Steve McDonald: Hi, everybody. I'm Steve McDonald. This is your Market Wake-Up Call. Our guest this week is Dave Fessler, the Club's Energy and Infrastructure Strategist. He's here to talk about the explosive growth – his words – explosive growth in AI, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving, what he calls an infrastructure play. Welcome, Dave. Dave Fessler: Hi, Steve. How are you? Steve McDonald: I'm great. How about yourself? Dave Fessler: I'm doing just fantastic. Steve McDonald: Now, you and I don't usually use words like "explosive growth" or "huge returns." We leave those for the young guys, the small cap, speculative stuff. But you're using them to describe artificial intelligence and driverless driving, the autonomous driving. Is it really that big? Dave Fessler: Steve, this is just unbelievable. You know, 100% to 200% is conservative. The amount of money companies are investing in artificial intelligence is just staggering. Last year, the number of AI financing deals to startups was 307 for a total of $2.4 billion. AI startup funding is growing at a 65% annual pace. And, Steve, AI applications are as wide and varied as our entire economy. The market is set to expand from $3 billion last year to $96 billion in 2025. But it's the AI energy and infrastructure applications that I'm obviously the most excited about. Now, in the automotive world, the computer chip is just king today. Today's new cars average more than 600 of them. The problem is all these chips are producing gigabytes of data per day. By 2020, it's estimated the average autonomous vehicle is going to generate 4,000 gigabytes of data per day, and there could be 10 million of these cars on the world's roads. Now that's a boatload of data to analyze, process and make decisions on, and those decisions have to be made in microseconds. The Atlantic magazine estimates AI will save up to 10 million lives over the next decade. Steve McDonald: You know, when I read your stuff and I listen to you, it reminds me of 1988 to 1989, the birth of the computer internet era, when every day it seemed like there were huge breakthroughs in technology, mountains of money made. Is there enough here to sustain a decade of big gains like we saw in the '90s? Dave Fessler: Yeah, there certainly is, Steve. Every large company and many smaller ones are investing in or looking at using AI to solve problems. IBM's Watson computer commercials are great examples of the breadth of applications and solutions to problems that companies are looking to AI to provide. And you'll remember Intel as one of the chip superstars of the '80s and '90s, and now it’s making a $250 million investment into AI just for cars. The investment and social implications of an AI economy will be monumental. Steve McDonald: Now, what about other applications? I mean, I'm not getting into a plane that doesn't have a pilot in it, I'll tell you, but where can this go? I mean, if we can get in a car, we can get somebody to push a button, it backs out of your driveway and drives from Florida to California, and you can sit there and read the whole time... what else are we going to be doing? Dave Fessler: Steve, it's just unbelievable, everything from video feed analysis to spot terrorists to clothing that teenagers are wearing to concerts. Unfortunately, one of the big areas of AI is job-displacing software. AI is certainly something we have to be careful with. Both Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have come out and warned about the dangers of uncontrolled AI. Steve McDonald: Some of the numbers that I see are saying that we're going to see over a 5,500% gain. Now, if you're old enough to have participated in the technology revolution of the '80s and '90s, those aren't really crazy numbers. Are they accurate? Dave Fessler: Yes, those are amazing times to be an investor, as you and I both know. And yeah, I think these numbers could even turn out to be conservative, given the number of applications that AI is just starting to see. It's just unbelievable. Steve McDonald: Well, this is definitely the new revolution in technology. I'm telling you, folks, you've got to be a part of this. Dave, I've got to be honest with you. Some of this just sounds too unbelievable. Dave Fessler: Well, it's unbelievable, but it's also a very exciting time to be an investor. So that's one of the reasons I've really started to focus in on this. Steve McDonald: Well, this is definitely the new revolution in technology, and you've got to be a part of it. We're literally going from a chicken in every pot to a robot in every home. This is going to be amazing. Dave, thanks so much for being with us. Dave Fessler: My pleasure, Steve. Steve McDonald: And for everybody here at the Market Wake-Up Call, I'm Steve McDonald. Thank you for being a part of us. We'll see you next week. [End of Audio]