This year also saw renewed interest in Artificial Intelligence, IOT, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies that are expected to disrupt and revolutionize industries. Blockchain became a mainstream term this year and saw a huge rally in Bitcoin this month. The Blockchain technology, on its own, has the potential for widespread innovative applications and is a hot topic for research. We plan to bring out a special feature on Blockchain in a forthcoming issue.
The reach of AI has encompassed related but distinct fields in Machine learning, Deep learning, Speech recognition, Search engines, Neural networks and such under its banner. Cognitive Computing, also a domain under AI, is gaining a lot of traction. Considered somewhat analogous to human cognition, it deals with symbolic and conceptual information processing for reasoning and understanding. If pace of computing has to keep with the extraordinary amount of data being generated today, we need new techniques for effective processing of databases beyond what we could have ever imagined. The answer possibly is in Quantum Computing – the new digital frontier. Quantum Computers will be commercially available in the coming year that will be able to efficiently solve problems which are not practically feasible on traditional computers. These exciting areas provide our engineers in academia and industry multitude opportunities for research and development. ADCOM, the flagship annual conference of ACCS slated for September 2018, will explore cognitive technologies and AI as the main theme. ACC, in the run up to the event will be bringing out feature articles in these areas.
I hope that our in-depth articles will motivate readers to delve deeper into various aspects of technology and research. I also expect that this issue will introduce students to the fascinating world of GIS and expose them to wide opportunities in interdisciplinary exploration.
On to 2018!
