Despite its long presence in the market, AI has struggled to deliver a profitable model. Advantech Chairman K.C. Liu believes that the continuous wave of AI innovation over the past two years, along with the emergence of AI Agents, will finally merge AI with industry in a way that unlocks clear profit pathways, setting the stage for future growth.
Global research firms predict that AI technology will soon be as pervasive as air and the internet in everyday life. By 2032, the global Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of Edge AI is expected to reach 26%, revealing vast opportunities across various sectors.
However, the challenge of scaling these applications remains significant. Advantech contends that the market needs a breakthrough – a killer application – to drive widespread adoption of Edge AI and fuel market growth.
AI technology's application roots are in areas like Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) for defect detection and contrast analysis in medical imaging, where Industrial PC (IPC) companies have long invested. However, the rise of generative AI and AI Agents has opened up even greater market opportunities, enabling deeper integration of AI into industrial applications.
Liu candidly acknowledges that while AI and the concept of Edge AI have been around for some time, real-world applications are scarce due to the complexity of the industry. Businesses are eager to harness AI's potential to enhance efficiency and create value, but they often lack the understanding of the necessary technology, tools, and applications. This gap underscores the critical importance of building a robust ecosystem.
To drive AI adoption, it's essential to unite hardware and software providers with application developers to create a comprehensive ecosystem tailored to different industries. This approach will lower adoption barriers and spur market growth. However, large enterprises typically have the resources to implement AI solutions independently. Liu believes IPC companies should focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as the primary drivers of market expansion.
Nexcom Technology sees generative AI's application in industrial sectors as pivotal. Smart manufacturing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) require precise answers, which means generative AI must deliver high accuracy. Historically, manufacturing has amassed vast amounts of machine data, but identifying root causes of issues from signal data has been like finding a needle in a haystack. Clean, precise data combined with AI can provide quick, actionable insights, potentially leading to killer applications in manufacturing and driving the development of the broader AI value chain.
As the concept of AI Agents gains clarity and prominence, these tools are expected to help users across various industries solve problems more effectively. However, AI Agents don't appear out of nowhere; training them quickly and accurately depends on building a complete ecosystem for each industry.
Recognizing the importance of ecosystem development and collaboration for scaling AI in industrial applications, Advantech highlights that building a strong ecosystem is critical for bringing AI into industrial use cases. To accelerate this process, Advantech has partnered with over 50 global collaborators to establish an Edge AI ecosystem.
Other IPC companies, including ADLINK, Aaeon, Nexcom, and Neousys, are also employing various strategies to create ecosystems that help clients quickly integrate practical AI applications across different vertical industries.
Article translated by Vyra Wu
