Technologies to watch out for in 2025

Even artificial intelligence can't predict the future (yet), but two of our tech editors have looked ahead to what they think will be big in 2025.

As the end of 2022 approaches. the outlook for the cryptocurrency business was bleak.

One of his best-known firms, FTX, fell by $8bn (£6.3bn) unaccounted customer funds.

In March 2024 company co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried received 25 years in prison for defrauding customers and investors.

The scandal shook confidence in the entire sector.

It seemed that cryptocurrencies would remain a niche product with an enthusiastic but relatively limited following.

But just a few months later, the industry was buzzing with optimism again. Behind the enthusiasm – the success of Donald Trump in the presidential elections on November 5.

The feeling was that he would be more favorable to the cryptocurrency sector, and so far that seems to be the case.

At the beginning of December Trump has said he will nominate former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Paul Atkins will take on the role of top chairman of the Wall Street regulator.

Mr. Atkins is believed to be much more pro-crypto than outgoing boss Gary Gensler.

That announcement helped the value of one bitcoin, the largest of many cryptocurrencies, jump to $100,000.

“With Trump's victory, you can imagine that in 2025 you will get proactive regulation. You will get some negative regulations removed, which will then allow banks and other institutions to enter the space,” says Jeffrey Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered.

In particular, Mr. Kendrick points to guidance issued by the SEC called SAB 121. Since it came into effect in 2022, it has made it difficult for banks and other financial firms to provide cryptocurrency services.

Such a move could help Trump fulfill his promise made in July to make the U.S the cryptocurrency capital of the world.

If he follows through on that promise, it would be a remarkable turnaround from 2021, when Trump described bitcoin as a “fraud”.

With AI tools coming into our phones – Apple, Google and Samsung have launched services that can edit photos, translate languages ​​and perform web searches – we're at the beginning of an era where AI becomes an integral part of our digital lives and increasingly useful on a personal level.

That is, if we allow it, because it really does take a bit of faith.

Let's take diary management as an example. An AI tool can effectively manage your diary for you if you allow it access to it. But how far should this go?

To be truly useful, does that mean it also needs to know who you prefer to avoid meeting or relationships you want to keep secret and from whom?

Would you like me to provide you with summaries of counseling sessions or medical appointments?

This is deeply personal information and potentially both extremely embarrassing and extremely valuable if some problem means it has been shared. Do you trust big tech companies with this type of data?

Microsoft is pushing hard on this particular door. In 2024 had trouble demoing a tool called Recall that took snapshots of laptop desktops every few seconds to help users find content they saw but couldn't remember where.

It has now made a number of changes to the product – which was never released – but stands by it.

“I think we're moving into a fundamentally new era where there will be ever-present, persistent, highly capable co-pilot companions in your everyday life,” the firm's head of AI, Mustafa Suleiman, said recently.

Despite the challenges, Ben Wood, principal analyst at technology research firm CCS Insight, expects by 2025 more personalized AI services to emerge.

“The result will be continuously updated by using changing data sources such as emails, messages, documents and social media interactions.

“This will allow the AI ​​service to be tailored specifically to a person's communication style, needs and preferences,” he says.

But Mr Wood accepts that letting AI reveal your personal information will be a big step.

“Trust will be essential,” says Mr Wood.

The more money poured into AI, the more data centers will need to be built.

Training and running AI requires a lot of computing power and works best with the latest computer chips and servers.

Over the next five years, the biggest users of data, including Google, Microsoft and Meta, could invest up to $1 trillion in data centers, according to CCS Insight.

Only in Europe between 2024 and 2028 data center capacity is expected to grow by an average of 9% per year, according to property services company Savills.

But these new facilities are unlikely to be built in current data centers such as London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

High property prices in these cities – Savills says London land prices can be up to £17 million per acre – plus the limited power supply means developers will look elsewhere.

UK cities such as Cambridge, Manchester and Birmingham could be home to the next wave of data center construction.

Elsewhere, Prague, Genoa, Munich, Düsseldorf and Milan are likely to be considered in Europe.

At the heart of some of these new data centers will be the latest computer chip from Nvidia, the company that dominates the market for chips used for AI.

Introduced in March 2024the Blackwell chip is expected to begin shipping in significant quantities in 2025.

The new chip should allow tech firms to train AI four times faster and see AI run 30 times faster than current computer chips, according to Vivek Arya, senior semiconductor analyst at Bank of America Securities.

Nvidia's biggest customers, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Coreweave, are likely to get the technology first, according to reports.

But other customers may struggle to get their hands on the super chip, with “supply limited in 2025,” according to Mr Arya.