Market forces, including dynamic work environments, evolving device requirements, and economic uncertainty, are driving requirements to support new ways of working, doing business, growing food, and enabling IoT-enabled connected devices. Our 2023 predictions for edge computing, IoT, and networking take into account these market forces and highlight their impact on the technology triad, as well as how edge, IoT, and networking can address dynamic market opportunities.

Below is a look at three of the bold calls we’re making for edge, IoT, and networking in 2023:

  • Big city IoT and infrastructure initiatives to lure back citizens and workers will fall flat. In 2023, government funds, including the $89.9 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the US, will power smart lighting, traffic management, and energy monitoring investments in cities. 5G and Wi-Fi deployments will extend connectivity to visitors, residents, and anywhere workers. However, these investments won’t lure citizens back to big cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York in 2023 due to increased crime rates and public safety concerns. City leaders must focus on improving safety while addressing public disapproval of surveillance and public safety methods.
  • Smarter farming will take off in response to extreme weather and war. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, China and Russia accounted for over a quarter of global wheat exports. As global tensions rise, and weather events become more extreme, edge- and IoT-enabled food production will finally achieve meaningful scale in 2023. One vertical farm in Dubai produces over 1 million intensely monitored kilograms of leafy vegetables each year, without pesticides and using up to 95% less water than traditional methods. In the vast mechanized farmlands around the globe, ground, air, and space-borne sensors combine with edge processing and analytics to reduce water consumption and direct environmentally damaging chemicals to specific plants.

predictions 2023 edge computing: smarter farming will take off in response to extreme war and weather

  • Rising businesswide networks, confidential computing, and Zero Trust edge (ZTE) will ignite the edge. To help protect data in IoT scenarios, confidential computing isolates sensitive operations in a trusted execution environment during processing. IoT data remains protected when in use, so it’s easier to meet strict regulations for data privacy and to introduce new use cases. To support the transfer of data between edge and cloud while appearing seamless to the developer, two networking markets, ZTE and multicloud networking, will combine to create a businesswide networking fabric. Multicloud overlay solutions, such as Aviatrix and F5 Volterra, enable a single multicloud network platform.

Read our full 2023 edge, IoT, and networking Predictions report to get more detail about each of these predictions, plus two more bonus predictions. Set up a Forrester guidance session to discuss these predictions or plan out your 2023 strategy.

If you aren’t yet a client, you can download our complimentary Predictions guide, which covers our top predictions for 2023. Get additional complimentary resources, including webinars, on the Predictions 2023 hub.