Communications of the ACM
nlimited Compute Capacity Coming, IBM Says
IBM Canada Lab director Martin Wildberger predicts that unlimited computing capacity will become a reality in the near future, putting the power of modern mainframes in devices such as smartphones. Wildberger, speaking at the recent IBM-sponsored Center for Advanced Studies Conference in Toronto, said the world is becoming increasingly digitized, and sensors and radio-frequency identification technologies are becoming more "abundant, pervasive, and ubiquitous." Simultaneously, the world is becoming more interconnected through mobile phones and increasing online access, which has raised the awareness and expectations of consumers and forced businesses to react faster.
These trends have made an unlimited amount of data available to businesses, and the ability to use that data has become an important challenge. Wildberger noted, for example, that automotive companies are looking at driving pattern information to develop a real-time system capable of detecting if a driver is falling asleep.
Despite such possibilities, Wildberger said that IBM data shows that 85 percent of computing capacity is idle, and 70 cents of every dollar spent on information technology goes toward maintaining systems instead of taking advantage of new data. He said the companies that invest in becoming smarter and successfully capitalizing on the data created in a world with unlimited computing capacity will be the most successful.
From Computerworld Canada
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