With the high inflation, increasing labor costs, labor shortage, energy crisis, and hybrid working, the manufacturing industry experienced significant turmoil in 2022. Although some of these have started to get eased, 2023 is still expected to be a challenging year for the manufacturing industry.

Artificial Intelligence has come a long way since the success of DeepMind over Go world champion Lee Sedol in 2016; the world is beginning to change according to the new possibilities afforded by AI. From the robust predictive abilities of OpenAI's ChatGPT - where the AI chatbot can be used for all sorts of purposes, from creating scripts (including malware) to writing academic essays - to AI image generators that are so good that they can win Sony world photography awards, the complexity and capabilities of AI algorithms are growing at a startlingly fast pace.