Panasonic has started a test run of facilities installed at a microwave oven plant in the United Kingdom to allow the plant to run solely on renewable energy. Panasonic installed a system to generate power using green hydrogen, produced without causing carbon dioxide emissions. It is the world's first power generation system using pure hydrogen fuel cells that run on green hydrogen, according to the company. At the plant in Cardiff, Wales, operations powered solely by renewable energy will begin in March next year. Using hydrogen sourced in Wales, the power generation system combines 21 fuel cell generators, two lithium storage batteries and existing solar panels.

What makes the fourth industrial revolution so different from previous industrial revolutions is the convergence and interaction between multiple technology trends at once. In this article, I list the ten major technology trends that are driving the fourth industrial revolution – trends that I believe will forever alter how we do business and live our lives. As processing power has increased and the size of computer microchips has shrunk, we've quickly become used to computers and devices getting smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful, and more ubiquitous. Looking ahead, probably the next big leap in computing power will come from quantum computers – computers that are so fast and powerful, they could be used to complete new, previously impossible tasks that traditional computers aren't capable of. The IoT refers to the increasing number of intelligent, connected devices and objects that are capable of gathering and transmitting data.