transformation and tomorrow’s growth,” he said.
