Responsible Digital Transformations

Contemporary communication and IT infrastructure underpin modern economic, political, and social systems. Trust in developed and deployed technology that supports these systems is essential for ensuring societal stability and resilience, particularly in an era marked by rapid technological change and the increasing threat of physical and/or cyber-attacks. The reliability, availability and seamless functioning of critical information infrastructure, such as networks, communication platforms, data storage and processing systems, is a fundamental requirement for the resilience of our society.

At the same time, data must be protected from unauthorized access and change, using techniques like verified access control, large-scale cryptographic infrastructures, trusted and safe computing environments and encrypted storage. Quantum computers and quantum communication is reshaping the field of cryptography. Mastering the intricate interactions, and growing interdependencies, between these evolving components is crucial to safeguarding national and international information infrastructure.

Technological breakthroughs in data-driven approaches are revolutionizing nearly every field of science with novel and complementary methods that are transforming the processes of scientific discovery. They enable the resolution of challenging problems in natural and engineering sciences, as well as social sciences and humanities. Recent advances in natural language understanding, drug discovery, robotics, and medical data analysis for diagnosis and treatment exemplify this development. Further developing and applying computational competencies to better understand complex phenomena, and progress in the development and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) are essential for societal progress and fostering responsible interactions with their social and natural environments. The shift to a new perspective – one where human intelligence and AI work together in synergy rather than competing with one another – needs the development and building of interactive human-machine platforms to challenge conventional approaches. The responsible use of these technologies requires properties like technical robustness and safety, providing formal guarantees and legal frameworks to guide the responsible use of AI, interpretability of decisions, detecting and understanding bias, and fairness, just to name a few. Additionally, the significant energy demands of modern machine learning methods—necessary for the communication, storage, and processing of massive datasets—raise pressing concerns about sustainability in the context of a responsible digital transformation.

Cyber-physical systems, which bridge the gap between cyberspace and the physical world, are transformative drivers of modern society. The Internet of Things (IoT) integrates physical objects into communication networks enabling data collection, exchange and process optimization by interacting with their environment. Applications range from food (e.g., automated cultivation in vertical farms), to smart cities (e.g., using electric car batteries as flexible storage in connected prosumer grids), to monitoring our natural environment and early warning systems, and healthcare (e.g., wearables that collect health data and share it with health-care providers). Extended realities, encompassing augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality tools, are increasingly virtualizing environments and blurring the lines between the physical and digital realms. Advances in robotics, in combination with data and AI, are expanding the possibilities and application areas of cyber-physical systems (e.g., collaborative robots in industrial settings and micro- and nano-robots in medical treatments). Strong and universal security standards for devices and systems are needed to cushion systemic vulnerabilities. Furthermore, some of these technological advances and applications will have major social and political implications. Understanding these implications will be a first step towards ensuring that they will benefit society.

Quantum computing has the potential to complement classical computing by addressing complex computational problems, ultimately driving advancements in research and development. However, the practical application of quantum technologies to real-world challenges currently remains limited. As digital technologies continue to expand, there is an urgent need to develop novel, energy-efficient paradigms for computation and data storage. Currently, the majority of computing and data processing relies on silicon-based integrated circuits. Emerging materials such as multiferroic and spintronic materials offer the combination of non-volatile data storage with processing capability and offer tremendous opportunity for energy savings, miniaturization, and efficiency. Energy inefficiency of computing infrastructure is becoming a real challenge as computer systems are omnipresent.