AI is changing tech on a global basis. But the background behind the transformation varies by region – can enterprise keep up?
As with any high growth industry or sector, nations around the world compete to lead the way on innovation and applications that benefit governments, citizens and businesses. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry is growing at an incredible speed and companies around the world are investing billions of dollars to win the ‘AI race’ and to secure the largest market share. Predictions show that by 2030 about 70 percent of companies will have adopted some sort of AI technology. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the impact of AI will be even greater than that of fire or electricity on our development as a species. The reason is simple. Whether modelling climate change, developing new medical treatments, exploring space, or increasing speed to market in manufacturing, AI is changing the way we all live and work.
Marc Andreessen, the American entrepreneur, investor and software engineer, said that “software will eat the world”. He implies that every company will become a software company or die, and this applies equally to AI. Every company will eventually leverage AI since AI is a new paradigm of software development that extends the reach of the software. This doesn’t mean, however, that every company needs to build huge data science teams; for example, as AI matures, increased AI capabilities are available embedded in business software, and as low-code/no-code development tools. What’s more, large pre-trained models in the public domain mean companies need less or no training data. Therefore, we define an AI company as any organisation that leverages Artificial Intelligence to improve business processes and products at scale.
Aside from the mass investment in the technologies, another main driver of the adoption of AI is the urgent need for automation and intelligence in global civil infrastructure. As populations continue to grow, innovation – in particular, Big Data and AI technologies – is needed to improve the standard of life and work. Despite macro-economic factors impacting innovation and productivity globally in 2022, there’s no slowing the development of AI. While there are certain challenges, there are even more opportunities.
Regulation is coming, but will it slow down innovation?
In Asia, governments tend to be very open to the use of big data and AI and the state invests massively in digital solutions. The commercialisation of AI applications has been very successful. In the US, AI innovation is led by large corporations and is enabled by their investments. The US is currently leading the AI technology research and AI applications. Finally, the European approach is often focussed on regulation and safeguarding before innovation, and public opinion is still rather sceptical about digital transformation, AI and big data. Europe has been very successful in basic research and also has a long tradition in AI research. But when it comes to commercialising AI, the European industry has fallen behind the US and China, especially in AI for the internet and consumer products.
2022 has seen markets continue down the regulatory path. In July, the UK Government set out its emerging thinking on how it would regulate the use of AI. It is expected to publish proposals in a white paper later this year, which the committee would examine in its inquiry. AI’s role in the UK economy and society is growing. However, there are concerns around its use. MPs will examine the potential impacts of biased algorithms in the public and private sectors. A lack of transparency on how AI is applied and how automated decisions can be challenged will also be investigated.
The European Commission is also proposing the first-ever legal framework on AI, which addresses the risks of AI and positions the EU to play a leading role globally.
