This ebook, based on the latest ZDNet / TechRepublic special feature, looks at the outlook for business leaders in 2020 and where they are spending their tech dollars. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology are crucial to modern-day data-driven businesses, according to Gartner's recent AI and ML Development Strategies report. Nearly 60% of respondents said they have AI deployed in their businesses today, and expect to double the number of AI projects in place within the next year. Customer experience (40%) and task automation (20%) are the driving forces behind AI adoption, the report found. "AI can improve customer experience by understanding individual behaviors, preferences and/or purchase patterns, to perform predictive analysis," said Jim Hare, research vice president at Gartner.

This ebook, based on the latest ZDNet / TechRepublic special feature, looks at how the industry cloud has taken off and big businesses have been built by the likes of Veeva, Rootstock and others. Hospitals and health systems are using cloud services to power a digital transformation, but pharmaceutical companies are using the cloud to revamp their business operations in even more fundamental ways. Computational drug discovery uses a combination of cloud computing and artificial intelligence to make the drug development process faster and cheaper. The big drug companies are taking advantage of improvements in AI and the computational power of the cloud to test this new approach. Pharma companies are using this tech-driven process to develop traditional medications as well as completely new categories that work at the level of DNA and RNA to stop disease. Hyperscale cloud providers are vital new partners in this form of drug development.

This article was originally published as a TechRepublic cover story. Marcus Hall was nine years old when he first drove a tractor on his family's sprawling Iowa farm, eschewing Tonka trucks and Matchbox cars for long rides on heavy machinery. Growing up on a multigenerational family farm is common in an agricultural state like Iowa, where nearly 27 million acres are devoted to cropland--out of the 35 million acres that make up the state. Hall grew up with all the trappings of a future farmer, but a penchant for technology led him down a more experimental path--to the test farm of ag equipment giant John Deere. As manager of the test farm, Hall gets to run field trials of John Deere's high-tech farm equipment before it goes to market. "I just enjoy being out on the tractor," says Hall. "Plus, it's fun being part of this type of technology and the leading edge of what's out there." Download this article as a PDF (free registration required). It's a warm, breezy day in late May 2018, when we meet up with Hall at John Deere's test facility in Bondurant, IA. The farm sits on an unassuming patch of land framed by two-lane roads.

"The only thing constant in life is change," said 17th century French thinker François de La Rochefoucauld. The Internet of Things explained: What the IoT is, and where it's going next. That goes for double in the tech industry. By 2006, the people of the world were doing 100 million Google searches every day--which, by the way, we thought was an enormous number at the time. Now, we're doing 4.5 billion searches a day--45 times as many--which shows just how far and wide the digital revolution is still sweeping the planet and embedding itself deeper and deeper into our everyday lives.

More cities are adding smart city features so that Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and other connected technologies can improve the lives of citizens and visitors. As everyone knows, technology moves fast and finding out what's in store next is crucial to stay in the game. Diabetics have been waiting for years for better technology to manage their condition. Some got tired of waiting and hacked together an open source hardware and software solution. The concept of a smart city has been around for more than a decade, but it was only recently that the phrase "smart city" became part of the modern lexicon.