At the Microsoft Envision Hong Kong 2022 today, Microsoft revealed four future trends of technology that will be central to business success - Industrial Metaverse, Data & AI, Cybersecurity and Sustainability - along with new use cases that demonstrate how Microsoft Cloud solutions are helping customers address their pain points and do more with less.

With 'Ignite Infinite Possibilities' as the theme for this year's Envision event, the four trends that are top of mind for C-suites and central to business success include:

Industrial Metaverse: Empower organizations to innovate their business operations and set new quality standards with IoT, digital twins, and mixed reality.

Microsoft's Industrial Metaverse is a collection of capabilities in the intelligent cloud and on the intelligent edge working together, which traditional manufacturing industry can also gain visibility and insights into factory floors everywhere at a moment's notice.

At their foundation is Azure IoT, which allows organizations to connect physical assets and run cloud intelligence - and Azure Digital Twins, which provide the ability to model anything physical or logical, from simple devices or products to complex environments.

Data and AI: Enabling organizations to transform their business models and customer experience by making data analytics and AI an integral part of their digital transformation journey.

With the increased AI investments that accelerated digital transformation amid the pandemic, more businesses have come to realize the importance of data analytics and automation for their day-to-day operations.

Applied AI is powering intelligent automation across Microsoft's enterprise products and services including the translation of plain language requests into Power Automate cloud flows, expanding conversational intelligence in Teams, and providing a seamless seller and CRM workflow experience through the use of Dynamics 365 Sales.

Cybersecurity: Protecting organizations from end-to-end by providing comprehensive protection across security, compliance, identity, device, and data management.

The future of cybersecurity will be a collective effort that will involve looking at where technology and human expertise are headed, as well as why creating a more inclusive and diverse security workforce, especially with the growth of the decentralized enterprise (or remote workers).

From Microsoft Defender for cloud, endpoint or Office 365 to risk management and compliance solutions such as Microsoft Purview, businesses are looking for a comprehensive security strategy that's end-to-end, best-in-breed, and AI-driven.

Sustainability: Embracing sustainability through unified data and automation, enabling organizations to record, report and reduce environmental impact.

To create sustainable value chains to reduce environmental impact and carbon footprint, many businesses are looking at ways to migrate their infrastructure and workloads to the cloud, which helps strengthen hybrid work mode and reduce their carbon footprint eventually.

Wherever companies are on their path to net zero, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability enables businesses to make positive environmental impacts with unifying data intelligence and greater visibility.

"As we look back at our accomplishments and impact in Hong Kong in the three decades, we marvel at the evolution of technology – from Windows to Teams, Cloud to Security, AI, and more. We have created more than 54,000 jobs within our ecosystem and close to 2,700 local partners who are using Microsoft cloud technologies for their business," said Cally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong and Macau.

"Together with our partners, we are going beyond digital transformation to delivering on the digital imperative for every organization and across every sector in Hong Kong. As we come together for another exciting Microsoft Envision Hong Kong event, we hope to inspire companies, startups, and individuals to embrace new ideas, new innovations and uncover new business possibilities in a time of transformation. We look forward to working with our partners, customers, and startups to do more with less."

Empower local startups to unleash their full potential

In support of the local startup community, this year's Microsoft Envision introduced a Startup Pitching session for the very first time. The session featured six up-and-coming Hong Kong startups that have developed innovative solutions and business models in the areas of smart city, RegTech, FinTech, and digital commerce.

Kelvin Tse, Director, Global Partner Solutions, Microsoft Hong Kong said, "Building strong allyship with our partners is one of Microsoft's key successes in empowering local organizations to thrive. We always strive to be the best partner to our partners, not only to industry leaders, but our goal is also to be a trusted partner to startups, leading them to go to market. Microsoft Hong Kong now has empowered more than 2,000 startups through different programs.

We invited six local startups to share their success stories so that other businesses and founders can also see how Microsoft technologies can help them scale in Hong Kong and beyond. Microsoft will continue to support and advance the startup community and strengthen the city's status as an international innovation and technology center.

More than 860 C-suites, business leaders and IT professionals across the food & beverage, finance, travel, property, telecom, healthcare and professional services sectors registered the event. In addition to the keynotes and panel discussions, Microsoft Envision Hong Kong 2022 added:

- 23 partner showcases and solution booths

- 6 startup pitching sessions

- 8 partner breakout sessions

- 9 breakout sessions and technical workshops

Throughout the different sessions, partners, customers and startups shared their success stories including how innovative technologies enabled them to transform traditional business operations, the use of data & AI to create new business models, the need to prioritize cybersecurity from end to end and their efforts in sustainability through the use of data and automation.

About Microsoft: Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.