"We are in an era of rapid technological development. In particular, technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and data intelligence will accelerate the pace of the digital economy," says Jeff Zhang, Head of Alibaba Damo Academy and President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

And these are the highlights from the top 10 trends predicted by the researchers for this year:

1. artificial intelligence is evolving from perceptual intelligence to cognitive intelligence: artificial intelligence has reached or surpassed humans in the areas of perceptual intelligence such as speech to text, natural language processing or even video comprehension; however, it is still in its infancy in the area of cognitive intelligence, which requires external knowledge, logical reasoning or domain migration. Cognitive intelligence will draw inspiration from psychology, brain research and human social history, combined with techniques such as cross-domain knowledge graph, causal inference and continuous learning, to establish effective mechanisms for the stable acquisition and expression of knowledge. These make machines understand and use knowledge, achieving important breakthroughs from perceptual intelligence to 'rational' intelligence.

2. in-memory computing addresses the 'memory wall' challenges in AI computing: in the so-called 'Von Neumann architecture', memory and processor are separated from each other and computations require that data can be moved back and forth. With the rapid development of data-driven AI algorithms in recent years, a point has been reached where the hardware becomes a bottleneck for calculations and research into advanced algorithms. In contrast to the 'Von Neumann architecture', the processing-in-memory (PIM) architecture merges memory and processor and performs corresponding calculations in which the data is stored with minimal data movement. This significantly improves computing parallelism and energy efficiency.

3. industrial IoT applications drive digital transformation: in 2020, 5G, the rapid development of IoT devices, cloud computing and edge computing will accelerate the fusion of information system, communication system and industrial control system. Through advanced industrial IoT applications, manufacturing enterprises can achieve the automation of machinery, in-plant logistics and production planning as a way to realize consumer-to-business smart manufacturing. In addition, an industrial interconnected system can optimize and coordinate the production capability of both upstream and downstream players. Ultimately, it will significantly increase the productivity and profitability of manufacturers. For manufacturers with production goods, this can mean an increase in productivity of 5 to 10 %.

4. large-scale collaboration between machines becomes possible: The development of collaborative sensor technology of the Internet of Things and 5G communication technology will realize collaboration between multiple players. Machines will cooperate and compete with each other to accomplish target tasks. The swarm intelligence brought by the cooperation of multiple intelligent devices will further increase the value of the intelligent system: Large-scale intelligent traffic light control will realize dynamic and real-time adjustment, while warehouse robots will work together to complete cargo sorting more efficiently; autonomous cars can sense the overall traffic environment on the road; and the cooperation of groups of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) will master the last mile more efficiently.

5. modular design makes chips simpler and faster: the traditional model of chip design cannot efficiently respond to the rapidly evolving, fragmented and customized requirements of chip production. The open-source SoC chip design based on RISC-V, the high-level hardware description language, and IP-based modular chip design methods have accelerated the rapid development of agile design methods and the open-source chip ecosystem. In addition, the modular chip-based design method uses advanced applications to equip the chips with various functions, allowing the chips to be quickly customized and delivered to meet the specific needs of different applications.

6. blockchain applications improve production quality and become suitable for mass production: BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) will further reduce the market entry barriers for enterprise blockchain applications. A variety of hardware chips with embedded core algorithms that are used in edge, cloud and specifically for blockchain will also come onto the market. This will make it possible to map assets in the physical world to assets on blockchain, further expand the boundaries of the Internet of Value and realize 'multi-chain interconnection'. In the future, a large number of innovative blockchain application scenarios with multi-dimensional collaborations across various industries and ecosystems will emerge, and large-scale production-ready blockchain applications with more than 10 million DAI (Daily Active Items) will be deployed on a massive scale.

7. a critical period before the great quantum computer: In 2019, the race for 'quantum supremacy' brought the focus back to quantum computers. The demonstration with superconducting circuits increases the overall confidence in superconducting quantum computing for the realization of a large-scale quantum computer. In 2020, the field of quantum computing will receive increasing investment, which will be accompanied by increased competition. It is also expected to accelerate industrialization and the gradual formation of an ecosystem in this area. The next milestones in the coming years will be the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computing and the demonstration of quantum advantages in real-world applications.

8 New materials will revolutionize semiconductor devices: Under the pressure of both Moore's Law and the explosive demand for computing power and memory, it is difficult for classical Si-based transistors to maintain sustainable development in the semiconductor industry. To date, the major semiconductor manufacturers have not yet found a clear answer to chips beyond 3 nm. Innovative materials will enable new logic, memory and interconnect devices through special physical mechanisms, driving continuous innovation in the semiconductor industry. For example, topological insulators or two-dimensional superconducting materials that achieve lossless transport of electrons and spin can become the basis for new high-performance logic and interconnect devices; while new magnetic materials and resistive switching materials can realize high-performance magnetic memories such as SOT-MRAM and resistive memories.

9. increasing adoption of AI technologies serves data protection: The business effort required by the latest data protection laws and regulations related to data transfers is increasing. Against this backdrop, interest in the use of AI technologies to protect data privacy has grown. The aim is to enable the data user to use a function via input data from various data providers while keeping this data confidential. Such AI technologies promise to solve the problems of data silos and lack of trust in today's data sharing practices.

10 The cloud is becoming the center of IT technology innovation: With the advancement of cloud computing technology, the cloud has gone far beyond the scope of IT infrastructure and has gradually become the center of all IT technology innovations. Cloud applications have a close connection with almost all IT technologies, including new chips, new databases, self-controlled adaptive networks, big data, AI, IoT, blockchain, quantum computing and other areas. At the same time, new technologies are emerging, such as serverless computing, cloud-native software architecture, software-hardware integrated design and intelligent automated operation. Cloud computing is redefining every aspect of IT and making innovation more accessible to the public. The cloud is becoming the backbone of the entire digital economy.