The potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is “infinite” and it is therefore hard to estimate what its market value could rise to, evidenced by the huge range of predictions — US$200 billion to US$7 trillion — made by various institutions, Qualcomm Technologies Inc vice president S.T. Liew (劉思泰) said at an AI event in Taipei yesterday.
Liew, who is also president of Qualcomm’s business in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, told a keynote speech at the AI Expo Taiwan that the world has embarked on a journey to be at one with “AI everywhere.”
That means more processing power will be required and applications of all kinds from cloud services to edge AI will be developed, he said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“Statista Market estimated the value of the generative AI market will rise to US$207 billion in 2030, Bloomberg Intelligence said US$1.3 trillion by 2032, and McKinsey & Co forecasted that it could eventually be worth up to US$7.9 trillion,” Liew said.
“But these are just business scales; if you take into account all the direct and indirect productivity improvement and consumer satisfaction improvement, even US$7.9 trillion is considered low,” he said.
Generative AI refers to a type of AI that can create new content and ideas, for example, stories, videos and music.
With 5G connectivity in place, AI will not only be “connected everywhere,” but that connectivity will also be “intelligent” and will be able to be used for daily tasks such as “the car calculating the fastest route to my office with a stop to buy a cup of coffee,” Liew said.
These are the edge AI or “on-device AI” applications, he noted, which ABI Research, a global advisory firm providing strategic analyses on technology, forecast could overtake cloud AI services by revenue in 2028.
“There will be billions of devices in the world equipped with AI, so you can imagine the business opportunities for companies of all sizes. This is in contrast to cloud services which are dominated by a few tech giants,” Liew said.
On-device intelligence has also the benefit of reducing costs and energy as the cost and power of transmitting data to the cloud is saved, he said.
“Devices can also be personalized without risk of a privacy leak because a cloud service is not being used,” he added.
The Qualcomm executive said the company has a mission to build an “ecosystem” around Generative AI with shared tools and resources to increase the opportunities for all partners to innovate and make new products.
The AI expo opened yesterday and runs until tomorrow at Taipei Expo Park.
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