What Are Alibaba DAMO Academy’s 2019 Tech Trends Shaping the Future?

In the cold winter of 2018, technology still sparked passion. Alibaba DAMO Academy released the "2019 Top Ten Technology Trends," covering smart cities, digital identity, autonomous driving, graph neural network systems, AI chips, blockchain, 5G and more, offering theoretical support and imagination for 2019 development.

Trend 1: Real‑time City Simulation Enables Smart Cities

City infrastructure sensing data and real‑time urban pulse streams converge on massive computing platforms. Advances in compute power and algorithms will fuse video and other unstructured data with structured data in real time, making real‑time city simulation possible and upgrading local intelligence to global intelligence, leading to fully spatiotemporal, all‑element, lifecycle‑iterative smart cities.

Trend 2: Voice AI Passes Turing Tests in Specific Domains

Standardized, low‑cost voice interaction modules will make speaking public facilities ubiquitous. Real‑time voice generation on mobile devices may become indistinguishable from human speech, and in certain dialogues it could pass the Turing test. Regulations and laws will gradually emerge to guide industry standardization.

Trend 3: AI‑Specific Chips Challenge GPU Dominance

In AI training workloads, data movement between compute and storage is a bottleneck. Next‑generation AI chip architectures based on 3D‑stacked storage are emerging. These chips will increase data bandwidth, promote brain‑inspired computing, and challenge GPUs, especially in edge scenarios.

Trend 4: Massive Graph Neural Networks Grant Machines Common Sense

Combining deep learning with graph neural networks enables end‑to‑end learning and inductive reasoning, addressing relational reasoning and interpretability challenges. Powerful graph neural networks may give machines a brain‑like structure, endowing AI with common sense, understanding, and cognition.

Trend 5: Computing Architecture Will Be Re‑engineered

Both data‑center and edge scenarios will see a restructuring of computing systems. Future architectures must satisfy AI’s high‑throughput demands and IoT’s low‑power needs, leading to heterogeneous designs based on FPGA, GPU, ASIC, and new memory technologies, shifting from CPU‑centric to domain‑specific, application‑driven structures.

Trend 6: 5G Networks Spawn New Application Scenarios

5G will dramatically boost mobile bandwidth, enabling near‑hundred‑fold speed over 4G and supporting 4K/8K video, AR/VR, and massive machine‑type communications. Network slicing will create independent virtual sub‑networks, empowering autonomous driving, industrial IoT, and other sectors with high reliability, low latency, and large capacity.

Trend 7: Digital Identity Becomes a Second ID Card

Biometric technologies are maturing and scaling. With widespread 3D sensors and multimodal biometrics, devices can “see” and “hear” intelligently. Digital identity will become a second ID, used from phone unlocking to airport security, accelerating a world where facial recognition is ubiquitous.

Trend 8: Autonomous Driving Enters a Calm Development Phase

Pure “car‑only” intelligence cannot achieve full autonomy soon, but it does not mean a winter for autonomous driving. Vehicle‑road collaboration will accelerate driverless progress, with logistics, fixed‑route buses, unmanned delivery, and campus micro‑circulation expected to commercialize within 2‑3 years.

Trend 9: Blockchain Returns to Rationality, Accelerates Commercial Use

IoT will support trustworthy mapping between off‑chain and on‑chain data, enabling blockchain to reorganize and optimize data flows, improving efficiency in cross‑border payments, supply‑chain finance, e‑invoicing, and legal evidence. Layered architectures and cross‑chain interoperability will underpin large‑scale adoption.

Trend 10: Data Security Protection Technologies Surge

Governments will tighten data‑security regulations, prompting enterprises to invest more in personal data privacy. Technologies such as watermarking, data‑asset protection, and advanced anti‑scraping will see broader adoption to counter escalating cyber threats.