Digital Enterprise Show, the largest European summit on exponential technologies, concludes in Malaga

There is a profound technological change

With a total of 581 international experts, 394 exhibiting firms and an economic impact of 34 million euros, DES2023 has elevated the city of Malaga to the category of technological epicenter of innovation worldwide.

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DES – Digital Enterprise Show, the largest European summit on exponential technologies, has closed its seventh edition in Malaga with the attendance of 16.917 managers from more than 34 countries. From this Tuesday until today, DES2023 has analyzed, as a central theme, the potential of Artificial Intelligence in business. In this regard, he has resolved the unknowns that arise around this technology and that are related to employment, talent, ethics, regulation and the transformation it entails for companies. 

With a total of 581 international experts, 394 exhibiting firms and an economic impact of 34 million euros, DES2023 has elevated the city of Malaga to the category of technological epicenter of innovation worldwide, where the future of exponential technologies like it AI, digital twins, Blockchain, cybersecurity, multicloud, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality or clean tech, among many others. Thus, the capital of the Costa del Sol has once again become a reference in the organization of technology events on a global scale. 

“From DES and from Malaga we have shed a little light on the thousands of managers who have visited us during the three days with the purpose of sharing the opportunities that exponential technologies bring and the urgency of adopting them so as not to be left behind. Likewise, we have learned the challenges on which we must focus in order to continue developing competitive businesses,” said Sandra Infante, director of DES – Digital Enterprise Show.

The seven lessons of DES2023

Great world experts, such as the digital evangelist, Afshar Ditch, or President Biden's advisor on Generative AI, Nina Shick, have taken advantage of DES2023 to share their knowledge and formulas, which allow us to draw what the coming years will be like in terms of technological advancement:

It's the year of Generative AI: The creation of content through machine learning is marking a before and after in 2023. Generative AI has been democratized, is omnipresent and can be detected in all industries. Thus, we are approaching what we previously considered future and which is now present. 

Next is Now: The impact of exponential technologies is immediate, an acceleration that has matched the speed of innovation at regional, national and international levels. Today, technology companies in Malaga move at the same speed as other key technology centers around the world.

The Cloud is the new infrastructure: The era of large investments in technological equipment is over and the use of the Cloud is allowing small startups to transform entire industries with limited facilities and capital.

ESG as a business opportunity: ESG initiatives not only have altruistic purposes, but can make a big difference in cost reduction, improved efficiency, increased revenue, progression in hiring processes, brand positioning or added value. . 

Digital transformation continues to evolve: The global pandemic accelerated digital transformation initiatives and now Artificial Intelligence has become the main objective of many transformation programs.

The metaverse is emerging and evolving: Practical business applications of this technology, and digital twins, are beginning to arrive. DES2023 has shown some projects in areas such as education, training or Smart Cities. 

Malaga digital capital: Following the Californian model of investment and technological development, a solid ecosystem has emerged in Malaga with companies such as IBM, Oracle, Kyndryl, and many more.

The brushstrokes of the last day: AI will accelerate other technologies 

The great experts who spoke today at DES have stressed that we are experiencing a great technological change, underpinned by the launch of chatGPT, and it is now when we must mark the path, make decisions and get ahead because what we do currently will mark the next decade. 

“The stories we tell today will mark the stories of this decade,” said Ben Hammersley, Founder of Hammersley Futures, in his speech at the summit. The expert has also stressed the idea that the technology industry is incorrectly explaining what AI is, which is leading to attributing human qualities to an algorithm “there are many people talking about how to protect ourselves from ChatGPT5 when it wants to take over the world. “It's a stupid question, ChatGPT doesn't want anything,” the expert joked. In fact, Hammersley made it clear in his speech that “if we fail to understand and communicate what these technologies really are, all conversations about them will be stupid.”

David Wood, Chair of London Futurists, has focused on the future and the ability of technology to build it. “Inertia leads us to a dark future, but we can take advantage of technology to reverse it. To do this we need to learn faster, be agile in managing uncertainty, work in community and get involved at a political level, work on emotional resilience and, especially, visualize the complete image,” she stated. Wood has also highlighted that the innovation and development of one technology pushes the others to improve and assures that “there will be important advances in AI in two or three years that will lead us to advances in other technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and cognitive technology in three or ten years” that will also affect companies.

For its part, Carlos Molina, creator of the MultiVersial Newsletter, has analyzed how the big five technology companies (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google) are interacting with AI and what their objectives are. Among them, he has highlighted how Microsoft is using this technology to position itself as a leader in the Cloud and search engines; while Google is incorporating it to defend itself against the escalation of competition, at the same time that Apple is relying on the creation of small specialized models created by the “open source” community, which could be integrated into its devices in the future.