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The “Automation of Everything” Era
Hind KHYATI
Nokia
Abstract. We are at the beginning of an era of profound transformation and human
progress — a new industrial revolution. This “Automation of Everything” era will
be brought about by digital interfaces, data analysis and control of the physical world
through “smart” networks. These networks will support the digitalization and
connection of everything and everyone with the goal of automating much of life.
This major industrial revolution promises to unlock trillions of dollars of
economic value in the next decade by driving massive improvements in productivity
in physical and digital industries alike, enhancing quality of life in safer, healthier
and more sustainable communities.
Keywords. Industrial, revolution, smart, networks, productivity
Summary
Industry is driven by a constant quest for productivity. They seek all means to most
efficiently produce and deliver their goods and services. Growth in productivity is among
the leading indicators of economic value and a strong measure of progress in the
industrial age. Yet, in the last few decades, productivity growth has slowed dramatically.
That is surprising to many, given the unprecedented advancements in information and
communications technology (ICT). After all, we have witnessed massive innovation in
the Internet era and the digital transformation of enterprises is well underway. A closer
look at US economic data reveals that it is just 30 percent of industries who are benefiting
most from digitalization and automation. Information economy segments and IT-centric
verticals such as financial services have made the lion’s share — 70 percent — of total
investment in ICT. As a result, they are benefitting from a nearly 4x faster productivity
growth rate. These gains are just the low-hanging fruit harvested by segments that drive
the information economy. The gap is set to widen further, as it is the top 5 percent of
these heavy investors in ICT — largely within the manufacturing and services sectors —
that are seeing a majority of the productivity gains. In contrast, traditional asset-intensive
industries have lagged in the transition to the digital economy and thus have not yielded
their share of benefits from the transformation. Even as the companies in this “physical
economy” collectively represent 70 percent of US GDP and employ three-quarters of the
US workforce, these industries have experienced a productivity rut over the past two
decades.
Now things are changing. Industries in the “physical economy” have begun their
digital transformation and the opportunity for realizing a much bigger productivity boom
is before us. As the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, deep analytics based on
artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), augmented reality (AR), robotics,
remote control and digital twinning technologies mature and reach a critical mass of
adoption, the opportunities to energize traditional industries are countless and within
Intelligent Environments 2019
A. Muñoz et al. (Eds.)
© 2019 The authors and IOS Press.
This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).
doi:10.3233/AISE190014
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Intelligent Environments 2019
Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Environments
- Title
- Intelligent Environments 2019
- Subtitle
- Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Environments
- Authors
- Andrés Muñoz
- Sofia Ouhbi
- Wolfgang Minker
- Loubna Echabbi
- Miguel Navarro-CĂa
- Publisher
- IOS Press BV
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-61499-983-6
- Size
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 416
- Category
- Tagungsbände