02/21/20020 - Published by EUCC-RIID.

Dr. Christophe AUBIN-NURY de Malicorne

Senior manager in international banking and financial services, specialized in investment, private equity and economic development advisory. Consultant Specialist in finance & economics at ARS, a US government agency and member of CEDIN, Research Center in International Law.

Artificial Intelligence: an inflexion point for humanity. A sectoral approach towards strategic investing.

According to McKinsey’s predictions at the end of 2018 regarding artificial intelligence, the technology could bring more than 13 trillion dollars to the GDP of the world economy in the next ten years. This will happen first, by streamlining production processes, to allow employees to create added value while being freed from repetitive tasks. Then, the challenge for the digital and AI revolution is to promote consumption more targeted to consumer demand, in order to optimize their potential.

The history of humanity follows an innovation trend, which began with the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel around 3500 BC, printing, cars, trains, electrical engineering, and other crucial innovations having led the paths to our current level of prosperity. This curve started to rise considerably during the 20th century. This exponential rate is due to the rapid development of computer technology at the end of this century and the recent emergence of artificial intelligence. The 21st century, however, should see the trend of human innovation to a level never seen before. Despite the possible drifts, the influence of artificial intelligence on the innovation curve will not only be beneficial to society, but also crucial to its development. Understanding that it is evidently impossible to forecast the future, it seems nonetheless obvious at current stage, that our society is inevitably headed for a dramatic change in regards to lifestyles and economic activity through artificial intelligence because nowadays its growth is considerably enhanced by artificial capabilities and deep learning notably. In reality, the use of AI in the various economic activity sectors will allow consumers to save valuable time, but also to offer them increasingly personalized products and services, therefore more attractive to them, both nationally and worldwide. Subsequently, it will be an essential vector of growth in order to accelerate the economic development of developing countries. This new way of producing and consuming implies new prospects for economic growth and sustainable development.

At the start of 2020, the financial markets are at record levels. However, current economic and political contexts prompt us to rethink our investment strategies as the world enters a new era of growth. It is at a major inflection point, particularly in terms of its future exponential economic development, due in large part to new technologies, but especially to the recent emergence of artificial intelligence and its direct or indirect global consequences. These latest developments make it possible to anticipate a spectrum of sectors with high growth potential in the medium and long term in regard to this new paradigm, driven by new advanced technologies and advances in robotization which make production more efficient, cheaper and faster than ever. Among the sectors that should benefit the most from this evolution, there are particularly:

-Digital transformation: deep learning, internet of things, data intelligence, cloud

-Security: data, goods, infrastructures, persons

-Health and biotechnology

-Robotics

-E-commerce

-Uberization of services

-Luxury goods

-Nanotechnology

Our civilization has indeed reached a major inflection point from the development of artificial intelligence technology, as it has triggered an impressive acceleration of innovation. In fact, the challenge of innovation is changing radically because it no longer depends only on the capabilities of the human brain. In addition to their intrinsic possibilities, artificial brains make machines more and more intelligent, thanks to their capacities for autonomous learning and action. Furthermore, In a context where the population of developed countries only represents about 20% of the world population, artificial intelligence will increase drastically the speed of innovation and propel humanity into a new dimension of global development growth, thereby generating multiple investment opportunities.

Sources:

Accenture, 2019. «Accenture Technology Vision 2019: The Post-Digital Era is upon us, are you ready for what's next?»

Allianz Global Investors, 2018. «Allianz Global Artificial Intelligence – Perspectives.»

McKinsey, 2018. «The promise and challenge of the age of artificial intelligence.»