- A trio of disruptions are accelerating market to the trillion-dollar mark by 2030.
- Desire Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, to work on getting more fabs built in place
Ajit Manocha, CEO and chairman of SEMI, made the remarks at Semicon Southeast Asia 2024, which was held yesterday in Kuala Lumpur, monday. Its swift development was fueled by a triple influx of modern disruptions, which is enabling it to reach the US$ 1 trillion marketplace size milestone by 2030.
Extraordinary business partnership may be required to realize this exponential rise in a time of unprecedented challenges.
Ajit outlined the three transformative waves fueling the industry’s trajectory: the Internet of Things ( IoT), Artificial Intelligence ( AI), and Quantum Computing. Ajit, who has served as SEMI ( Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International ) president for seven years, likes to give an example of how quickly the industry’s sales will increase. He said,” While it took about 50 times for semiconductor selling to reach US$ 500 billion, this trio of destructive forces is expected to double that number to reach US$ 1 trillion in just the next five decades.”
In the last ten years, the expansion was driven by the Internet. This generation is one of AI, and what you’re seeing now is only the tip of the iceberg, and that’s going to get this rise to US$ 1 trillion”, he boldly predicts.
If that does n’t impress you, consider his prediction for Quantum Computing’s impact on future sales. ” I think Quantum Computing is coming by the next decade, and it can take this industry to US$ 5 trillion by 2050″, he declared.
Although it may seem a stretch, management consultants McKinsey &, Co have calculated the projected US$ 1 trillion by 2030. The automotive industry will drive growth, with a CAGR of 13 % to 15 % between 2021 and 2030, while computing and data storage will experience the slowest CAGR growth from 2021 to 2030.
Our sector has been capturing high single-digit CAGR of 8 % for many years, Ajit noted, and some have even doubled that rate.
SEMI’s most recent World Fab Forecast lists 103 new 300mm and 200mm semiconductor fabs coming online across the globe between 2023 and 2027 to accommodate this explosive growth.  ,
Ajit did warn that by 2030, an additional 50 fabs would likely be required to fully realize the digital transformation that the three disruptive waves predicted had already begun.
Thus, he urged that Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, need to get more fabs on shore.
He argued that” we need to have more hubs and redundancies to be better prepared for any disasters or pandemics.”
As for the geopolitical issues, Ajit, over the last six months, has been promoting the SEMI International Policy Summit ( SIPS), a gathering of policy makers around the globe with the top , 60 to 70 semicon industry executives over the past 8 months. The first meeting was in Hawaii, with the second, last week, in Brussels. This December, the next meeting might take place in Tokyo.
No single company, no single nation, no single CEO can solve the problems that are so challenging, he explained, and the frequency of the meetings is to address them.
This requires a partnership of governments, academia, industry and civil society working together. ” Therefore, I urge Malaysia to be a part of SIPS. It should play an active role in it”, he said.