Generative AI market potential 'infinite': Qualcomm vice president

Taipei, April 24 (CNA) The potential of generative AI (GAI) is "infinite" and it is therefore hard to estimate what its market value could rise to, evidenced by the huge range of predictions -- US$200 billion to US$7 trillion -- made by various institutions, Qualcomm Vice President ST Liew (劉思泰) said at an AI event in Taipei Wednesday.

At AI Expo Taiwan, Liew, the keynote speaker, told the audience that the world has embarked on a journey to be at one with "AI everywhere."

That means more processing power will be required and applications of all kinds from cloud services to edge AI will be developed, Liew said.

"Statista Market estimated the value of the GAI market will rise to US$207 billion in 2030, Bloomberg Intelligence said US$1.3 trillion by 2032, and McKinsey and Company forecasted that it could eventually be worth up to US$7.9 trillion," the tech business head said.

"But these are just business scales; if you take into account all the direct and indirect productivity improvement and consumer satisfaction improvement, even US$7.9 trillion is considered low," Liew continued.

GAI refers to a type of AI that can create new content and ideas, for example, stories, videos, and music.

With 5G connectivity in place, AI will not only be "connected everywhere," but that connectivity will also be "intelligent" and will be able to be used for daily tasks such as "the car calculating the fastest route to my office with a stop to buy a cup of coffee," Liew said.

These are the edge AI or "on-device AI" applications, he noted, which ABI Research, a global advisory firm providing strategic analyses on technology, forecasted could overtake cloud AI services by revenue in 2028.

"There will be billions of devices in the world equipped with AI, so you can imagine the business opportunities for companies of all sizes. This is in contrast to cloud services which are dominated by a few tech giants," Liew said.

On-device intelligence has also the benefit of reducing costs and energy as the cost and power of transmitting data to the cloud is saved, he explained.

"Devices can also be personalized without risk of a privacy leak because a cloud service is not being used," Liew added.

The Qualcomm executive said the company has a mission to build an "ecosystem" around GAI with shared tools and resources to increase the opportunities for all partners to innovate and make new products.

The AI expo is taking place from Wednesday to Friday at Taipei Expo Park.