AI adoption to scale to ‘unprecedented levels’ in five years, says EY Partner

Chen believes that the deployment of AI right now is still at its infancy.

David Chen is a Partner in Technology Consulting at major consulting firm EY, where he brings to the table over two decades of expertise in the financial services industry across insurance, banking, and wealth & asset management. In this role, he has led large digital transformation programmes across Asia Pacific, including strategy formation, as well as execution and adoption of innovative technology for clients.

With his expertise in various industries, he has become a catalyst for the company’s digital insurance initiatives across the region, having led the firm’s Digital Emerging Technology and Technology Transformation competencies for the financial services sector in Hong Kong.

As part of the esteemed judges for the HKB Technology Excellence Awards 2024, Chen sits down with Hong Kong Business to discuss the how the future of digital transformation is shaping in Asia Pacific, including its contribution to larger sustainability goals, the skill set needed to thrive in a digitally native environment, as well as balancing the influences of technological innovation with the specific needs of organisations.

Given your extensive experience in leading digital transformation programmes across Asia-Pacific, what emerging trends do you see shaping the future of digital transformation over the next five years?

I believe in the next five years we will see artificial intelligence (AI) become more mainstream and scale to an extent that we have not seen at all. Right now, the deployment of AI, i.e. non-programmable computing, is still at its infancy, and over the next five years we will see more use cases being realised.

I think new types of AI will also emerge which fits different purposes. Right now, generative AI has been a huge reason for the resurgence in AI discussions but it is also limited in what it can do and use cases it can fulfil, such as more for non-decision making, information synthesis type tasks.

You are deeply involved in various digital initiatives across the region. What are the most significant challenges that companies face in this area, and how can they overcome them to ensure successful digital transformation?

The most significant challenge I see companies face is in hiring and retaining the right talent. The market for experienced resources in areas like AI is tight and retaining such talent is more than just about pay, but about inspiring the individual and having an interesting backlog of digital initiatives to keep such talent around. 

With over 20 years of experience, what skills and competencies do you believe are most critical for technology professionals to develop in order to thrive in the current tech landscape?

Technology is changing so much, especially with AI, that there is a fundamental shift in the way software is developed. Due to this shift, the hot technical skills right now are prompt engineers and LLM model trainers rather than traditional coders or platform configurators. That being said, what I have seen in my 23+ years of working in the IT industry is that the star performers are usually ‘all rounders’ rather than [those who] hold a particular skill set. What this means is that they have a complementary skill set to offer beyond their core technical capability. You can be the best programmer, but can also be a great communicator with an appreciation of the change impact your IT solution has on end users. You can be a strong project manager, but have an appreciation and knowledge of the actual product being rolled out. You can be an expert business analyst and a user acceptance tester, but understand the technical architecture and the technical components that go into delivery.

Currently, there are a lot of IT talents out there with expertise at every position. Being able to demonstrate all-round complementary skill sets will make one stand out beyond their peers. 

How do you see technological innovations contributing to sustainability goals within the tech industry? Are there any specific technologies or practices that stand out?

Technology innovations have both negatively and positively impacted sustainability. Cloud computing and AI has inevitably required larger consumption of data sets and energy use than ever before. However, we are seeing a lot of these innovations now getting better at optimising energy efficiency. For example, cloud providers are getting better at virtualisation, workload consolidation and dynamic resource allocation to reduce energy consumption whilst maintaining performance. Although not mainstream yet, one particular practice to help improve sustainability will be to have ratings to measure efficiency levels relating to technology innovations similar to how we measure efficiency levels on cars, fridges, etc. I think once these quantifiable measurements are in place, behaviour will also change quite drastically.

How do you balance the influence of global technological trends with local market needs when advising clients in Hong Kong and Greater China? Are there specific local trends that are diverging from global patterns?

China technology is becoming more prevalent in Hong Kong than before, and we are seeing a shift from use of global software vendors to China-based software vendors. Hong Kong being a market that will continually serve Mainland China visitors means that it makes sense to have more synergies between such platforms across the border than ever before. For China-based software vendors, this is an exciting time to grow market share in Hong Kong, with the help of HK IT professionals. For Hong Kong-based businesses, it is an exciting time to experience different technologies that are out there.

As a returning judge for the HKB Technology Excellence Awards, what criteria or benchmarks are you using this year to evaluate the entries?

Similar to last year, I’ll be looking at entrants that are able to demonstrate how they truly solved a unique business problem via innovation, rather than just using advanced technology for technology’s sake.