According to the 2021 Accenture Technology Vision report, the rise of the mirrored world is being driven by leaders who are building vast networks of interlinked intelligent twins that comprise living models of whole factories, product lifecycles, supply chains, ports and even cities. They are bringing together data and intelligence to both represent the physical world in a digital space and to address bigger challenges. The opportunities on offer in the mirrored world are a direct reflection of the extent to which businesses connect intelligent twins. Already, twins enable organizations to gather, visualize and contextualize data across projects and operations, using AI to run scenario modeling. But soon, leaders will have made data and intelligence the primary orchestrators of the business, increasing real-time agility at scale, overhauling their innovation processes and forming entirely new ecosystems and partnerships.

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.

We asked a selection of our Thinkers360 global influencers about their predictions for AI in 2021. Here's what they told us… For 2021, we'll see a rise in solutions that drive connectivity, ubiquitous cloud, and intelligence across any scenario via integrated architectures such as Intelligent Twins, enabling further development of smart cities, enterprises, and industries. It's a response to the growing need for smarter ecosystems, process and service experience optimization, and stronger competitive drivers at a time when organizations must enable faster transformation and business model innovation. Cloud is the foundation for the Intelligent Twins, and organizations can approach this through either a single or multi cloud deployment depending on their business's requirements, technology, strategy, and scale. In a post-COVID world, there will be an acceleration of AI adoption in the enterprise.

These solutions will help Huawei deliver intelligent connectivity that is characterized by ubiquitous gigabit, deterministic experience, and hyper-automation in order to build industry Intelligent Twins. Huawei also launched autonomous driving network (ADN) solutions for enterprises, propelling enterprise networks into the ADN era and accelerating the intelligent upgrades of industries. David Wang, Huawei Executive Director and Chairman of the Investment Review Board, delivered a keynote speech titled "Building industry Intelligent Twins with intelligent connectivity." According to Mr. Wang, connectivity is productivity. It is not mere computing power, but strong connectivity that makes Intelligent Twins smarter.