Clearly riscv servers you design from the CPU up (with some very helpful software). Only to be replaced by the N types of computers that typically wind up being designed somewhere around years 3-5. To later be replaced by those same systems in the cloud.
Or of course world war 3 happens and the latest, greatest thing going in IT is “I mean I’m still alive, whatever that’s worth.” And making anything usable from whatever is found. Even a blinking LED becomes either neat or a way for a roving warboy to find/kill you.
Speaking of cyclical IT, my estimate is going “forward” to the terminal/mainframe-esque concept of simple and cheap “terminals” aka laptops that you use to log into a much beefier “mainframe” aka cloud workstation.
I’m at a FAANGMULA and I’ve been using a cloud workstation from my cheap laptop as my daily driver for months now. The VM is so much higher-spec’d than what they would have bought me for a desktop. Just don’t look at the price if you plan to run it 24/7…
And for the mostly browser-based stuff I do, outside of multimedia and some development, I'm pretty much on a terminal (except we call it a browser) which I run from 2015-vintage Macs.
Just recently moved all my services that don't need a 100% to a dedicated server instead of several cloud VMS running containers. It's cheaper, less overhead, simpler to configure and works just as well (so far)
IT is cyclical.