A Technological Review of the Year 2024

We are living in a time of technological acceleration never seen before. Humanity may have witnessed moments of more profound transformation than the one we are experiencing today, but never before has there been such an accumulation of change and at such a dizzying speed as the one we are now witnessing.

What was totally new a year ago is now clearly outdated. For example, the emergence of ChatGPT surprised us at the end of 2022, beginning to show the potential of large language models (LLM). At the time, it was based on an improved variant of LLM GPT-3, which handled 175 million parameters.

This year, Meta announced Llama 3, the new version of its LLM, which now handles 400 billion parameters, as reported in this story.

This is just a sample of the speed at which the technological world is advancing, but there are other highlights. Here are some of them.

We continue to explore the potential of AI

Following last year’s generative AI boom, AI has continued to play a major role in 2024, transcending beyond the tech sector.

‘Recent advances in deep learning, generative AI and foundational models are changing the rules of the game when it comes to discovery and prediction rates,’ explains the World Economic Forum (WEF).

‘AI for scientific discovery is transforming the way new knowledge is discovered and used. AI systems like [Google] DeepMind’s AlphaFold can accurately predict three-dimensional models of protein structures,’ he says.

AlphaFold’s advances have led to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper, CEO and director of Google DeepMind, respectively, being recognised with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their collaboration with David Baker, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington, on their work using AI to predict protein structures.

The WEF also notes that ‘AI has also been applied in research that has discovered a new family of antibiotics and created more efficient battery materials,’ it adds.

It further notes that ‘immersive technology for the construction world and AI-powered blended reality tools could play a key role in its cleaner future, helping to anticipate challenges and optimise projects for real-world execution’.

For example, it notes that digital twins can be used to simulate complex outcomes, increasing efficiency. And virtual prototyping and experimentation can help improve accuracy.

Given this rise of AI, the WEF stresses that it is essential to find ways to exploit it without ethical or security concerns, an issue we discussed in Silicon.es.

In this regard, it notes that ‘synthetic data is an interesting privacy-enhancing technology that is making a comeback in the age of AI’.

‘It replicates patterns and trends in sensitive datasets, but does not contain specific information that can be linked to individuals or compromise organisations or governments,’ he specifies.

‘Building on advances in AI, synthetic data allows scientists and others to share data on a global scale and collaborate on biology and health-related research by removing identifying information,’ it adds.

EU pioneering AI legislation

After several years of development, as the first draft of ethical principles that should be considered in the development of reliable AI was published in 2018, the European Union’s AI law finally saw the light of day this year.

‘The EU’s AI law seeks to regulate its use in aspects that may affect fundamental rights and obliges its developers to comply with stricter safeguards,’ said Alfred Maeso, lead expert at Netmind and head of the Innovation and Digital Transformation CoE in Southern Europe and Latin America at BTS.

For his part, Sergio Rodríguez de Guzmán, CTO of PUE, stated that ‘the approval of this regulation will allow us to have a roadmap in the face of the unstoppable advance of generative AI’.

He did, however, sound a warning. ‘Organisations, both public and private, have to think about the importance of developing data management systems that allow them to have absolute control over their sources of information, especially if it is of a sensitive nature’.

In addition, the new AI law has implications for cybersecurity and technological innovation. ‘It is the first global law that seeks to address the risk that AI can introduce and mitigate the danger that its applications will violate human rights or perpetuate bias. Whether it is gender-biased CV scanning, pervasive surveillance in public space with AI-powered cameras or invasive analysis of medical data affecting health insurance, this EU AI Law aims to set clear boundaries for its deployment, so that vendors and developers have some guidelines and limits. So the ‘good guys’ will be able to see the line drawn and have access and tools to go after those who go against it,’ said Peter Sandkuijl, vice president of the cybersecurity company’s EMEA engineering department.

The age of Misinformation

We have been talking about disinformation and fake news for years, but this problem has reached its peak in 2024. The war in Ukraine and the Russian crusade against the Western world has intensified the proliferation of hoaxes across the internet using a variety of techniques, many of which exploit the potential of AI, such as deepfakes.

The most common is the creation of fake news or the impersonation and cloning of media outlets, government agencies or other organisations, forging their legitimate domain names, creating videos and sending fake press releases, as we reported on Silicon.es.

Information laundering is also used by leaking fake messages on multiple websites on one continent, pretending to be independent media, so that they end up making the news in local media on another continent.

Similarly, there is the creation of clever redirects to send a reader from a legitimate media outlet to a maliciously created clone; the production of fake opinion polls; the creation of fake identities of organisations or fake profiles on social networks, blogs, forums or websites; the production of fake official letters or interviews; forging documents or introducing fake documents in official bodies to influence relations between officials and political organisations; simulating fake correspondence between countries; or collaborating with fraudulent self-publishers and news websites, among other actions.

One of the key moments in 2024 was the celebration of the Paris Olympic Games, when several actions by pro-Russian hacktivist groups and those from other countries and regions were detected, with the aim of interfering in this event and amplifying their political messages to the global audience, which we reported on in this article.

Nor can we forget the US presidential elections, which have also been marked by the propagation of numerous hoaxes, as we warned.

Faced with this situation, we are seeing some responses to try to combat disinformation. For example, on Silicon.es we talk about the industry-academia consortium led by Fujitsu.

New advances in connectivity and 6G networks

We live in a permanently connected world, so all advances in this direction are very important. With the 5G network still being deployed, the first tests of the next generation, 6G, are coming.

The first 6G test satellite was launched into orbit in February and the first prototypes of 6G-capable mobile devices have started to be developed.

But there is life beyond 6G. The WEF highlights advances in new technologies such as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), which optimise wireless communication links by dynamically changing them, using a combination of metamaterials, smart algorithms and advanced signal processing to control and manipulate electromagnetic waves.

They are designed to improve capacity and connectivity, but are also a solution with environmental sustainability in mind.

RIS can turn ordinary walls and surfaces into smart components of a wireless network, so this technology could mean more reliable and efficient radio communication in smart factories and vehicle networks, as well as better coverage in agricultural environments.

On the other hand, the WEF talks about high-altitude platform station systems (HAPS), which are set to offer new levels of communication and observation capability.

‘Operating about 20 kilometres above the Earth – typically in the form of a balloon, blimp or fixed-wing aircraft – they can surpass the connectivity, coverage and performance of terrestrial towers and satellites, especially in remote areas of the world,’ he says.

‘The innovative HAPS infrastructure is poised to bring internet access to more than 2.6 billion people in 100 countries without connectivity, creating opportunities for education and economic growth,’ he adds.

Thus, the WEF insists that this technology has the potential to improve digital inclusion, as HAPS are fast to deploy. In addition, it notes that ‘they could be of vital use in emergency situations’.

He also looks at advances in technologies that combine sensing and communication systems into a single system capable of collecting and transmitting data simultaneously, thus saving costs and hardware and inaugurating new application possibilities.

He explains that these ISAC systems ‘make wireless networks aware of the environment, enabling functions such as localisation, environmental mapping and infrastructure monitoring’.

‘Sensors and data analysis can be used, for example, to monitor air and water quality, soil moisture and weather conditions. Real applications include monitoring systems for smart agriculture, environmental conservation and urban planning, as well as smart grids that optimise energy generation and consumption,’ notes the WEF.

Neuroscience leaps ahead

2024 marks a historic milestone for neuroscience. Researchers at Harvard University have been able to map a cubic millimetre of the human brain at nanometre resolution, a breakthrough that will be fundamental to understanding neural processing.

The scientists have created the largest three-dimensional, synaptic-resolution reconstruction of a human brain slice to date, showing in great detail every cell and its network of neural connections in a piece of human temporal cortex about half the size of a grain of rice, according to Science Daily.

This achievement was made possible through a nearly 10-year collaboration with scientists at Google Research, combining the Harvard team’s electron microscopy images with AI algorithms to colour-code and reconstruct the connections in mammalian brains.

The goal is to create a high-resolution map of the ‘neural wiring’ of a mouse brain. This is about 1,000 times the amount of data they have just produced from the 1 cubic millimetre fragment of human cortex.

On the other hand, it should be remembered that Elon Musk announced at the beginning of 2024 that the first implantation of the Neuralink chip in humans had been carried out, as reported by the BBC.

In addition, the South African-born tycoon’s company received authorisation last November to test a technology that allows paraplegic people to control a robotic arm only with their thoughts, as reported by CNN.

Apple’s long-awaited Apple Vision Pro arrives (but not here)

Although it is not a great technological novelty, everything Apple does always acquires enormous relevance.

The presentation of its Vision Pro virtual reality glasses could be just what this sector needs to take off, as has happened before with products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

The glasses were initially launched in the United States last February, and are gradually coming to Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Apple Vision Pro has not yet arrived in Spain and no date has been set, but this Christmas we could see a boom in virtual or augmented reality glasses, according to UOC experts, as we explained in this article.

At the moment, Meta is leading this market, with its Meta Quest, making use of the technology and know-how acquired with the purchase of Oculus.

The development of this type of product could be very important for the technology sector. According to a report by Market Research Future, the market for these devices was worth $16.6 billion last year. By 2024, it is expected to grow by 7.2 per cent to around $17.8 billion.

But the best is yet to come, with an average annual increase of 15.6 per cent expected between 2024 and 2032, bringing the market to a value of $55.6 billion.

Spain, digital hub of Southern Europe

The year 2024 has also seen the consolidation of Spain as the most important digital hub in Southern Europe, following the arrival of the so-called hyperscalers: Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft.

Google’s presence in Spain is materialised in the establishment of a Google Cloud region in Madrid. The company also has big plans for Spain.

‘Our commitment to Spain is reinforced by a major five-year investment plan, exceeding $650 million, announced in 2021. This plan covers critical infrastructure projects such as the Madrid Cloud Region and the Grace Hopper submarine cable, which landed in Bilbao in September 2021 and connected Spain with the United States and the United Kingdom,’ explained Javier Martínez, head of customer engineering for Spain and Portugal at Google Cloud.

It has also been almost two years since the AWS region in Aragon began operating. ‘Our choice of Aragon has always been linked to the institutional trust offered by the governments we have dealt with over the years, the strength of the Aragonese business fabric and local talent, the wide availability of land and the potential for sustainable resources and sources with which we can contribute to the sustainability of our operations. And in May, we are reinforcing this commitment with a new investment, helping to place Aragon at the forefront of the technological vanguard in Spain,’ commented David Blázquez, senior public policy for Infrastructure and Energy at AWS Iberia.

And Microsoft’s proposal is Spain Central, its first cloud region in our country, located in Madrid. ‘This strategic infrastructure is part of our commitment to invest to accelerate the digitisation of Spanish organisations, the development of AI and cloud services in Spain and to consolidate our country as a key technology hub in Europe,’ said Enrique Ruiz, director of the Cloud Region of Microsoft Data Centres in Spain.

To all this we must add the deployments of providers such as OVHcloud, Equinix, Data4 and Digital Realty, as we mentioned earlier.