The Transforma Insights Blog

Matt Hatton shares a highly selective set of trends from his visit to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, taking in regulation, security, global trade, AI, IoT, satellite and much more.

In the last few months the topic of 4G switch-off/refarming has become increasingly commonly discussed. The logic of refarming less spectrally efficient 4G to more spectrally efficient 5G, as well as rationalising the number of networks being operated, is inescapable. The question is when? In this blog post we offer a few thoughts on the likely timings of 4G switch-off.

As we come to the end of 2024, here’s a little recap of the most popular Transforma Insights reports, blog posts, webinars and white papers of the year.

In this blog post we examine the impact of AI on the environment, in terms of energy, water and CO2, as well as some of the initiatives that are already under way to mitigate the impact.

This blog explores one of the most significant transformations occurring in the transportation and storage sector, Supply Chain Transparency. It explains its drivers and how improving supply chain transparency can benefit businesses.

One of the current areas of technology development that most grabs the imagination and has the potential for disruption of the status quo is autonomous vehicles. In most cases this focuses on passenger vehicles. However, Transforma Insights recently published a report, ‘Autonomous Road Freight Vehicles: 1.1 million revenue generating units by 2033 to support road freight operations’, which discusses in detail how one branch of autonomous vehicles, those for transporting freight, can revolutionise goods transportation with minimal human intervention. Even though the size of the market is relatively small today, it is poised for rapid expansion, driven by various benefits that will be briefly discussed in this blog. In it, we explore the need for autonomous road freight vehicles, their benefits, regulatory landscape in selected regions, and notable vendors operating in this dynamic market.

The emergence of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications is acting as a catalyst for the development of advanced and sophisticated AI chips. In this blog, we will provide a brief overview of the AIoT chipsets market (as discussed in detail in our ‘AI Chipsets: cloud AI drives scale, AIoT drives innovation’ report, with a focus on edge AI chipsets and a brief introduction to a range of emerging edge AI chipset vendors.

Recent years have seen significant disruptions in the automotive industry, impacting all stakeholders across the value chain. Digital transformation in this industry has prompted businesses to innovate and advance future mobility, focusing on sustainability, connectivity, safety, and passenger and driver comfort. In a report titled, ‘Digital Transformation in the Automotive Industry’, technology analyst firm, Transforma Insights has identified such nine key domains of change within the industry, enabled by digital disruptive technologies, like the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Sharing (DS), Internet of Things (IoT), Hyperconnectivity, and Edge Computing (EC) emerge as the key drivers of change in AutoTech.

Within the IoT connectivity landscape the only constant is change. Transforma Insights has, over the years, tracked and analysed the changing face of IoT networks, middleware, regulations, commercial models and lots more. Last week we announced our IoT ‘Transition Topics’ for 2025. One was ‘eSIM orchestration vs connectivity reseller’, which relates to the way in which the arrival of SGP.32 remote SIM provisioning – as well as changing MNO/MVNO strategies, new approaches to connectivity management platforms, and the increased impact of data sovereignty regulations and geopolitical issues – promises to trigger a new phase in the provision of IoT connectivity and a change in the associated roles.

These days, it’s hard to overlook headlines such as Microsoft’s USD19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications and Panasonic’s USD7.1 billion acquisition of Blue Yonder. Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies has become a global trend, with leading technology firms investing heavily to strengthen their AI capabilities. This blog begins by exploring the significant increase in AI acquisitions from 2021 to 2023, then analyses the leading market segments driving these acquisitions, and concludes with an in-depth discussion of the top five applications within the AI acquisition landscape.