Growth is expected across all technology pillars that support the smart labs ecosystem, with significant opportunities around robotics, automation, IoT, and AI.
Growth is expected across all technology pillars that support the smart labs ecosystem, with significant opportunities around robotics, automation, IoT, and AI
Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Smart Labs as Key Drivers for the Digital Transformation of Diagnostic Laboratories, 2020, finds that rising demand for smart instruments and digital tools within the diagnostics, academic, and commercial research labs will powerfully drive the smart lab market. The thriving market is estimated to nearly double, reaching $4.68 billion by 2023 from $2.39 billion in 2019, registering double-digit growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3%. However, the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to adversely impact the industry throughout 2020, emphasizing the need for automation to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
“The traditional lab market will experience a value proposition shift from hardware to digital solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud technologies,” said Amol Dilip Jadhav, Transformational Health Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Going forward, in response to the increasing penetration of digitization, instrument and automation vendors will shift their focus towards value propositions aligned with the rise of the app economy.”
Jadhav added: “The adoption of smart labs by specific application segments presents a way of understanding the impact that will be created through the combination of technologies serving the specific opportunity, such as robotics, internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence and cloud technologies. Additionally, predictive maintenance, real-time data management, and continuous and remote operations present the highest CAGR opportunities, standing at 24.8%, 24%, and 23.8% by 2023, respectively.”
Smart Lab-as-a-Service, deploying the internet of things (IoT) to standardize workflow, digital twins for performance improvement, and edge computing for real-time data management present immense growth prospects for vendors involved in the smart lab space, including:
- Optimize workflow and avoid duplicate data to ensure that instrument integration meets user demands.
- Address interoperability concerns, given the lack of standardization for RFID hardware and software.
- Improve the performance with digital twins in automatic mode to significantly reduce the testing team’s efforts, enabling them to envision scenarios, react promptly and reduce possible human error.
- Integrate with software vendors and edge analytics solution providers to nurture and build a self-sustaining ecosystem.
