Information Technology as Driver of Digitisation

Abstract

Driven by the extreme increase in the efficiency of information technology (IT), the digitisation wave keeps approaching us unstoppably and ever faster. The so-called Moore’s Law, which more than 50 years ago has already described a doubling of the capacity of integrated circuits over a period of 12 months, has been synonymous with the ongoing massive increase in the performance of IT. The chapter first explains the essential fundamentals of IT development. Subsequently, the subjects of IT security and energy demand are highlighted as potential obstacles to the development of digitisation. In a technology outlook, future developments such as 3D chip architectures, carbon nanotubes and quantum computers are presented. These build the basis for future IT performance improvements. The chapter concludes with the concept of technological singularity on a rather visionary outlook. Until now there don’t appear to be technological limits and it is only a matter of time until the human intelligence will be overtaken by “machine intelligence”.

Annex A1

In order to determine the general status and positioning of the largest automobile manufacturers with regard to digitisation, the author conducted a qualitative Internet search. The following evaluation parameters were used to assess the situation and compare the manufacturers:

• “Digitisation < manufacturer name>”

• Vacancies digitisation

• Cooperations in the field of digitisation

• Autonomous Driving

• Electric vehicles

• Organisational announcements in the field of digitisation

• Number of available Apps

Essentially, the evaluation was based on the number of hits in the Google search, and points were awarded in the resulting ranking order. Electric vehicles and organisational measures were put in a ranking by quality and then also awarded points. This pragmatic approach resulted in the ranking shown in “Figure 2.5: Digitisation degree of automotive manufacturers”. Details of the classification are shown in the following table:

	BMW	Daimler	Volkswagen	Toyota	Audi	GM	Ford	Hyundai	Honda
Score hits	3	2	4	4	3	2	5	3	4
Score cooperations	5	3	2	4	2	2	4	2	1
Score autonomous driving	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5
Score electric vehicles (planned)	2	4,5	4	0	2	2,5	1,5	1,5	1
Organisational initiatives	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0
Number of apps	5	4	3	4	3	1	1	1	1
Total	20	19,5	19	18	16	13,5	17,5	12,5	12
Average	3,3	3,3	3,2	3,0	2,7	2,3	2,9	2,1	2,0
Ranking	1	2	3	4	6	7	5	8	9