HP Innovation Journal Issue 14: Spring 2020 | Page 42

What new developments in your
own area of expertise are you
looking forward to seeing in the
next one, five, and 10 years?
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CHANDRAKANT PATEL
HP Senior Fellow and Chief Engineer
Palo Alto, California
HP will be the leader in cyber-physical systems that will
make a difference to society. The world cannot wait.
1–2 years: Laptops, workstations, and printers will work as a
cluster to address our local data storage and analysis at our
desk and in our homes, and the cloud will become localized.
AI will start to be applied to “hard” physical problems such
as control of 3D print engines and smart factories. The
application of domain knowledge, i.e., mechanical engineer-
ing, together with data and AI, will create innovations in
design and management of physical systems.
5 years: Further advancement in cyber-physical AI will
enable fully automated factories and civil infrastructure
(power, water, transportation, healthcare), and we will
finally see truly “smart cities.” We will see advancement in
user experiences and collaboration tools with AR/VR and
haptic holography for management of factories and city-scale
infrastructure, driven by the demographic challenge of inad-
equately trained human capital with knowledge of running
power plants, water treatment plants, and other utilities.
10 years: Net-zero factories, data centers, and office
buildings will run solely on local microgrids composed
of energy conversion systems using solar power, waste
streams (methane from waste treatment, manure). Large-
scale, centralized power and water plants will be replaced
with local resource microgrids in cities, which in certain
regions will be partially made up of small-scale baseload,
micronuclear power plants.
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HP Innovation Journal Issue 14