Let’s Count ‘Em Down: The Top 7 Emerging Tech Hits of 2024

Don’t touch that dial! Frontier Foundry is here with you all night counting down the top 7 emerging technology hits of 2024. You’re tuned into our countdown event, and we have a commercial free line up coming your way. This is Top Tech Rewind, your ultimate journey through the biggest, boldest, and most unforgettable hits of 2024! Frontier Foundry is your chauffeur, and tonight, we’re diving at full speed into the tech that made us sing, dance, cry, and crank the volume all the way to eleven. This was a year of epic algos and iconic landscape shifts—whether you were jamming to AI, grooving to quantum, swooning over space, or getting lost in the magic of LLMs, we’ve got it all right here. We’ve been tallying the requests, scouring the charts, and digging into the vibes that kept you glued to your screens all year long. Now, let me ask you: Are you ready to rewind? Because we’re kicking off with trend number 7 and working our way to the number one smash that owned the airwaves. So, grab your data, turn up the dial, and let’s relive the moments that made this year totally unforgettable! Alright, Jacks and Jills, here we go—starting off at number 7 is a track that lit up the charts and the dance floors. You know it, you love it—this is post-quantum cryptography! Let’s get it rolling! Quantum standards published The cool cats down at NIST published their post quantum cryptography standards in August of 2024. The much-anticipated release was initially met with little fanfare, but its cult popularity grew. Now, this smash is dominating the brainwaves of cybersecurity and encryption experts all over this blue rock. Say goodbye to that RSA your parents played just like you bid adieu to that Alta Vista search engine they maybe still use. The era of lattice learning with errors is upon us and you’d better find a seat on this Soul Train. Time is a’ticking because there are some cyber squares over the ocean that are looking to harsh the buzz of encrypted data. The race is on to transition our cryptography, and it started on August 13, 2024 . Are you onboard? Subscribe now Little Patch, Big Outage Coming in at 6 on our countdown is the blue screen of death. You know it, you lived it, you used a handwritten plane ticket because of it. We are talking about Crowdstrike’s mega smash hit from July of this year, the BSOD. This somber tune was played all over the world for a few critical days in July causing frustration and the feared cascading effects as people woke to find their systems inoperable. The turkey responsible for this gobble was a patch that was pushed out to Microsoft systems around the world. But, uh-oh, the patch was bad, and the systems crashed at the kernel level. Lots of folks around the Foundry-verse were asking about kernel level security and how such a thing could happen. There are processes, bureaucracy, and human error to share the blame, but the real question is about how such a small mistake could cause such widespread failure. And what does this say about our resilience? Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure Systems Speaking of resilience, or the lack, let’s get into number 5. Most of you are already familiar with the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and if you aren’t, WAKE UP! Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure have been ongoing since day one of the invasion, but they continue with implications for all you cyber foxes and resilience hounds out there. Critical infrastructure is not off limits by any measure and the hardening of cyber-physical systems gotta, just gotta, be a priority in 2025. There were attacks in the US such as the attack that hit Seattle Tacoma Airport in August. Boy, it was a busy summer, eh? Stay with us, Jacks and Jills. We still have 4 more to go. Large Get Larger Next up on the countdown at number 4, what kind of data is the best data? More data! Just ask your friends at Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI as their LLMs crossed into over a trillion parameters and they each sought to ingest the entirety of digitized human knowledge to feel the beast. Privacy? Copyrights? Fair use? Forget it! Break out the hoover and get to work. These big models are used widely but privacy concerns are growing. While the big names went all in on getting bigger, a market for targeted LLMs trained on limited datasets is emerging. All the features of a robust LLM but preserving your privacy? It’s ok, honey, you CAN have it all! Share I’ll Teach You the Nuclear Sliiiide Coming in at number 3 is the sequel to number 4. The large are getting larger, so large in fact that they need their own nuclear power plants to power their AI! Three Mile Island was purchased by Microsoft this year just to provide power to its AI development and operation. Imagine! Your AI coming from nuclear power in a Pennsylvania river. This speaks to trend of big, bigger, biggest AI development we are seeing in training, parameters and operations. But how long can we sustain? No one knows. Will we start to build dedicated power plants for our AI systems? Great question. If you know, drop your thoughts in the comments. The Wind in the Willow We have a special treat coming your way at number 2. It’s our first repeat in the top 7! We are talking about Google’s recent announcement that it’s new quantum processor Willow both achieved quantum supremacy (again) AND proved the existence of the multiverse. Google’s blog post about the breakthrough said that Willow was pulling computing power from a parallel universe given its speed. The guys and gals at IBM will certainly have something to say about this but one thing is clear: Quantum computation is advancing and advancing faster than we think. Did someone say, “new cryptography standards?” Where Art Thou, AI? Alright, Jacks and Jills, we did it. We are here, so let’s talk about it. Number one with a bullet, promises made, implementation failed. 2024 was a big year for AI tech development but implementation lagged. Many organizations struggled with privacy of their precious 1s and 0s as AI grew larger. Many opting to simply not use AI at all. In 2025, we may see an uptick in AI implementation if the privacy and data questions can be worked out. So much promise, so difficult to get to the starting line. Well, we are out of time. Thanks for tuning in here for our year in review. With 2025 around the corner, keep your eyes on the horizon and your ears to the ground. This if Frontier Foundry wishing you a happening holiday, however you get down. This article was written by Nick Reese, COO of Frontier Foundry. Visit his LinkedIn here . To stay up to date with Frontier Foundry’s work, please follow us on LinkedIn and visit our website . 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