A Look Back In the 2020 Tech World

Image Courtesy: [13]

With the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, this year 2020 has been a wake-up call for many industries, disparaging some while reinventing the others. As dreadful this year has been for most of us, it is finally ending and now I am doing a recap of the key events in 2020 which is majorly reshaping the tech world.

1. The year 2020 (due to COVID-19) taught the entire world that jobs can be divided into essential and non-essential groups. And therefore, most non-essential jobs can be performed remotely.
2. Even most educational institutions adopted mostly remote or a mix of the remote and in-class teaching methods. But I personally believe that it took a hit on some hard science laboratory sessions which need to be held in the classrooms.
3. Trump Administration’s ban on Huawei disrupted major Tech giant’s deals with Huawei such as companies like Qualcomm [1]. But more recently towards the end of 2020, Qualcomm received permission to sell 4G chips to Huawei [4]. (Also check [3])
4. COVID-19 led a political war between China and the US has stagnated the progress of 5G development in the US a bit and China is still leading the way in 5G development [2].
5. Trump Administration also banned TikTok and WeChat earlier this year but now the TikTok ban is on hold and so is Microsoft’s acquisition attempt to own TikTok [5].
6. If there is anyone who actually had a merry 2020 is Elon Musk. Both SpaceX and Tesla continued to do well. And by the end of 2020, Elon Musk beat Bill Gates to be the second richest man on earth as of right now. Although (just like Donald Trump), his stance about COVID-19 from the beginning has been questionable. He outright denied the severity of COVID-19 from the beginning and now himself keeps testing positive, negative, and back and forth. Very confusing! [6]
7. SpaceX this year launched two astronauts in space back in May 2020 which was the first manned Crew Dragon mission (you can also read the entire timeline of recent and upcoming major space-based missions from source)[7].
8. Despite struggling in previous years (especially back in 2018 with the model 3 production ramp and Elon Musk’s Twitter controversies) Tesla is continuing its journey to becoming a major successful company in 2020 [8].