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T'is the season to be gloomy, when the world's prognosticators provide their competing lists of the coming year's top risks. And there are plenty of candidates, from Iran to North Korea, and from American elections to global warming.

Acting on the advice of Winston Churchill, I'll instead close my year on a more hopeful note. "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty," Churchill famously said. He declared himself an optimist as "it does not seem to be much use to be anything else."

With that in mind, here are six sources of optimism for 2020:

We've never had it so good.

Global well-being has hit its highest level ever, or so says the recently released Legatum Prosperity Index. In the past decade, prosperity has improved in 148 countries and declined in only 19 of the 167 countries Legatum surveys, making up more than 99% of the world's population.

This improvement reaches from health-care systems and adult education, and from the delivery of basic services to more widespread financial security.

According to World Bank figures, more than a billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990, leaving the share of population at that level at 10 % which, though still troubling, is the lowest since such figures have been recorded.

The Economist picks a "country of the year" each December, and it is telling that this year Uzbekistan was its most-improved land. What one is seeing are fruits of Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev's leadership after the Uzbek despot Islam Karimov died in 2016.

Until his death, the regime was "a closed society run with exceptional brutality and incompetence," writes the Economist. "It's regime allegedly boiled dissidents alive, and certainly forced legions of men, women and children to toil in the cotton fields."

After firing the head of his security services in 2018, Mirziyoyev's reforms accelerated this year. They largely ended forced labor, shut down Uzbekistan's most notorious prison, opened the country to foreign journalists and stopped bureaucrats from bullying small businesses for bribes.

The Economist's runner up was Sudan, another country that in 2019 took a giant step from despotism when mass protests led to the removal of "one of the world's vilest tyrants," Omar al-Bashir. The Atlantic Council this month hosted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who represented a power-sharing government that has promised elections in three years.

Although there is justifiable concern about growing inequalities within countries both in the developing and less developed world less attention has been paid to the more positive trend that global inequality among countries has been declining for several decades. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, about half of the global population can be considered middle class.

Beyond that, about half of the world's population now lives in democracies, a far cry from most of human history during which the vast majority lived under non-democratic regimes. Of those still living in autocracies, some 90% are in China. The conventional wisdom is that China is growing even more authoritarian, and hence it is inspiring others.

That said, protests in Hong Kong and upcoming elections in Taiwan suggest otherwise. Protests in the Middle East in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon also are aimed at corrupt and sectarian governments and could be a force for democratic change.

Watch this space in 2020.

With the United Kingdom leaving the European Union next year, the continent's doomsayers are at it again (sometimes including me). What they forget is that there has been no war or conflict in Western Europe in some three generations, in no small part due to the European Union's creation and the peace between France and Germany that accompanied it.

Long may that last.

And for all the concern about growing tensions between China and the United States, neither country wants a war. Global history since 1500 shows that the world's two leading powers have been at war more than half the time, but the period since World War II has been historically peaceful. It will take increased attention to keep it that way.

Quoting Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now, Bill Gates writes that the global average IQ score is rising by about 3IQ points every decade. "Kids' brains are developing more fully thanks to improved nutrition and a cleaner environment," he writes, crediting Pinker.

"Think about how many symbols you interpret every time you check your phone's home screen or look at a subway map," writes Gates. "Our world today encourages abstract thought from a young age, and it's making us smarter."

Elsewhere, Gates notes that while a century ago it was legal to be gay in only 20 countries, today that's true in more than 100. Legatum's survey showed that residents of 11 countries expressed more tolerance than they did a decade previously, particularly regarding the LGBT community (but that at the same time restrictions on freedoms to speak, assemble and associate have deteriorated in 122 countries.)

In parallel, women are gaining political power in leaps and bounds, now making up more than a fifth of members of national parliaments. The world listens in unprecedented manner when women raise complaints about discrimination and sexual assault.

Okay, there's a lot about Artificial Intelligence that is scary. It could empower tyrants, threaten jobs and entrench bias. At the same time, history is awash with examples that technological change has brought more progress than perils. Advanced technologies could improve health care and even address climate change.

Writing for the World Economic Forum, Jeremy O'Brien says quantum computing could help beat climate change through simulations that could uncover new catalysts for carbon capture that are cheaper and more efficient than current models. "A catalyst for 'scrubbing' carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere could be a powerful tool in tackling climate change," he writes.

It's tempting to write some balancing lines here about why 2020 will be a particularly shock-prone year. Let's save that for the New Year. After all, it is the optimists who are best equipped to find solutions to global problems because they believe they can.

"Choose to be optimistic, it feels better," said the Dalai Lama.

Happy holidays.

Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, prize-winning journalist and president & CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of the United States' most influential think tanks on global affairs. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor and as the longest-serving editor of the paper's European edition. His latest book "Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth" was a New York Times best-seller and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter @FredKempe and subscribe here to Inflection Points, his look each Saturday at the past week's top stories and trends.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

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Here are six reasons to be optimistic about 2020 - CNBC

Tis the end of the year when pundits typically dust off the crystal ball and take a stab at what tech, and its impact on consumers,will look like over the next12 months.

But we're also on the doorstep of a brand-new decade, which this time around promisesfurther advances in 5G networks, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, self-driving vehicles and more, all of which willdramatically alter the way we live, work and play.

So what tech advances can we look forward to in the new year? Heres what we can expect to see in 2020 and in some cases beyond.

(Photo: Getty Images)

The next generation of wireless has showed up on lists like this for years now. But in 2020, 5G really will finally begin to make its mark in the U.S., with all four major national carriers three if the T-Mobile-Sprint merger finally goes through continue to build out their 5G networks across the country.

Weve been hearing about the promise of 5G on the global stage for what seems like forever, and the carriersrecently launched in select markets. Still, the rollout in most places will continue to take time, as will the payoff: blistering fast wireless speeds and network responsiveness on our phones, improved self-driving cars and augmented reality, remote surgery, and entire smartcities.

As 2019 winds down, only a few phones can exploit the latest networks, not to mention all the remaining holes in 5G coverage. But youll see a whole lot more 5G phone introductions in the new year, including what many of us expect will be a 5G iPhone come September.

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When those holes are filled, roughly two-thirds of consumers said theyd be more willing to buy a 5G-capable smartphone, according to a mobile trends survey by Deloitte.

But Deloitte executive Kevin Westcott also said that telcos will need to manage consumer expectations about what 5G can deliver and determine what the killer apps for 5G will be.

The Deloitte survey also found that a combination of economic barriers (pricing, affordability) and a sense that current phones are good enough, will continue to slow the smartphone refresh cycle.

Are you ready for all the tech around you to disappear? No, not right away.The trend towards so-called ambient computing is not going to happen overnight, nor is anyone suggesting that screens and keyboards are going to go away entirely, or that youll stop reaching for a smartphone. But as more tiny sensorsare built into walls, TVs, household appliances, fixtures, what you're wearing, and eventually even your own body, youll be able to gesture or speak to a concealed assistant to get things done.

Steve Koenig, vice president of research at the Consumer Technology Association likens ambient computing to Star Trek, and suggests that at some point we won't need to place Amazon Echo Dots or other smart speakers in every room of house, since well just speak out loud to whatever, wherever.

Self-driving cars have been getting most the attention. But its not just cars that are going autonomous try planes and boats.

Cirrus Aircraft, for example, is in the final stages of getting Federal Aviation Administration approval for a self-landing system for one of its private jets, and the tech, which I recently got to test, has real potential to save lives.

How so? If the pilot becomes incapacitated, a passenger can press a single button on the roof of the main cabin. At that moment, the plane starts acting as if the pilot were still doing things. It factors in real-time weather, wind, the terrain, how much fuel remains, all the nearby airports where an emergency landing is possible, including the lengths of all runways, and automatically broadcasts its whereaboutsto air traffic control.From there the system safely lands the plane.

Or consider the 2020 version of the Mayflower, not a Pilgrim ship, but rather a marine research vessel from IBM and a marine exploration non-profit known as Promare. The plan is to have the unmanned shipcross the Atlantic in September from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts. The ship will be powered by a hybrid propulsion system, utilizing wind, solar, state-of-the-art batteries, and a diesel generator. It plans to follow the 3,220-mile route the original Mayflower took 400 years ago.

Two of Americas biggest passions come together. esports is one of the fastest growing spectator sports around the world, and the Supreme Court cleared a path last year for legalized gambling across the states. The betting community is licking their chops at the prospect of exploiting this mostly untapped market. Youll be able to bet on esports in more places, whetherat a sportsbook inside a casino or through an app on your phone.

One of the scary prospects about artificial intelligence is that it is going to eliminate all these jobs. Research out of MIT and IBM Watson suggests that while AI will for sure impact the workplace, it wont lead to a huge loss of jobs.

That's a somewhat optimistic take given an alternate view thatAI-driven automation is going to displace workers.The research suggests thatAI will increasingly help us with tasks that can be automated, but will have a less direct impact on jobs that require skills such as design expertise and industrial strategy. The onus will be on bosses and employeesto start adapting to newroles and to try and expandtheirskills, effortsthe researchers say will beginin the new year.

The scary signs are still out there, however. For instance, McDonalds is already testing AI-powered drive-thrus that can recognize voice, which could reduce the need for human order-takers.

Perhaps its more wishful thinking than a flat-out prediction, but as Westcott puts it, Im hoping what goes away are the 17 power cords in my briefcase. Presumably a slight exaggeration.

But the thing we all want to see are batteries that dont prematurely peter out, and more seamless charging solutions.

Were still far off from the day where youll be able to get ample power to last all day on your phone or other devices just by walking into a room. But over-the-air wireless charging is slowly but surely progressing. This past June, for example, Seattle company Ossiareceived FCC certification for a first-of-its kind system to deliver over-the-air power at a distance. Devices with Ossias tech built-in should start appearing in the new year.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphone featuring a foldable OLED display.(Photo: Samsung)

We know how the nascent market for foldable phones unfolded in 2019 things were kind of messy.Samsungs Galaxy Fold was delayed for months following screen problems, and even when the phone finally did arrive, it cost nearly $2,000. But that doesnt mean the idea behind flexible screen technologies goes away.

Samsung is still at it, and so is Lenovo-owned Motorola with its new retroRazr. The promise remains the same: let a devicefold or bend in such a way that you can take a smartphone-like form factor and morph it into a small tablet or computer. The ultimate success of such efforts will boil down to at least three of the factors that are always critical in tech: cost, simplicity, andutility.

Data scandals and privacy breaches have placed Facebook, Google and other others under the government's cross-hairs, and ordinary citizens are concerned. Expect some sort of reckoning, though it isn't obviousat this stage what that reckoningwill look like.

Pew recently put out a report that says roughly 6 in 10 Americans believe it is not possible to go about their daily lives without having their data collected.

"The coming decade will be a period of lots of ferment around privacy policy and also around technology related to privacy," says Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. He says consumers will potentially have more tools to give them a bit more control over how and what data gets shared and under whatcircumstances. "And there will be a lot of debate over what the policy should be."

Open question: Will there be national privacy regulations, perhaps ones modeled after the California law that is set to go into effect in the new year?

It isnt easy to explain quantum computing or the field it harnesses, quantum mechanics. In the simplest terms, think something exponentially more powerful than what we consider conventional computing, which is expressed in1s or 0s of bits. Quantum computing takes a quantum leap with whatare known as "qubits."

And while IBM, Intel, Google, Microsoft and others are all fighting for quantum supremacy, the takeaway over the next decadeis that thetechmay helpsolve problems far faster than before, fromdiagnosing disease to crackingforms of encryption, raising the stakes in data security.

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What tech do you want or expect to see? Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter.

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AI, 5G, 'ambient computing': What to expect in tech in 2020 and beyond - USA TODAY

A close-up view of the IBM Q quantum computer. The processor is in the silver-colored cylinder.

Quantum computers are getting a lot more real. No, you won't be playing Call of Duty on one anytime soon. But Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Rigetti Computing and IBM all made important advances in 2019 that could help bring computers governed by the weird laws of atomic-scale physics into your life in other ways.

Google's declaration of quantum supremacywas the most headline-grabbing moment in the field. The achievement -- more limited than the grand term might suggest -- demonstrated that quantum computers could someday tackle computing problems beyond the reach of conventional "classical" computers.

Proving quantum computing progress is crucial. We're still several breakthroughs away from realizing the full vision of quantum computing. Qubits, the tiny stores of data that quantum computers use, need to be improved. So do the finicky control systems used to program and read quantum computer results. Still, today's results help justify tomorrow's research funding to sustain the technology when the flashes of hype inevitably fizzle.

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Quantum computers will live in data centers, not on your desk, when they're commercialized. They'll still be able to improve many aspects of your life, though. Money in your retirement account might grow a little faster and your packages might be delivered a little sooner as quantum computers find new ways to optimize businesses. Your electric-car battery might be a little lighter and new drugs might help you live a little longer after quantum computers unlock new molecular-level designs. Traffic may be a little lighter from better simulations.

But Google's quantum supremacy step was just one of many needed to fulfill quantum computing's promise.

"We're going to get there in cycles. We're going to have a lot of dark ages in which nothing happens for a long time," said Forrester analyst Brian Hopkins. "One day that new thing will really change the world."

Among the developments in 2019:

Classical computers, which include everything from today's smartwatches to supercomputers that occupy entire buildings, store data as bits that represent either a 1 or a 0. Quantum computers use a different approach called qubits that can represent a combination of 1 and 0 through an idea called superposition.

Ford and Microsoft adapted a quantum computing traffic simulation to run on a classical computer. The result: a traffic routing algorithm that could cut Seattle traffic congestion by 73%.

The states of multiple qubits can be linked, letting quantum computers explore lots of possible solutions to a problem at once. With each new qubit added, a quantum computer can explore double the number of possible solutions, an exponential increase not possible with classical machines.

Quantum computers, however, are finicky. It's hard to get qubits to remain stable long enough to return useful results. The act of communicating with qubits can perturb them. Engineers hope to add error correction techniques so quantum computers can tackle a much broader range of problems.

Plenty of people are quantum computing skeptics. Even some fans of the technology acknowledge we're years away from high-powered quantum computers. But already, quantum computing is a real business. Samsung, Daimler, Honda, JP Morgan Chase and Barclays are all quantum computing customers. Spending on quantum computers should reach hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2020s, and tens of billions in the 2030s, according to forecasts by Deloitte, a consultancy. China, Europe, the United States and Japan have sunk billions of dollars into investment plans. Ford and Microsoft say traffic simulation technology for quantum computers, adapted to run on classical machines, already is showing utility.

Right now quantum computers are used mostly in research. But applications with mainstream results are likely coming. The power of quantum computers is expected to allow for the creation of new materials, chemical processes and medicines by giving insight into the physics of molecules. Quantum computers will also help for greater optimization of financial investments, delivery routes and flights by crunching the numbers in situations with a large number of possible courses of action.

They'll also be used for cracking today's encryption, an idea spy agencies love, even if you might be concerned about losing your privacy or some snoop getting your password. New cryptography adapted for a quantum computing future is already underway.

Another promising application is artificial intelligence, though that may be years in the future.

"Eventually we'll be able to reinvent machine learning," Forrester's Hopkinssaid. But it'll take years of steady work in quantum computing beyond the progress of 2019. "The transformative benefits are real and big, but they are still more sci-fi and theory than they are reality."

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Quantum computing leaps ahead in 2019 with new power and speed - CNET

When asked what invention will be as revolutionary in the 2020s as smartphones were in the 2010s, Bank of America strategist Haim Isreal said, without hesitation, quantum computing.

At the banks annual year ahead event last week in New York, Israel qualified his prediction, arguing in an interview with MarketWatch that the timing of the smartphones arrival on the scene in the mid-2000s, and its massive impact on the American business landscape in the 2010s, doesnt line up neatly with quantum-computing breakthroughs, which are only now being seen, just a few weeks before the start of the 2020s.

The iPhone already debuted in 2007, enabling its real impact to be felt in the 2010s, he said, while the first business applications for quantum computing won't be seen till toward the end of the coming decade.

But, Israel argued, when all is said and done, quantum computing could be an even more radical technology in terms of its impact on businesses than the smartphone has been. This is going to be a revolution, he said.

Quantum computing is a nascent technology based on quantum theory in physics which explains the behavior of particles at the subatomic level, and states that until observed these particles can exist in different places at the same time. While normal computers store information in ones and zeros, quantum computers are not limited by the binary nature of current data processing and so can provide exponentially more computing power.

Quantum things can be in multiple places at the same time, said Chris Monroe, a University of Maryland physicist and founder of IonQ told the Associated Press . The rules are very simple, theyre just confounding.

In October, Alphabet Inc. GOOG, -0.18% subsidiary Google claimed to have achieved a breakthrough by using a quantum computer to complete a calculation in 200 seconds on a 53-qubit quantum computing chip, a task it calculated would take the fastest current super-computer 10,000 years. Earlier this month, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.03% announced its intention to collaborate with experts to develop quantum computing technologies that can be used in conjunction with its cloud computing services. International Business Machines Corp. IBM, -0.82% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +0.84% are also developing quantum computing technology.

Israel argued these tools will revolutionize several industries, including health care, the internet of things and cyber security. He said that pharmaceutical companies are most likely to be the first commercial users of these devices, given the explosion of data created by health care research.

Pharma companies are right now subject to Moores law in reverse, he said. They are seeing the cost of drug development doubling every nine years, as the amount of data on the human body becomes ever more onerous to process. Data on genomics doubles every 50 days, he added, arguing that only quantum computers will be able to solve the pharmaceutical industrys big-data problem.

Quantum computing will also have a major impact on cybersecurity, an issue that effects nearly every major corporation today. Currently cyber security relies on cryptographic algorithms, but quantum computings ability to solve these equations in the fraction of the time a normal computer does will render current cyber security methods obsolete.

In the future, even robust cryptographic algorithms will be substantially weakened by quantum computing, while others will no longer be secure at all, according to Swaroop Sham, senior product marketing manager at Okta.

For investors, Israel said, it is key to realize that the first one or two companies to develop commercially applicable quantum-computing will be richly rewarded with access to untold amounts of data and that will only make their software services more valuable to potential customers in a virtuous circle.

What weve learned this decade is that whoever controls the data will win big time, he said.

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Quantum computing will be the smartphone of the 2020s, says Bank of America strategist - MarketWatch

The technology has helped to improve congestion by 73 per cent in scenario-testing

Ford and Microsoft are using quantum-inspired computing technology to reduce traffic congestion. Through a joint research pilot, scientists have used the technology to simulate thousands of vehicles and their impact on congestion in the US city of Seattle.

Ford said it is still early in the project but encouraging progress has been made and it is further expanding its partnership with the tech giant.

The companies teamed up in 2018 to develop new quantum approaches running on classical computers already available to help reduce Seattles traffic congestion.

Writing on a blog post on Medium.com, Dr Ken Washington, chief technology officer, Ford Motor Company, explained that during rush hour, numerous drivers request the shortest possible routes at the same time, but current navigation services handle these requests "in a vacuum": They do not take into consideration the number of similar incoming requests, including areas where other drivers are all planning to share the same route segments, when delivering results.

What is required is a more balanced routing system that could manage all the various route requests from drivers and provide optimised route suggestions, reducing the number of vehicles on a particular road.

These and more are all variables well need to test for to ensure balanced routing can truly deliver tangible improvements for cities.

Traditional computers dont have the computational power to do this but, as Washington explained, in a quantum computer, information is processed by a quantum bit (or a qubit) and can simultaneously exist "in two different states" before it gets measured.

This ultimately enables a quantum computer to process information with a faster speed, he wrote. Attempts to simulate some specific features of a quantum computer on non-quantum hardware have led to quantum-inspired technology powerful algorithms that mimic certain quantum behaviours and run on specialised conventional hardware. That enables organisations to start realising some benefits before fully scaled quantum hardware becomes available."

Working with Microsoft, Ford tested several different possibilities, including a scenario involving as many as 5,000 vehicles each with 10 different route choices available to them simultaneously requesting routes across Metro Seattle. It reports that in 20 seconds, balanced routing suggestions were delivered to the vehicles that resulted in a 73 per cent improvement in total congestion when compared to selfish routing.

The average commute time, meanwhile, was also cut by eight per cent representing an annual reduction of more than 55,000 hours across this simulated fleet.

Based on these results, Ford is expanding its partnership with Microsoft to further improve the algorithm and understand its effectiveness in more real-world scenarios.

For example, will this method still deliver similar results when some streets are known to be closed, if route options arent equal for all drivers, or if some drivers decide to not follow suggested routes? wrote Washington. These and more are all variables well need to test for to ensure balanced routing can truly deliver tangible improvements for cities.

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Could quantum computing be the key to cracking congestion? - SmartCitiesWorld