As of this writing, Novel Coronavirus (Covid -19) has affected 168 countries with close to 210,000 confirmed cases and 8,778 deaths. The virus will eventually be conquered, but it’s impact has gone much more further. It has already caused much havoc leading to major disruptions in markets and leading Companies having to pull out of major events and so on. Every Industry is feeling the pressure of its impact and the world of Tech is no different. Here’s a look at how Coronavirus has already caused problems and has impacted the tech industry.

Many companies in the world of tech have already started to face problems due to this disruption in the world. The companies which had direct connections with china were the first to face the impacts. All the major Tech companies have announced that they have temporarily shut down all their corporate offices, retail stores, Manufacturing factories across china.

China is also a manufacturing hub for a lot of products that these companies manufacture or they use parts on their products which are from chinese vendors. So, there can be a lot of shortages and delays for a lot of upcoming products.

Now, iPhones which are Apple’s marquee product and accounts for bulk of their revenue every quarter is also manufactured heavily in their factories based in China. So, according to latest reports which are coming, the next iPhone which will be probably iPhone 12 is delayed. Apple has warned it’s investors that it’s supply of iPhones will also be severly impacted due to the spread of Coronavirus. Now, Apple even has limited the number of it’s products which includes iPhones, iPads one customer can buy from it’s online store.

Facebook has also been impacted. The production of it’s upcoming latest Oculus Quest VR headset has also been impacted.

“[Like] other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely. We are working to restore availability as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement to Android Central.

Continuing the story of product shortages here’s another. Asus also warned it’s customers who were waiting for their niche Gaming device ROG Phone II that it has been delayed untill further notice due to a break in their supply chain because of coronavirus.

Apart from Product delays and shortages, a lot of major tech events were also cancelled which has led some experts to share their concern saying that this will have huge economic losses for everyone. Around 10 Major Tech events have been cancelled so far. Events such as the annual Mobile World Congress 2020 was delayed. This is an event which a lot of companies look towards to showcase it’s upcoming products and to also show their latest prototypes or concepts they are working on and they in turn gain feedback from the public through this. Events such as Google’s I/O, Facebook’s F8 event, SXSW 2020, E3 2020, Games Developer Conference(GDC) 2020, Adobe Summit, Nvdia’s GTC(GPU Technology Conference) 2020, Microsoft’s Build Developer Conference 2020. According to the estimates a data intelligence company PredictHQ pulled for Recode, the direct economic loss from cancellations of such major events has surpassed $1.1 billion and this number doesn’t even include the amount of money the companies would have made from hosting the events. And this is only from events from the world of Tech and doesn’t take into account all the major events from around the world in different fields that were cancelled.

But not everything is doom and gloom. The World of Tech is also being used to fight the epidemic. Many firms and researchers are using AI models to predict the outbreak of the virus and also to old and drugs that might successfully treat Covid 19.  Also, the Company NVIDIA has made its GPU powered research sequencing tool available free to those studying COVID-19 and also the company has requested anyone who has NVIDIA GPU’s and willing to help will fill out a form so that there GPU can also be used to power the research tool.

There’s no doubt that the world’s going through a huge crisis right now but the virus will be definitely be conquered. But the economic impact on the world will be large. So hopefully, every country will have to create its own Post ‘VirusWar” plan & take care of those in society who are hit the hardest. Perhaps then we can build the foundations of a sustained global growth cycle.

Source:[nytimes][cnbc][cnet][Recode][Techcrunch]

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