مرزهای پژوهش و جهت گیری های آینده در فناوری اطلاعات و ارتباطات

Information and communication technology (ICT), characterized by continual innovation and rapid technological change, is having a tremendous impact on society. Research and development in ICT are being conducted throughout the technology sector, and fundamental research is being carried out in many university departments of electronics, computer science, and engineering. This paper deals with frontiers of research and trends in selected areas of ICT, including computer hardware, microelectronics, and semiconductor devices and materials—areas that are leading the innovations in ICT. It briefly describes emerging technological developments, and concludes with advances in software engineering.

The convergence of the fields of information technology (IT) and telecommunications has produced the term “information and communication technology” (ICT), with “communication” including the field of telecommunications. ICT research is conducted under a number of umbrellas and fields including computer science and engineering (computers, computation, communication, and information science), and electronics engineering (robotics and artificial intelligence), all related to ICT. Publications in these broad fields appear in numerous journals, including those produced by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computer Machines (ACM). The remainder of this article is a brief discussion of what I see as the current status of research and future directions in the areas of information and communications, which are driving the advances in ICT.

This paper has briefly discussed a number of areas within the ICT field that are having and will continue to have a profound impact on society. Computer programming, software architecture, and theoretical computer science provide some of the major underpinnings of ICT. Computer hardware, microelectronics, semiconductor devices and materials, and data storage systems, are integral parts of the broad field of ICT. Robotics and computer graphics, along with the transistor laser, future silicon chips, microelectromechanical systems, and quantum computers represent additional stages of the ICT revolution. Networking, security, large-scale distributed systems, mobile and pervasive computing, and software engineering represent well-established areas within ICT that are in constant evolution. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and human–computer interactions are enablers of current and future ICT. Missing in this discussion is nanotechnology, which is emerging as a full-fledge technology that is attracting the attention of multiple research efforts, and is already having a major impact in ICT. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the author, who is to a great extent inspired and influenced by his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon, an institution recognized worldwide for its strength in information and communication technology.