“Not only is the current global turmoil and technological disruption putting pressure on governments to find a balance between digital opportunities and risks, it also presents solid opportunities to shape the next generation of digital government,” said Arthur Mickoleit, Director Analyst at Gartner. “Government CIOs must demonstrate their digital investments aren’t just tactical in nature as they continue to improve service delivery and core mission impacts.”

According to Gartners analysts, Government CIOs should consider the impact of several technology trends on their organisations and apply insights to make a case for investments to improve business capabilities, achieve leadership priorities and create a more future-ready government organisation. 

Below are the five trends as listed by the researchers which relate in some way to the security sector.

Adaptive security

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 75% of government CIOs will be directly responsible for security outside of IT, including operational and mission-critical technology environments. The convergence of enterprise data, privacy, supply chain, cyber-physical systems (CPS) and cloud requires an integrated security approach. CIOs should link adaptive security to broader digital innovation, transformation, national security and resilience objectives.

Cloud-based legacy modernisation

Leading governments are under pressure to break down legacy, siloed systems and data stores to modernise IT infrastructure and applications to ensure more resilient government services. CIOs can use adaptive sourcing strategies to identify areas where “as-a-service” delivery models augment internal resources and address business priorities. Gartner predicts over 75% of governments will operate more than half of workloads using hyperscale cloud service providers by 2025.

Sovereign cloud

Global uncertainty, as well as concerns over data privacy and potential government overreach, are resulting in greater demand for sovereign clouds. Governments are increasingly seeking to limit exposure of data and infrastructure by external jurisdictions and foreign government access. Gartner predicts over 35% of government legacy applications will be replaced by solutions developed on low-code application platforms and maintained by fusion teams by 2025.

AI for decision intelligence

By 2024, Gartner predicts 60% of government AI and data analytics investments will directly impact real-time operational decisions and outcomes. AI for decision intelligence provides governments with rapid, accurate and early decision-making capabilities at scale. CIOs must prepare for widespread AI use by ensuring data is available at points of decision and by establishing effective governance principles.

Digital identity ecosystems

Gartner predicts over a third of national governments will offer citizens mobile-based identity wallets by 2024. Governments are facing new responsibilities in emerging digital identity ecosystems, with expectations to ensure trust, innovation and adoption across sectors and borders. To achieve this, governments must make high-assurance digital identity easy to obtain and relevant for diverse target groups of end users and service providers.