2023 Predictions for Tech and Services Demand | Blog

The technology and services market this year experienced strong growth. But we have a slight deceleration at the end of this year as the prospect of a potentially deep recession grows. There is now a slowdown in consulting, particularly strategic consulting, and a slowdown in discretionary spending. Will that continue? Here is an overview of what I predict for the coming year.

Building Web 3.0 Infrastructure – Moving to a Decentralized Architecture | Blog

Web 3.0 offers great promise for enterprises and service providers. Moving to a decentralized internet can provide users with many benefits. The foundational infrastructure needed to create this truly open technology is evolving. Read on to learn about the features and requirements for the web’s next evolution.

Web 3.0 (or Web3) – a new intelligent and decentralized internet that will be more responsive, interactive, and tailor-made to enhance customer experience – is poised to take off. By allowing for advanced user and device interaction, the next version of the internet will recognize and interpret content and contexts.

Web 3.0 will enable newer business models based on data ownership where owned digital assets will be the key to unlocking access to the richer areas of the internet, moving away from the concepts of “trust” and “permission” presiding in the current internet version.

Seamless lending and borrowing that does not rely on creditworthiness, transaction-based user identification (goodbye Know Your Customer), intelligent marketing, and much more are on the verge of becoming a reality – all enabled by Web3.

Despite its many promising benefits, the transition to Web3 has been slower than initial estimates. But with the underlying technologies’ rising maturity, applications by startups and other enterprises are surging. Established firms also are rapidly exploring Web3 and innovating their existing business models.

Building blocks of Web3

As the industry experiments with Web3 to unlock benefits, the supporting infrastructure that enables the next internet version also is evolving. While creating and interacting with content on websites will continue to be done on existing web servers, the underlying network will facilitate owning and controlling created data.

Let’s take a deep dive into the building blocks of Web 3.0 infrastructure to better understand the following ideal core features required to create this truly open technology:

• Smart contracts: These pieces of code stored on the underlying blockchain technology get executed when conditions are met. Smart contracts play a critical role in authenticating certain outcomes without needing an intermediary. The automation can continue the governance-free workflow and, once authenticated, update the blockchain. These contracts are enforceable by code, maintaining transparency and autonomy.
• Tokens (fungible and nonfungible): Monetary incentives like these are vital for Web3’s growth. Tokens can be offered to anyone who contributes to the platform’s governance and improvement. Digital assets lie at the core of the decentralized internet vision and serve as authenticity and ownership proof.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Contextualizing interactions will be critical for hyper-personalization in Web3. AI can bring about increased accuracy, enhanced security, and greater scalability. To achieve these outcomes, Machine Learning (ML) will be used to filter and analyze content to gain meaningful insights, prioritize content, and create user-friendly interfaces in web apps. AI is already changing internet usage in the current Web 2.0 version and will become more dominant in Web3.

Underlying infrastructure requirements

The foundational elements unlock an ecosystem of decentralized, open infrastructure for everyone to use and build Web3. While AI remains an essential building block, smart contracts and tokens are implemented using blockchain. The underlying infrastructure that can seamlessly run blockchain applications and AI/ML models has the following requirements:

• Computing: Although the Web3 model can converge excess computational resources, running blockchain nodes will require access to high-performance computing infrastructure. Running AI/ML models to serve customized results requires quantum computing to be prevalent. Moreover, running 3D graphics over Web3 in real-time in use cases such as Metaverse would require high-power Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)
• Storage: AI in Web3 will feed on vast amounts of data to enable personalization. Storing such huge amounts of data requires larger disk sizes. Extremely fast disk read speeds are essential to leverage stored data. The underlying Web 3.0 infrastructure would need to support data of applications that leverage Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) and other media/video use cases. Finally, Web3 will require decentralized storage solutions to preserve the technology’s sanctity
• Network: High speed and low latency are foundational requirements to enable Web3. Higher network speed will determine the data transfer and blockchain update speed, enabling real-time processing. Maintaining low latency and high throughput also becomes critical for the transactions and interconnections to prevent delays and enhance the user experience. However, the decentralized nature is concerning because it inherently increases latency and the latency data of leading blockchain networks need improvement

To summarize, all the infrastructure elements must be upgraded to create an efficient Web3 network. Different types of nodes (servers that run blockchain applications) will have varying requirements for computing, storage, and speed.

Edge centers thereby become a natural choice for this ecosystem as they will bring computing and storage closer to devices with varying configurations. These centers will enable cost-effective analysis and processing of Web3 application data.

As far as reliability, the default peer-to-peer nature of blockchain networks enables Web3 to withstand physical hardware failure and network outages. Thus, the extra cost of redundancy would not give enterprises any sizeable operational benefits.

Evolving landscape

Both cloud providers and dedicated server providers have recognized this space’s potential and have made inroads with various startups such as Ankr and ChainSafe. The higher computation power of bare metal servers makes them a natural choice for multiple Web3 projects and protocols. Without redundancy and resiliency concerns, enterprises can easily grow their applications. Firms that are developing performance-sensitive applications will prefer dedicated hardware resources.

Cloud computing’s established reputation and market stronghold will create tough competition for physical server providers and may be able to attract more enterprises. Cloud computing models can strengthen blockchain and increase Web3 security.

Even leading cloud vendors such as AWS and Google Cloud are launching node services. Their Web3 units will provide support for blockchain developers with tools and platforms that can enhance their blockchain journey. However, expanding presence in the Web3 space will require a lot of effort from these hyperscalers to dismiss centralization concerns of using public cloud computing services.

Since all service providers are promoting firms to enhance their applications on their blockchain infrastructure offerings, those who can help enterprises build the next set of innovative applications will stand out as leaders.

With investments pouring in from venture capitals, hedge funds, private equity firms, and other investors, Web3 holds great opportunity that strategy, technology, and consulting providers can cash in by building 3.0 businesses for clients.

To discuss the evolving cloud and Web 3.0 infrastructure, contact  Mukesh Ranjan and Kaustubh K.

Learn more in our webinar, Web 3.0 and Metaverse: Implications for Sourcing and Technology Leaders.

Evolution of the Web – The Rise of the Decentralization of the Internet | Blog

By democratizing data and giving power back to internet users, Web 3.0 offers many new computing possibilities and growth opportunities for enterprises and IT service providers. Learn more about the evolution of the web and how the decentralization of the internet is poised to shake up business and operating models.

The evolution of the Web – from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0

The first internet version (Web 1.0) was limited in scope and interactivity. Users could only read what was displayed or shown to them, and communication was one-way with website hosts primarily focused on delivering content and information.

With Web 2.0, the internet became all about interactivity and collaboration. Web 2.0’s emphasis on social connectivity and user-generated content completely replaced Web 1.0’s bland read-only web pages. Users now could produce and share information online and were no longer limited to being passive content consumers. Instead of read-only, the web evolved to be read-write, with companies creating platforms to share user-generated content and engage in user-to-user interactions.

Web 2.0, however, led to the web’s primarily advertising-driven business/monetization model. Google, YouTube, and Facebook realized along the way that storing and transmitting the state of billions of users and targeting them for advertising is hugely profitable. The benefits of the internet slowly started skewing heavily towards a handful of these platforms.

With Web 2.0’s innovation curve now in its middle to late phase and its leaders well-established, it is time to explore the new computing possibilities of the next wave. Web 3.0 is evolving as a reaction to the overwhelmingly centralized nature of the internet today and the concentration of power in the hands of a few platforms. Web 3.0, by construct, aims to remove these third-party intermediaries and restore power to users so that they can benefit from internet activities.

Let’s look at the changes in interaction, computation, and information as illustrated below:

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is vastly different from previous generations. At its core, Web 3.0 is not about speed, performance, or convenience. Instead, Web 3.0 is about power; in fact, many Web 3.0 applications are, at least today, slower, and less convenient than existing products.

The primary focus of Web 3.0 is about who controls the technologies and applications that make up the internet and distributing its benefits without handing most of the power to a handful of large companies as we do today. Web 3.0, by construct, aims to remove third-party intermediaries and restore power to users so they can have a more immersive internet experience.

Decentralization of the internet under Web 3.0 will lead to a fairer and more open internet as it will allow anyone with an internet connection to participate and contribute to the ecosystem and enjoy greater benefits from web activities. Web 3.0 will also improve trust and reduce conflicts as users will possess the private key that can access their data, thereby eliminating the need for conflict resolution in the digital world.

We see Web 3.0 becoming a meaningful extension of Web 2.0, with the change being an evolution rather than a revolution with pockets of decentralized applications coexisting with the centralized web of today. The rollout will be gradual with a Web 2.5 stage.

Where is the internet headed?

The core concept of the Web 3.0 movement is decentralized ownership, with blockchain technology providing the underlying architecture for the internet’s next generation. Here are three key trends we see that will shape the future:

• Decentralized platforms will allow for sustainable ecosystems of third-party applications

The products and services that make up the internet today tend to be produced and controlled by individual corporations. Web 3.0 provides the opportunity to democratize the online experience and ensure that no central entity will take a substantial chunk of the revenue; instead, creators will be able to directly interact with their users, strengthening relationships for both creators and users.

• Money will become a native feature of the internet

While the past internet was simply a portal to the traditional financial system offline, now any user with an internet connection and phone can send or receive payments with the current software capabilities. Digital payments will unlock new business models that were previously impractical, radically lower the costs of cross-border remittances and other transactions, enable new use cases like machine payments, and expand availability to massive new markets.

• Users will have more control over their digital identities and data

Web 3.0 is laying the groundwork for personal control of online identities. Today, most online identities belong to big, centralized companies. Web 3.0 will give users control over their data by allowing them to use their identity rather than one provided by a third party, limiting the potential for identity providers such as Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail to collect user data and sell that data to generate money.

Web 3.0 challenges

Business leaders need to realize that Web 3.0 is coming and pay attention to its latest development. But creating an ecosystem that can end the big tech companies’ monopolies and reimagine how we interact with the internet is a complex undertaking. Web 3.0 still faces significant hurdles in usability, performance, and business and monetization models, as illustrated below:

A new internet era begins

Web 3.0 represents the natural progression of the internet that offers many exciting opportunities for technology and IT service providers. To seize its growth potential, providers need to focus on creating thought capital, hiring techno-creative thinkers, and building a go-to-market strategy to target a broader range of Web 3.0 themes to prepare for the coming transition.

To read more about Web 3.0 leading providers, see Web 3.0 Trailblazers – The Top Start-ups Building the Next Generation of the Internet. To discuss topics related to the evolution of the web, please contact Parul Trivedi, Sandeep Pattathil, and Nikhil Singh.

Learn more in our webinar, Web 3.0 and Metaverse: Implications for Sourcing and Technology Leaders.