Leer en español | Ciberseguridad, viajes espaciales, impuesto digital, semiconductores, 5G: 2022, el futuro ya llegó

2021 was a transformational year when situations appeared to remain and which make the paradigms of the new society: hybrid jobs and work, cybersecurity incidents, semiconductors, future wars, cryptocurrency, climate change, installations on Mars, biotechnology, 5G, Artificial Intelligence challenges, Blockchain. 

Collected information and data about behavior will be utilized for visualizing future situations of all types.

Some may ask me: what about the Covid-19 pandemic? Covid-19 was the catalyst and booster of this process of acceleration and change. This signifies a real change of scene where we can say: the future is already here.

 Cybersecurity

The weakness of information protection programs, which was a recurrent subject, will continue to be a problem in 2022 as the Internet pirates have in general the advantage of anonymity which eliminates the possibility of blocking them.

Also they are hidden by a kind of cartelization.

Israel is at the forefront with specialists in the prevention and detection of cybercrime.

Because of the danger inherent in these activities regarding the security and economy of the US, CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), are some of the organizations which will receive funds in 2022 from the central Administration from 1,000 million dollars promoted by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, for managing contingencies and reactions to cybersecurity threats and activity including cybernetic recovery. 

Attacks in April 2021 on the MTA (New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority), a critical infrastructure, showed that chaos could be produced in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Also the EU (European Union) plans a stress test on their supply chains, an intelligent strategic initiative by Emmanuel Macron who has on January 1^st 2022 become EU’s president. 

Space Travel

Elon Musk, named Man of the Year by Time Magazine, plans to orbit the moon during a week in 2023, which would be the first tourist voyage of such a dimension. 2022 will be a year of training for such a space adventure.

The second step would be to colonize Mars.

As Juan Archibaldo Lanús says in his book Liberty or Submission, “Human beings are confronting an unknown danger which may allow for an unimaginable power and uncontrollable submission”. 

 A fiscal agreement for a digital economy

Having started as a search for a global tax in Europe on the technological platforms which only pay taxes where their head offices are located in fiscal paradises, this developed into a grand agreement within the OECD to change the way large companies are taxed.

A floor was created for companies’ income tax as well as the transfer of a proportion of profits to the countries where they operate.

All this depends on the Multilateral Convention to be signed in 2022 so as to put this agreement into effect.

Semiconductors

2022 will be the year in which chips’ production will be increased. Chips’ scarcity has created a problem in worldwide production of goods and services.

Badly affected parties include the automotive sector, Nintendo and Apple.

Samsung Electronic’s Vice President and CEO Kinam Kim announced that in 2022 they would proceed with the construction of a new plant in Taylor, Texas, which should be in production in 2022 with an investment of 17 billion US dollars, so as to comply better with their customers’ chips’ requirements and contribute to the global stability of the semiconductors supply chain (El País). They already posess another plant in Texas.

Also, Apple reinforced their relationship with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), based in Hsinchu, Taiwan and apparent industry information indicates that Apple could use this company’s technique for the production of 4 nanometer chips for producing their first 5G modem as well as their own chip.

5G

The 5A mobile network is here to allow higher speed connectivity, negative latency and a 90% energy savings.

América Móvil, the Mexican originated company operating under the name Claro, is positioning itself as the 5G connectivity champion in Latin America. Active in 10 countries with their own cloud they are acquiring spectrum bands for 5G in Brazil and Chile, where they are starting to provide this service. 

There are other themes which we will analyze soon such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), cryptocurrency and blockchain, which are important participants in the present digital revolution. But as Yuhal Noah Harari said “people imagine the AI revolution and automation as an unique event, but we shall face a chain of revolutions”.

Semiconductors are the center of the world’s technological projects. Semiconductors and chips are essential components of smartphones.

Apple advised that they will cut their production of the IPhone 13 as a result of the chips scarcity (Bloomberg, October 12, 2021).

On its part, Facebook seems to have joined the Google and Microsoft approach, deciding to reduce their dependence on Broadcom, Intel and Qualcomm and would commence to put in place a strategy to produce specific chips for their central computers (The information).

With the arrival of 5G and also the use of multiple chips in automobiles and other fields they have become a strategic supply.

The lack of semiconductors for automotive manufacture have for example caused SEAT, the Spanish company (SEAT Motor España, Asturias Motor S.A., SEAT Deutschland GmbH) to propose an ERTE (Temporary Regulation Rule), between September 20 and June 30, 2022, in three factories in Cataluña (Europa Press), without indicating the personnel reduction percentage which would apply.

The U.S. reduced their semiconductors production for their own usage from 37% to 12% between 1990 and 2021 (Intel). What is news is that Intel will invest 80 billion US dollars in Europe during the next decade having signed in September 2021 an agreement with the European Union, aiming for digital sovereignty in 2030, ahead of the European Chips Act.

Ursula von der Leyden, President of the European Commission, announced on September 15th the European Chips Act and said that the objective is to create a latest generation European Chips ecosystem including its production, guaranteeing their supply requirements and developing new markets for European Innovative technology.
The objective during the so called “Digital Decade” is to increase the production of semiconductors from the presently 9% to 20% in 2030, looking at the Asian giant.

However in a decade China is expected to be technologically independent.

This full process started in Europe in December 2020 with the DSA and the DMA.

The European Competence Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, presented the ambitious norms for the Internet of the future until 2030, in a decade.

Also the European Commission proposes a single charger unit for the European Union (Reuters), which would became effective in 2024. The aim is an only same standard for the benefit of consumers, facilitating the usage expansion independently from brands, thus reducing costs. At present the main ones are micro USB, USB-C and Apple’s Lightning.

Another measure in the same direction is the extension established of Industry Committee of the EU during 10 years for free roaming for the residents of the EU within it.

The European legislation is planned for the present decade and the tendency is to increase the responsibilities of the large technological platforms regarding the use contents’ algorithms.

Cybersecurity

According to EURACTIV’s Luva Bertuzzi, the European Commission in 2022 will be working on digital initiatives from Brussels and also a Cyber Resilience Act.

This would be an expansion of the UE 2019/ 796 Council regulation design taken account of the supposed cyberattacks from China and Russia, directed to implement sanctions such as freezing funds and other economic means. This EU Cyber-resilience law would provide “a common Cybersecurity standard for interconnected devices”.

Cyber-resilience can be defined as the capacity to resist, protect and defend the use of the space from attackers (incine.es).

Cybersecurity is a priority for the 27 countries that form the EU. Therefore the EU has been speaking since October 2020 about “quantic encryption” and “instrumenting a resilient and digital Europe” (EU 23/3/2021 Cybersecurity Strategy Conclusions).

Cyber diplomacy

With the objective of forming an international coalition, the U.S. made a same call for a virtual meeting to thirty countries, excluding Russia and China, where representatives of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, South Kores, South Africa and Ukraine participated.

Cyber defense

Cyber defense is for defending critical infrastructure.

Cyber diplomacy and cyber defense are the main strategic matters for the U.S.