Skip to main content

Mobile Robotics Growth Opportunity for Cloud Providers

As we look to the future, more robots are likely to appear in the typical workplace. These robots will perform repetitive tasks that were once performed by humans. This automation promises to improve productivity significantly. In some cases, robots will also augment human capabilities.

With the popularization of mobile robotics in a wide range of industries, more organizations will store the collected data from these robots in public cloud services, and then use that data to train more advanced AI algorithms that enable robot cognition.

According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the robot-related services powered by cloud computing will reach $157.8 billion in annual revenue by 2030.

Mobile Robotics Market Development

"Since 1961, most commercial robots have been wired or tied to external infrastructure for movement. The next generation of robot deployments will be increasingly mobile, tied to cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity, will consume vast troves of data in order to operate autonomously, and will need effective management through real-time measurements for performance, status and operability," said Rian Whitton, senior analyst at ABI Research.

Several hyperscale cloud service providers -- including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud -- have begun collaborating with robotics developers, while start-ups like InOrbit target cloud-enabled operations for the first major deployment of mobile service robots.

The journey of the robot industry from one of individual vehicles and units, to fleets and larger systems, is being driven by its wider incorporation into the internet of things (IoT) ecosystem.

However, ABI believes that it would be a mistake to suggest robots will simply fit in with devices, individual sensors, and stationary machines as part of the wider IoT ecosystem.

Robots are increasingly sophisticated systems themselves, with multiple sensors and highly advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or Machine Learning (ML) competencies. They're also expected to move around and act within the world, generating huge amounts of data relative to other machines.

"To suggest the cloud alone can provide the computing power to operate these machines is naïve, especially during the slow transition to 5G. Onlookers should instead conceive of adaptable edge-cloud systems that focus on quality over quantity when it comes to robotics operation, data processing, and analysis," Whitton adds.

The cloud robotics opportunity, defined as Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revenue for robotics operations combined, will grow from $3.3 billion in 2019 to $157.8 billion in 2030, accounting for 30 percent of the robotic industry’s total worth.

On its own, this represents a huge opportunity for start-ups, many of which are beginning to expand on their mission to enable developers to accelerate their go-to-market strategy and to help end-users and operators’ access and manage the ever-increasing fleets of robots.

This new robotics ecosystem will be dominated by three subcategories of companies, namely robot developers that move up the value chain and become solution providers, third-party IoT and cloud platform providers focused on best-in-class software solutions, and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).

Those focusing strictly on hardware will lose relative worth and will require partnerships or bold strategies to become solution providers. This can be exemplified by companies like Universal Robots and Fetch Robotics, which have incorporated software and maintenance services into their offering.

"The market is incredibly nascent at present. ABI Research expects consolidation with the most successful robot solution providers and the CSPs expanding their relative influence on the market to take place within the next decade," says Whitton.

Outlook for Cloud Robotics Applications Growth

According to the ABI assessment, the cloud robotics technology is split between vertical innovations, such as developing superior navigation systems, which increase the possibility of what robots can do, and horizontal innovations that expand access and scalability.

"Cloud computing represents the most important horizontal innovation for the robotics industry, to date, and will further enable vertical innovations like swarm-based intelligence, autonomous mobility, and advanced manipulation to be deployed at scale," Whitton concludes.

Due to security and regulatory compliance requirements, I believe that there will also be opportunities for the selective storage of robot data within on-premises IT data centers. Object storage technology can provide reliable and cost-effective solutions to the challenge of capturing and retrieving robotics data for analytics applications.

Popular posts from this blog

AI Semiconductor Revenue will Reach $119.4B

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will guide Generative AI initiatives within the large enterprise C-Suite. They may already have the technical expertise and experience to understand the capabilities and limitations of Gen AI. They also have the authority and budget to make the necessary investments in infrastructure and talent to support Gen AI initiatives. Enterprise AI infrastructure is proven to be expensive to build, operate and maintain. That's why public cloud service provider solutions are often used for new AI use cases. AI Semiconductor Market Development Semiconductors designed to execute Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the global semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "The developments in generative AI and the increasing use of a wide range AI-based applications in data c

Demand for Quantum Computing as a Service

The enterprise demand for quantum computing is still in its early stages, growing slowly. As the technology becomes more usable, we may see demand evolve beyond scientific applications. The global quantum computing market is forecast to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). That's a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1 percent. The forecast includes base Quantum Computing as a Service, as well as enabling and adjacent Quantum Computing as a Service. However, this updated forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021, due to lower demand globally. Quantum Computing Market Development In the interim, customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on inve

Industrial Cloud Computing Apps Gain Momentum

In the manufacturing industry, cloud computing can help leaders improve their production efficiency by providing them with real-time data about their operations. This has gained the attention of the C-suite. Total forecast Industrial Cloud platform revenue in manufacturing will surpass $300 billion by 2033 with a CAGR of 22.57 percent, driven by solution providers enhancing platform interoperability while expanding partner ecosystems for application development. ABI Research found the cloud computing manufacturing market will grow over the next decade due to the adoption of new architectural frameworks that enhance data extraction and interoperability for manufacturers looking to maximize utility from their data. Industrial Cloud Computing Market Development "Historically, manufacturers have built out their infrastructure to include expensive data housing in the form of on-premises servers. The large initial upfront cost of purchasing, setting up, and maintaining these servers is