IDC's annual ICT Market Trends Forum was held in Beijing. Nearly 500 guests from investment institutions, associations, and think tanks participated in the conference, including ICT industry professionals, industry digitalization experts, and investors, to discuss the quantifiable business impact of AI and how it can help improve efficiency, optimize experience, and increase revenue.
The AI Moment: From "Digital Transformation" to "The Next Big Thing"
In her opening remarks, Ms. Jennifer Fok, President of IDC China, said, "We believe that AI has already changed the IT industry, and everything will be different in the future. "IDC is committed to helping companies make effective technology decisions in a rapidly changing world, and today we're ready to ensure that our customers have the high-quality, preferred source of information and the opportunity to leverage the impact of 'AI Everywhere' on their business for a successful transformation in the future." ”
"Welcome to TNBT (The Next Big Thing)", this was the theme of Fok Jinjie's speech. IDC has made a significant shift in the theme from focusing on digital transformation (DX) to focusing on the "next big thing" (TNBT), a change that reflects the growing importance of AI transformation in enterprise strategy. IDC believes that AI has not only changed technology, but also the future of enterprises, so every business needs to think carefully about what their TNBT is. Fok pointed out that generative AI brings new market opportunities, and by 2027, generative AI will account for 29% of total AI spending. In 2024, it is expected to spend $18.3B on generative AI infrastructure, $11B on generative AI services, $6.3B on generative AI applications, and $4.7B on generative AI models/platforms/AD&D. By 2027, the total expenditure of these four items will reach about $151.0B, with a compound annual growth rate of 71.0%, 94.2%, 90.2% and 109.6%, respectively.
She also emphasized the importance of going global, China is going global, and needs to focus on emerging markets such as Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America, and IDC aims to help companies solve the questions about how generative AI will change the future and how to start going global.
Focus on new quality productivity and seize the opportunity of AI transformation in the ICT industry
Wu Lianfeng, Vice President and Chief Analyst of IDC China, shared the development of new quality productivity, the opportunities of the ICT industry, the strategies and challenges of AI transformation, and the importance of going global. He mentioned that the core of the new quality productivity is to give full play to the leading role of innovation, promote industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation, and achieve high-quality development. Digital industrialization and industrial digitalization are the top priorities of new productivity and will become the cornerstone of the continued rapid growth of the domestic ICT market.
The development of new productivity ranks first among the top ten government tasks in 2024, and its core lies in the use of new technologies, such as digital technology, gene technology, biotechnology and energy technology, to promote the transformation of industries to high-end, intelligent and green. Wu Lianfeng pointed out that the ICT industry is not only the core support for emerging industries and future industries, but also a catalyst for industrial upgrading and innovation, and the ICT industry is the core supporting element of new quality productivity. At present, the ICT industry is entering a stage of AI transformation. In the next 10 to 15 years, generative AI will be ubiquitous. From a macro perspective, the global ICT market will reach about US$6.46 trillion in 2024, with China accounting for 13.9%. In the next three years, China is expected to lead the world in growth at 9.8 to 10 percent, which is almost twice the growth rate of GDP.
In terms of generative AI spending, the global market is expected to reach $38.79 billion in 2024 and exceed $140 billion by 2027. The growth trend of the Chinese market is similar to that of the world, and it is expected to reach $3.53 billion in 2024 and $12.93 billion in 2027, with an average annual growth rate of more than 50%.
However, despite the huge market potential, many AI companies are currently struggling to become profitable. Wu Lianfeng believes that this is mainly due to the very high investment cost of AI in the early stage, including the cost of training, inference, and research and development. In the future, businesses will find more opportunities as AI is embedded into all products and services as part of business processes.
From training to inference, large model applications and opportunity exploration
Zhong Zhenshan, Vice President of IDC China, discussed the application scenarios and market opportunities of large models. He mentioned that in the past year, the versatility and generalization ability of large models have attracted the layout of major manufacturers, and the upgrade and iteration of large models in the market has attracted a war of 100 models, and cutting-edge generative AI applications have come one after another.
In 2024, the number of basic large models in China will tend to converge and "roll" to the industry, and the focus of the large model market will also shift from training to inference. In this context, technology providers and industry users should understand the potential opportunities and application scenarios of large models in the industry, and jointly help the implementation of large models/generative AI. Zhong Zhenshan shared in depth the five major trends of the large model market: First, large models are deepening into the industry, and large models related to industries and scenarios are constantly emerging. Second, the coexistence of open source and closed-source models provides enterprises with a variety of choices. Third, large model technology is shifting to the end-to-end side, and AI inference has received widespread attention. Fourth, the development of multimodality has become a trend, indicating the possibility of killer applications in the future. Fifth, next-generation AI infrastructure will be the focus of competition, including support for distributed business models, multi-cloud integration, and high-performance computing. Based on these trends, IDC proposes a next-generation infrastructure framework that emphasizes four areas: AI readiness, autonomous operations, hybrid/multi-cloud environments, and edge optimization. Zhong Zhenshan believes that the overall investment prospects of the generative AI market are optimistic, and it is expected that both the global and Chinese markets will experience rapid development. The focus of investment is shifting from infrastructure to platforms and solutions, and more attention will be paid to AI services in the future. In terms of application scenarios, they are mainly general-purpose, such as knowledge management, marketing, customer service, and code generation. In the future, enterprises and technology vendors are working together to explore more application scenarios that will impact their core business, and it is expected that more industry-specific application scenarios will emerge to drive the further adoption of generative AI and large model technologies.
The advent of a new era - AI terminals came into being
Jiping Wang, Vice President of IDC China, focused on the development of the AI end market. He mentioned that generative AI is leading the transformation of the entire industry. In 2023, whether it is PCs, mobile phones, or other terminal manufacturers, they have released AI-related terminal products, and this year is known as the first year of AI terminals. The next 2~3 years will become a key stage for AI terminals to gradually become real from concept. IDC believes that revolutionary changes are brewing in all aspects, from hardware architecture, product appearance, software, to models and developers.
How can ICT high-tech enterprises grasp the dual opportunities of going global and emerging internationalization?
Han Hanhua, vice president of IDC China, gave a speech aimed at the general trend of going overseas and new internationalization. She believes that the internationalization or going overseas of Chinese enterprises goes through three main stages: the initial international expansion is mainly through trade and personnel dispatch; Later, with the development of some leading companies, enterprises entered the stage of global integration, at which time digital technology plays a key role in ensuring the effective implementation of corporate strategies in different regions and countries around the world. Finally, to ensure adaptability and flexibility to local markets, companies need to be local on a global scale while remaining global.
She said that IDC encourages more enterprises to use digital empowerment to pursue becoming a Global Native Enterprise (GNE) to achieve more efficient and flexible global operations.