With the world continuing to scratch only the surface of what is possible in the digital era, information and communication technology giant Intel is, this year, narrowing its focus to four key areas it believes will play a critical role in society in future.

Intel’s 2017 focus areas include computing breakthroughs in the interlinked fifth-generation technology (5G), artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and autonomous driving realms.

“We are living in a world of change; it is no longer business as usual,” said Intel South Africa country leader Videsha Proothveerajh on Thursday, noting that Intel was moving through its own corporate transformation.

At the very minimum, technology will disrupt 40% of businesses in the top 200 of industry, 50% of the workplace in 2020 will comprise the so-called Millennial generation and 70% of 2 000 CEOs globally will centre their strategies around digital transformation.

Highlighting what was to be expected in future during a media discussion at Intel’s Woodmead offices, in Sandton, she added that the traditional industrial innovation period of 100 years was shrinking as the pace of development accelerated.

Despite only embarking on the computer and modern communications era in the 1960s, the world is now on the verge of change again and this is “just the beginning”.

Entering into the next innovation era, the "vortex of change" sees the “hunter becoming the hunted” amid a mass of disruption, with Intel aiming to mitigate the wave by moving to 5G, AI, VR, self-driving technology.

Moving forward, Intel aims to connect 50-billion smart devices to the cloud to capture data, measure it in real-time and be accessible from anywhere.

“In the next few years, 5G will fundamentally transform out lives; everything will be smarter and more connected,” Proothveerajh noted during her presentation, which also highlighted that the billions of Internet of Things- (IoT-) connected devices would generate zettabytes of data.

Intel is working to meet this future demand through field programmable gate arrays, software-defined data centres and smart devices.

In the field of AI, which is already embedded in applications such as talk-to-text, photo tagging, fraud detection, precision medicine and autonomous cars, Intel aims to unlock what it believes is “unprecedented value” for businesses and societies.

The company, which powers 97% of servers deployed to support machine learning workloads, has deployed a team of researchers and cultural anthropologists to unlock the societal benefits of creating machines with human-like intelligence.

With the automotive and transport industries expected to be among the first to be significantly impacted by the digital era and the IoT, Intel developed a secure end-to-end platform to power autonomous driving with investments spanning the vehicle, communications network and data centres.

“Intel collaborates with established and emerging players in the automotive industry to enable driver assistance systems and transition towards the fully autonomous vehicle,” she explained.

Intel expects global information technology revenue from the transportation sector will reach $325-billion in 2018.

In November, Intel Corporation CEO Brian Krzanich announced $250-million in additional investments over the next two years to make fully autonomous driving a reality.

Meanwhile, VR technology, through the combination of advanced drone, cameras and computer technology, can be deployed in the mining or construction sectors, besides others, to allow employees to conduct remote inspections within dangerous environments, eliminating potential workplace fatalities.