Top Vole and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella claims that the world is becoming a computer with computing getting embedded in everything that moves and somethings that don’t.
Talking to the assembled multitudes at Vole’s annual Build conference Monday, Nadella said that means that suppliers have a responsibility to protect people’s security and privacy, as well as to sustain and grow economic opportunity around the world.
“We have the responsibility to ensure that these technologies are empowering [everyone], that these technologies are creating equitable growth by ensuring every industry can grow and create employment”, he said. “But we also have a responsibility as a tech industry to build trust in technology.”
In his speech, Nadella said the shift to cloud and edge computing can be compared to the industrial revolution, where the period’s core technologies, such as electricity and internal combustion, weren’t something that could be seen. He called the opportunities in the growth of cloud and edge computing, “in some sense, endless”.
New applications, platforms and capabilities in cloud and edge computing were the primary focus of Microsoft’s announcements at the 2018 Build conference. They included the open-sourcing of the Azure IoT Edge Runtime, a new Speech Devices SDK and the Project Kinect for Azure sensor developer kit.
Nadella warned of creating worlds which could have been written by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, saying “none of us wants to see a future” that they imagined. He quoted philosopher Hans Jonas, who once said: “Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life.”
“We need to develop a set of principles that guide the choices we make because the choices we make are going to guide our future”, Nadella said.
