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Inevitable obsolescence and AI superpowers: Fast forward to a brave new world in 2030

Barry Neethling, CTO, First Technology Group. (Image: First Technology Group)
Barry Neethling, CTO, First Technology Group. (Image: First Technology Group)

Moore’s Law, the principle that computing power doubles roughly every two years, is often said to be "dead", as the rapid pace of technological change has now outstripped its original definition. By 2030, advances in technology promise to reshape computing, work and daily life in ways previously considered science fiction.

This is according to Barry Neethling, CTO of First Technology Group, who says a number of developments are converging to reshape technology, how people engage with it and its role in daily life within a few short years.

“If you connect the dots between several key advances, you’ll see things are happening now that were literally science fiction just 10 years ago. The scale and pace at which things are changing means the technology we use today is destined to be obsolete in just three years, and we face future unknowns with a combination of excitement, fear and anticipation. What’s going to happen in the next five years will be completely different from anything that happened in the past five years,” Neethling says.

For example, Sam Altman is of the opinion that AGI will be a reality by 2030.

Towards super chips

One major change is progress in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, he says. “Compute capability is increasing exponentially, and it will have to continue doing so to cope with the growing demands of AI,” Neethling says.

Dutch lithography technology leader ASML is now shipping machines capable of printing 10 Angstrom dense features on silicon wafers – at a cost. Their High NA EUV lithography system is designed to enable chipmakers to print the smallest features on the most advanced microchips.

Multiple chipmakers (including Huawei) are working on materials innovation and ways to bring down the cost of sub-7nm semiconductors and associated power systems

With processors already reaching 3nm to 7nm nodes, compute power is set to grow exponentially. "Over the next five years, we could see a fivefold increase in compute power," Neethling notes.

Devices like Apple's M4 system on a chip, featuring up to a 40-core CPU and advanced neural engines, are already revolutionising user experiences.

Beyond Windows 11

“At the same time, Windows 10 is approaching end of support next year and Windows 11 – which will be five years old by then – can be expected to go into retirement in the next couple of years. We will likely see a new iteration of Windows by 2027, and by 2030, we might see Windows 13 or 14 (or another interim 27H2),” he says. It is very likely that Windows 11 will not complete the 10-year life cycle that Windows 10 (and previous OS’s) have “lived” through.

Neethling says newer operating systems will be more tightly integrated with generative AI applications and likely have immersive and highly interactive features and revolutionary interfaces. “The experience will change completely and there's the potential of entering an AR and VR environment. Even today, Apple has announced an update to the Vision Pro that will give you a 10K resolution virtual screen experience!

In the future, we will start to see technologies like Solid Light, holographic light field display systems where images or projections are indistinguishable from reality.”

Getting your superpowers

“Generative AI is already giving people ‘superpowers’ – supporting and transforming how people work, making them more productive and competent. It’s also transforming daily life, enabling things like smart homes, ever-smarter eyewear, wearable health devices and even hearing enhancement aids and near-real time translation tools (remember the BabelFish).

In the corporate ecosystem, Microsoft is ahead of the field in terms of AI integration and data security for AI, but there’s an ‘AI arms race’ among vendors and against cyber criminals to own this space, and we expect rapid progress.

“Three years ago, much of today’s AI-driven tools were unimaginable. The changes are so drastic that five-year-old PCs now struggle with modern demands” Neethling explains.

Keeping pace with change

Organisations must speed up their hardware refresh cycles to keep pace and stay current, he says. “On PCs, for example, you will need a neural processing unit to support AI, particularly as vendors move to put AI capabilities on the machine itself instead of in the cloud. The computer you'll buy in 2030 is guaranteed to be completely different from what you’re using now,” he says. However, with new chip technologies emerging and the prospect of Windows 12 on the horizon, Neethling recommends revising refreshes until there is more clarity around the CoPilot+ roadmap and 24H2 has stabilised.

Neethling also notes that increasingly powerful devices and ever more capable AI are inevitably more expensive than traditional tools. “As the prices go up, we need to make sure we are extracting more value from the technology. You can’t just keep using technology like you used to – you have to embrace advances like AI to improve people's capabilities and productivity.”  

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