Axios House: AI's evolution beyond the cloud is a boon, experts say

DAVOS, Switzerland — Artificial intelligence is moving to physical devices, transforming how the technology is built and used, according to three executives who spoke at Axios House in Davos.

Why it matters: This shift is likely to unlock economic opportunities globally.

Axios' Mike Allen, Ina Fried and Dave Lawler moderated conversations with Qualcomm Incorporated president and CEO Cristiano Amon, Gecko Robotics co-founder and CEO Jake Loosararian, and Meta president and vice chair Dina Powell McCormick. The Jan. 19 conversations were sponsored by Qualcomm.

What they're saying: "Where AI is going is in the physical realm," Loosararian told Lawler. "It's very important to understand this."

• "The countries and the companies that get this quickest and fastest are going to be the ones at an advantage in terms of the margin — the amount — of product, and how safely they're able to do it. Environmentally so as well."
• "If you're able to refine petroleum or refine hydrocarbons cheaper with less labor, and we find more of it at less cost, this is a huge advantage as it relates to your country's GDP and its growth and long-term potential."

By the numbers: Physical AI devices like glasses already exceed 10 million units, Amon said.

• "I think you're going to very quickly see, when you add all of those devices, they can get to about 100 million devices," he added.
• "About 1.2 billion phones get sold every year. If all of us want to have the wearable with access to an agent, that's kind of the order of magnitude [we're looking at], and that's just in [the] consumer" market.

Yes, but: All this power is going to require massive compute, and that means new data centers.

• "I also do think [about] these investments — massive investments — across communities, and being very careful to not upend those communities but to respect and listen to local residents," Powell McCormick said to Allen.
• "My dream will be to maybe be able to say one day that small businesses are the builders of data centers across the country."

Go deeper: Watch the full interviews on YouTube.