‘Decade of the Robot’ Paves Way for Trillion-Dollar Market, Barclays Says
(Bloomberg) — The market for AI-enabled robots and autonomous machines has the potential to grow into a trillion-dollar opportunity by 2035, according to a team of Barclays analysts; This is much bigger than it is now.
Autonomous vehicles, which are already relatively advanced, will be led by drones and then more complex general-purpose humanoid robots, analysts wrote Tuesday in a report titled “The Decade of Robotics.”
“Advances in brains, power and batteries are pushing AI-enabled robots to a turning point and setting the investment agenda for the next decade,” the team, led by Zornitsa Todorova, head of thematic fixed income research at Barclays, wrote.
The advent of robotics and other real-world “physical AI” marks a paradigm shift from digitally focused AI; This is a paradigm shift that underpins a “value chain” that will be more diverse and deeper than the first wave of AI products.
While China currently dominates humanoid and industrial robot distribution, Barclays analysts have identified close to 200 publicly traded issuers that could get into the theme over the next decade; 100 of them have at least one corporate bond outstanding.
“We see automakers emerging as potential major participants alongside the increasing deployment of robotic systems in warehousing, logistics, and retail,” they wrote. Examples include Mercedes-Benz Group AG using Nvidia Corp.’s Omniverse to “virtually retool factories with minimal disruption” and Tesla Inc.’s focus on robots during its fourth-quarter earnings call.
The team includes Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and Nvidia Corp. It highlighted the software and hardware that supports the technology, including semiconductor and infrastructure providers such as. Additionally, EVE Energy Co. and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. They flagged “robotic hardware and motion systems that perform physical tasks” along with batteries that “provide the energy backbone for these platforms,” citing Chinese manufacturers such as.
Barclays analysts also point to a group they call enablers; These are either companies like Tesla, which produces full robots, or Amazon.com Inc. Companies such as “shape the broader ecosystem” by developing technology.
Amazon and Walmart Inc. A shift towards physical AI is already evident in large-scale logistics and retail operations of companies such as. They note that there are more than a million robots operating in Amazon’s fulfillment network, which “is probably still only a fraction of the long-term potential.”
–With help from Joel Leon.
More stories like this available Bloomberg.com
