Study: AI, Intelligent Devices to fuel economic growth
March 26, 2024
By Chris Forrester
A White Paper from ARK Invest examines the economic impact of converging technologies and explores how five converging platforms are likely to define this technological era.
The study goes back a few hundred years from the introduction of the steam engine, then the railroads, telegraph, photography and the bicycle as key enables for economic growth. The 1890-1910 period saw the internal combustion engine, electricity, telephony, refrigeration and air conditioning as being key drivers. More recently the Internet, cellphones, GPS, the Web and e-commerce have propelled significant growth.
But ARK examines the likely impact in the 2025-2030 period and how just five developments could help drive a staggering economic growth to be 60 per cent of total market value.
The report, looking at 2030, says AI looms large, underpinning many vectors of progress: “The adoption of Neural Networks should prove more momentous than the introduction of the internet and potentially create 10s of trillion dollars of value,” noted ARK.
The five key drivers are listed (in order) as: AI; Intelligent devices; Digital Wallets (including smart contracts and cryptocurrencies); Advance batteries/autonomous mobility. The fifth key driver is stated as 3D printing/reusable rockets & adaptive robotics, while cloud computing comes a very close sixth driver.
ARK concluded: “By the end of the decade the annual economic impact of today’s converging technologies will roughly double the economic impact of those technologies that triggered the second industrial revolution at the turn of the 20th century. Indeed, our modelling suggests that neural networks will catalyse a range of technology offerings, each of which independently could qualify as amongst the most economically meaningful in history.”
“The five innovation platforms together will generate more than $200 trillion in market value by 2030…. [and] could account for more than 60 per cent of global equity market values by the end of this decade,” suggested ARK.
