Aaron Lee, Las Vegas; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES
Thursday 3 May 2018
The upcoming 5G will be a massive accelerator on all the things going on in technology, fueling the development of all forms of AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) applications, and the tech sector must figure out how to use AI in a responsible way, according to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell.
Dell made the remarks when delivering a keynote speech at the Dell Technologies World 2018 held April 30-May 2 in Las Vegas with the theme of "Make It Real." This is the first year that all of the firm's seven brands, including VMware, Virtustream, and Dell EMC, were combined into one major event to showcase their latest software, hardware and end-to-end solutions, attracting around 14,000 attendees including Dell's global customers, solution providers, technology partners, and analysts.
Dell said that all types of AI applications are happening, and he urged partners and customers to invest in AI as data becomes their most valuable asset. He said that organizations are in danger of losing their competitive edge if they are unable to implement AI and machine learning to use data.
Data is the fuel for AI
"To be competitive in the future, you have got to use software, data and AI," Dell said. "If AI is your rocket ship, data is the fuel for your rocket. If you know how to use it, your data will become your most valuable asset - even more valuable than your applications," he stressed.
Driven by the rapid development of AI and IoT applications, up to 200TB of data a day will be generated by the typical city of one million people in 2020, and the data will be generated through a great diversity of sources including smart buildings, public security, and autonomous vehicles. In this aspect, data security will become an increasingly crucial issue, according to Dell.
Dell said that a Level 4 autonomous car will generate 4TB of new data every single day in 2020, and such big data cannot be transmitted without 5G networks. He stressed that the upcoming 5G applications will fuel the development of AI, IoT, cloud architectures and edge computing.
But there are challenges with 5G, as many telecom carriers worldwide can hardly afford the expensive network equipment, Dell said, adding that governments can play a certain role in this space by helping the carriers with equipment upgrades just as they did in optical equipment upgrade.
While Tesla founder Elon Musk compared AI to an atomic bomb and said it should be regulated, Dell said that every technology creates good and bad things, all depending on how people use it.
"Saying AI is really bad and we should not have AI is nonsense. We have to figure out how to use it in a responsible way. That is our job," Dell said.
For enterprises seeking to survive fierce competition, they have to catch up with the ongoing wave of digital transformation , Dell indicated, adding that there are no common versions of AI solutions as different solution architectures are required to meet diverse core values of enterprises.