6 Hot Tech Trends That Will Impact the Enterprise in 2018

The start of a new year always brings a flood of forecasts from technology pundits for what might happen in the next 12 months. For some reason, 2018 triggered even more prognostications from tech experts than usual. We received dozens of predictions for networking, storage, and data center trends that IT pros should expect to see this year.

After sorting through them, we noticed a pattern: many experts predict more of the same.  The trends and hot technologies from 2017 such as machine learning and automation will continue to influence IT infrastructure into 2018, but the pace and intensity of innovation and adoption seems likely to increase.

"It's no secret that AI and machine learning are driving a lot of the innovation across the various ecosystems and technology domains that IT cares about," Rohit Mehra, program VP of network infrastructure at IDC, said in a webcast on the firm's 2018 predictions for worldwide enterprise infrastructure.

In fact, the rapid incorporation of AI into the workplace will mean that by 2021, more than half of enterprise infrastructure will use some form of cognitive and artificial intelligence to improve productivity, manage risk, and reduce costs, according to IDC.  

To be sure, 2018 will another year of rapid change for IT infrastructure. Read ahead for six key tech trends that infrastructure pros should keep an eye on in the months ahead.

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