Disruption and Transformation: How AI will Impact Global Trade in the Next Decade
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to sift through data and find areas for improved efficiency has already started to have an impact on the scheduling, safety, and monitoring of shipments from ports to railways. Major players in the shipping market have been investing in AI capabilities and research for years, with Maersk recently opening an AI-driven automation center as a symbol of the type of disruption that can be expected in the market as the promises of technology begin to manifest. But beyond these immediately tangible gains in efficiencies and minor disruptions that come from early applications of AI to global trade, what are the more substantive impacts that we can anticipate in the next decade? How will trade in goods and services change? What changes can we expect in the labor market and costs of doing business?
Trade in goods – what will stop shipping?
Innovative ideas such as the 3D printing of clothing have moved from science fiction to science fact. The use of 3D printing is a daily reality for designers, and the use of such technology is only picking up pace as companies respond to the criticism of how ‘fast fashion’ is unsustainable. This is just one of the many items which may no longer be imported into the U.S. as AI and new technology create alternative production sites. Soon it may be unnecessary to ship everything from phone cases to toys, since they can be manufactured at a continuously lower cost in local facilities or even consumers’ homes. The use of AI will even improve yields from hydroponic and traditional farms, suggesting that many food products would no longer make sense to ship from distant locations. If AI and new technology can’t (yet) create unique products such as rare earths, new and developing tools will still have an impact on trade patterns, as they can help find untapped resources that are in friendlier locations. With the U.S. government funding AI-based research to improve the country’s ability to produce key products such as energy storage devices, more and more of those products and the resources that go into them will be produced domestically. The bottom line is that the usage of AI and new technology over the next decade will not only bring dramatically improved logistics, it will shift what is moved from place to place as a substantial portion of goods are suddenly competitive even when produced domestically.
