While global economic and social uncertainties in 2020 caused significant stress, progress in intelligent technologies continued. The digital and intelligent transformation of all industries significantly accelerated, with AI technologies showing great potential in combatting COVID-19 and helping people resume work. Understanding future technology trends may never have been as important as it is today. Baidu Research is releasing our prediction of the 10 technology trends in 2021, hoping that these clear technology signposts will guide us to embrace the new opportunities and embark on new journeys in the age of intelligence. In 2020, COVID-19 drove the integration of AI and emerging technologies like 5G, big data, and IoT.

As demand for intelligent, online digital services continues to surge, governments and businesses are integrating AI throughout transformation. Their applications are migrating to the cloud faster and evolving based on massive amounts of data, apps, AI, and industry know-how. These applications will create more value if they combine new technologies with business dynamics and customer needs. The shift to digital is opening up a plethora of business opportunities for application developers. But many challenges lie ahead, stopping governments and businesses from moving key applications to cloud.

The pace of technology innovation is undeniably moving faster, growing more intelligent, and becoming inescapable. With each advancement, midsize companies are expanding the scope of their digital transformation efforts – from integrating technology into their business to fundamentally changing their workplace culture, organizational operation, and customer experiences. No organization understands this reality better than finance. The IDC InfoBrief, "The Finance Role in Best-Run Midsize Companies: Improving Decision-Making Using Intelligent Technologies," sponsored by SAP, recently revealed that finance organizations in best-run companies are embracing digital transformation and intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and machine learning. And in return, most of them are improving timely decision-making, running more-efficient and less error-prone operational processes, and empowering knowledge workers to engage in higher-value business activities. Notably, such changes are making finance more than a highly efficient function of cash-flow insight, effective spend management, and invoice and payment processing.