PRESS ROOM

Smart and Connected products: a new industrial revolution is underway

Article, December, 2024​

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We see new smart and connected products appearing every day, in all areas and sectors of the economy. This is just the beginning.

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Analysts estimate that this market will represent, by 2032, 140 billion dollars on an international scale.

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Use cases

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What are and will be the uses of smart products, these products/objects/equipment with “local” intelligence (embedded AI, connected or not, Edge AI, etc.)? What are the existing and most anticipated use cases?

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The answer in a few illustrations in several areas:

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Health

• Intelligent hearing aids

• Medical diagnostics

• Personalised medicine

• Surgical robots

• Intelligent rehabilitation

Smart Cities and Infrastructures

• Building surveillance, securing public and private spaces using AI-assisted vision

• Real-time infrastructure monitoring

Energy

• Energy Management

• Energy efficiency

Communities

• Critical infrastructure monitoring

• Visual checks on rounds, raising doubts

• Detecting noise pollution

• Abnormal noise detection.

Environment

• Environmental Monitoring

• Biodiversity monitoring

Industry and Manufacturing

• Industrial robots

• Automated quality control

• Securing industrial sites

• Predictive maintenance

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Agriculture and agri-food

• Precision Agriculture

• Agricultural Robots

Transport, mobility, logistics

• Autonomous vehicles

• Electric vehicles

• Predictive maintenance

• Recognition of road signs

• Transport infrastructure safety

Home automation, household appliances

• Household robots

• Smart alarms

Entertainment and media

• Content Creation

• Content Recommendation

• Sentiment Analysis

Sécurity and Defense

• Surveillance and Reconnaissance

• Cybersecurity

• Autonomous Defence Systems

Yes, embedded AI is revolutionizing a large number of sectors, not only robotics, but all industries producing goods containing electronics.

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Smart and connected products have multiple advantages: high value-added services, instant responsiveness, ultra-frugality, servitization of physical products, enhanced data security, etc.

An opportunity for France

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France can take advantage of this new El Dorado, provided that it becomes aware of this revolution in embedded AI and outlines a national strategy.

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France has many assets in the electronics/hardware/software field and has many pioneering companies. It is able to capture a significant share of this new market, provided that favourable conditions are established.

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In addition, hardware and mobility are key elements because they are the common denominator of many issues: technological innovations, critical infrastructures, cybersecurity, data protection, the fight against disinformation, decarbonization, reindustrialization, etc.

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Smart and connected products made in France

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Here are 170 innovative French electronic products (excluding “historical industries”) representing 170 different companies.

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Source: Stéphane Elkon, Hardwaroscope 2023-24

Each image represents the flagship product of a French company. In total, this sector represents thousands of people in our country.

We are still far from having identified all the French players who design and put electronic products on the market.

50% of the most valuable companies in the world are in hardware business

50% of the world's most valuable companies have an activity - more or less large - in the field of hardware products, in the broad sense: Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Alphabet, etc.

None of them are French, or even European, but a new generation of hardware products is coming. Products with intelligence, protean, specialized. Products with low latency, using little energy and ensuring strong data protection. Products delivering high value-added services and making it possible to create new business models.

Clearly, by focusing on hardware, France can, in the next few years, create champions, contribute to the reindustrialization of the country, create tens of thousands of jobs and reduce its external balance deficit.

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Electronics sector records strongest growth in industrial jobs

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The Direction Générale des Entreprises (DGE) (part of the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Recovery) published in May 2024 a report entitled “Where is the reindustrialization of France?”.

This report highlights in particular that the electrical and electronics sectors recorded the strongest growth in industrial jobs in our country between 2016 and 2019.

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This report therefore establishes that the electronics/hardware sector is potentially one of the key sectors for the reindustrialization of France.​

Author: Stéphane Elkon, Hardware France Chairman

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