Out of DARQness, cometh Light

The DARQ age is coming. And we cannot do anything to stop it. The 'Q' at the end of the word is not a typo. It was first used in an Accenture report in 2019 explaining the new emerging technologies making waves globally and showing promising prospects. Cut to 2021; we are witnessing tremendous advancements in these fields. Accenture states, "89% of businesses are already experimenting with one or more DARQ technologies, expecting them to be key differentiators". As early adopters receive a good response in the market, other businesses are jumping onto the wagon to use one or more of these technologies.

Before drilling down on this seemingly tricky word that I have thrown at you, let's talk about how technology, in general, has affected people. The steam engine was at one point a strange new technology in a world of horse-drawn carriages. From the steam engine to space tourism, the world has always been wary of new technology because it's not yet fully understood. But eventually, the fear of technology receded, and people embraced steam engines. And here we are, sending people to space just for fun. Today, space tourism is expensive and inaccessible to most of the population. But as the technology around it matures, it would be like going to Disneyland. Technologies are constantly evolving, and we can see a lot of resistance against them. But eventually, businesses will adopt them in one way or another. Like SMAC, it will all be normal for us. Those who don't will be left behind or will have stunted growth while the market booms.

Wait, what's SMAC? If we clock back a decade, SMAC was all the rage.

• Social

• Mobile

• Analytics

• Cloud

Today, any business without SMAC implemented in one way or another would not see the light of day. A decade back, this technology was young. It was scary for businesses to move to this new era, but those who did reap its benefits. And now, without SMAC, a company cannot exist.

Let's get back to our original discussion. DARQ. Let's try to understand them a little. So what are DARQ technologies?

• Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): In simple terms, it is a digital database in multiple locations and with numerous participants. Previously, businesses used to have databases at a single location, which opened them to a single point of weakness in case of failure or tampering. But with DLT, the database is not located in one place or one person. There is no need for a central administrator or authority. Thus it is called a decentralized system. The commonly used buzzword blockchain is a subset of DLT. And the best example of blockchain is Bitcoin. There is no central authority that looks over Bitcoin, and all transactions are secured through complex codes.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): This is the most famous of all the technologies mentioned here. Through AI, businesses try to emulate human-like intelligence in machines and computer systems. One of the most common uses of AI is right in our hands- Smartphones. Assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are use AI to learn our behaviors and do tasks for us. Chatbots that we use on a website that provides instant answers to our questions that's another application of AI. Self-driving cars, Netflix recommendations, email spam filters, etc., are all an application of AI in some form.

• Extended Reality (XR): It is a term for immersive technologies. Today we have many such technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). It is still evolving, and many new technologies are yet to come. These techs blend our real and virtual worlds to give us an immersive experience. The Snapchat dog filters that we use are an application of AR. Here digital or virtual information is overlaid onto the real world. Pokemon Go is another use case of AR. In virtual reality experience, users are fully immersed in the digital environment with the help of a 360-degree view of the world through a headset such as HTC Vive. Mixed reality brings digital and real-world closer into coexistence and lets them interact with each other in real-time. Microsoft's HoloLens is one such example. It allows you to place digital objects in your physical room and enables you to interact with them.

• Quantum Computing (QC): This is the least explored of the four technologies because it is costly. But companies like Google and IBM are making breakthrough inventions in this segment. QC is computation based on the laws of quantum physics. It can do tasks and solve mathematical problems that are just not possible with ordinary computers. With data being generated in a humongous amount from other technologies, QC will play a significant role in analyzing such data.

Here is an infographic to explain.

Source: Accenture

Technology has always taken the world by surprise. We don't realize when technology slowly sneaks into our daily lives and becomes an indispensable part of our lives. And history is there to prove it. Today, businesses cannot exist without social media, data analytics, or cloud technology. Everyone has embraced it willfully or forcefully. With each advancement, the pace at which our civilization moves ahead has also increased.

Imagine students taking a walk inside a heart to understand each part. They will have much better recall than traditional methods. Extended reality technologies can help reinvent ways of learning.

Today, many DARQ technologies are being experimented with. People are finding new ways to implement them. Even then, it has had some significant impacts in many sectors. Healthcare is one field in which it has had a tremendous effect. It has the potential to make health services more efficient and personalized. It can potentially change our understanding of illness and make it streamlined by crunching large data sets and providing deep insights into a person's diagnosis. Robots like the "da Vinci surgical system" are already assisting doctors in surgeries. Applications are endless and we are just getting started.

Companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, MI, etc., have introduced robots capable of performing complex tasks. In August 2021, Tesla announced the "Tesla Bot," a 5 feet 8-inch humanoid robot capable of doing human-like tasks. Boston Dynamics released a video of its humanoid robot "Atlas" running and jumping across the room in a complex parkour course. MI launched its "CyberDog," which looks like something out of a dystopian movie.

Technologies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, etc., are trying to provide solutions to existing gaps in our system. All these technologies have been feasible for some time, but making them mainstream has been a challenge. But with the changing world comes new challenges that will require the help of these technologies to solve. It has the potential to change how business is done and the potential to change our lives. As DARQ matures, the way businesses function will be reimagined, and it will transform our future into something that we have never imagined.

Resources for further reading:

• https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/technology/new-emerging-technologies-darq

• https://siliconangle.com/2019/02/11/accentures-focus-on-business-trends-shifts-from-smac-to-darq-power-techvision2019/

• https://internationalbanker.com/technology/does-a-darq-future-await-the-world/

• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/darq-technology-powerhouse-of-future/

• https://www.bmc.com/blogs/smac-social-mobile-analytics-cloud/