As 2025 approaches, industry leaders envision a future shaped by groundbreaking technologies and bold advancements. From non-terrestrial networks revolutionizing global connectivity to generative AI transforming PLM, experts anticipate profound changes. The following are predictions from top innovators, including Aras’ Rob McAveney and Jason Kasper, Finwave’s Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, and NVIDIA Telecom’s Ronnie Vasishta. They offer a comprehensive look at how technologies like AI, 6G, and GaN-on-Si are poised to address today’s challenges while unlocking tomorrow’s opportunities.
Houman Zarrinkoub, MathWorks, on incoming wireless trends
Non-terrestrial networks: significant connectivity gaps exist, especially in disaster-stricken areas, because traditional wireless infrastructure is becoming more costly and challenging to implement and maintain. A global effort is underway to launch NTN constellations, leading to networks of tens of thousands of satellites to connect rural and remote oceanic areas. Canada, France, and the United States launched several thousand satellites over the past few years. Launching many satellites offers redundancy, ensuring network robustness and continued connectivity when a few satellites fail. Engineers can use high-altitude balloons (HABs) as communication relays when satellite communications are unavailable. They can be deployed quickly and more cheaply than satellites and cover an area of over 600 miles in diameter. HABs can also hover at lower altitudes, between 11 and 23 miles, which enables lower latencies than satellites. Integrating NTNs with satellites and HABs will effectively address gaps in remote and disaster-prone areas and make reliable communication networks more accessible.
ISAC and RIS shape the future of intelligent 6G networks: integrating integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) will be essential to the success of 6G wireless communications systems. Combining these two technologies enables engineers to boost the communication environment while sensing and adapting to real-time conditions, achieving efficiency and flexibility beyond what either technology can accomplish alone. Specifically, ISAC and RIS complement each other to offer environmental awareness and intelligent signal management.
AI-driven enhancements in WWANs, LANs, and PANs: AI will continue to make inroads into the wireless industry by going deeper into the systems and components and, for example, pushing the boundaries of applications and functionality in areas such as Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), and Personal Area Networks (PANs). AI’s benefits for wireless networks also extend to implementing next-generation LANs and PANs. For LANs and PANs, AI’s breakthroughs include contextual awareness and user behavior analysis. Integrating AI with sensors and IoT devices creates smart environments with contextual awareness, adapting the end-users environment to their behavior and delivering personalized, location-based content. User behavior analysis will determine their network usage patterns as behavior shifts, facilitating capacity planning and resource allocation.
Rob McAveney, Aras, on the future of product design, manufacturing, and compliance
Generative AI’s impact on PLM: early adopters have demonstrated the potential of GenAI in PLM use cases, driving innovation, automation, and efficiency. However, challenges like user confidence, data governance, and skills shortages persist.
In 2025, we’ll see a shift from prompt-based AI to agentic AI — autonomous background agents that make inferences and suggest optimizations without human intervention. These agents will analyze market trends, customer feedback, and performance data to generate new product concepts, streamline processes, and enhance sustainability. This evolution will transform PLM into an active partner in innovation, reducing time-to-market and improving operational efficiency.
AI enhances compliance efforts: with the rise of the digital thread, AI and machine learning tools are vital for synchronizing and unlocking the value of product data. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that investments in AI and ML technologies for manufacturing processes, including PLM, grew by 23% last year and will continue to ramp up for years to come.
AI can establish traceability across domains, ensuring compliance with regulations like the Digital Product Passport (DPP), a digital record containing detailed info about a product’s entire lifecycle. In 2025, companies that fail to prepare for evolving compliance standards risk falling behind.
Growth of mass personalization and customization: while product personalization is widespread in many spaces like fashion and consumer packaged goods, mass personalization is finally expanding into the manufacturing industry. To enable this, companies are shifting from engineer-to-order (ETO) to configure-to-order (CTO) models to help customers select products tailored to their specific needs and preferences.
CTO models leverage variant management tools to handle design complexity and streamline supply chain processes. Best-of-breed tools integrate customer preferences into early product development stages, maximizing the reuse of common elements across all phases of the digital thread.
Emergence of Industry 5.0 and Engineering 5.0: where Industry 5.0 focuses on human-centric collaboration with advanced technologies, Engineering 5.0 applies this concept more specifically to engineering and product development processes. AI-driven tools like digital twins and predictive analytics will enhance creativity, sustainability, and efficiency in 2025.
Sustainability is another key aspect of Industry 5.0 and Engineering 5.0 to consider in 2025. Companies must adopt more sustainable materials, energy-efficient processes, and circular economy principles to meet new regulatory demands and satisfy eco-conscious consumers. Companies adopting sustainable materials, energy-efficient processes, and circular economy principles will gain an edge with digital threads enabling detailed lifecycle tracking and AI-assisted design optimizations.
Jason Kasper, Aras, on the future of product design, manufacturing, and compliance
Demand for agility and adaptability will increase. Today, the vast majority of manufacturers experience operational challenges and supply chain issues, along with rapidly changing market and business dynamics. Manufacturers must rethink their PLM strategies to navigate volatile markets and supply chain challenges.
Legacy tools create silos and limit scalability, and leave companies stuck in the past. Successful enterprises need to use product data effectively. They can accomplish this with digital threads that enable real-time data integration and improve resilience and decision-making.
In 2025, manufacturers will prioritize supply chain resilience, extending connectivity across multi-tier supply chains to adapt to evolving regulations and demands. By taking a more holistic approach to integrating and accessing data from multi-tier supply chains, manufacturers will adapt more effectively to evolving regulations and market demands. A unified digital thread is no longer optional — it is essential for maintaining resilience, agility, and compliance across the extended enterprise ecosystem.
Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, CEO of Finwave, on GaN-on-Si
GaN-on-Si will dominate the RF Power Amplifier market: the technologies that currently dominate the communications infrastructure RF power amplifier market (LDMOS and GaN-on-SiC) are either not delivering enough power at high frequencies (LDMOS) or are too expensive (GaN-on-SiC). GaN-on-Si is ideally positioned to deliver the power required at frequencies above a few GHz (Wifi7, FR3, mmWave), with a more favorable cost structure and better 8-inch silicon supply chain than GaN-on-SiC.
With the evolution of communications infrastructure systems to multiple antennas, the power requirements for each RF power amplifier are coming down, and GaN-on-Si is ideally positioned to answer these new requirements for massive MIMO. The ability to operate higher efficiency but also cost-optimized RF power amplifier built in GaN-on-Si means that RF engineers will get a new technology added to their toolbox, allowing them to either reduce the cost of their massive MIMO platform or upgrade the performance of their design with a more cost-effective solution.
GaN-on-Si power amplifiers will be used in handsets within the next 5 years: the incumbent technology for handset RF power amplifiers is GaAs HBT. The GaAs HBT technology is running out of steam at frequencies over a few GHz. With novel transistor architectures, such as the GaN-on-Si low-voltage e-mode MISHEMT developed by Finwave and being transferred to GlobalFoundries for volume production, higher power density, higher power added efficiency (PAE) and higher linearity can be achieved over the incumbent GAAs HBT architecture.
The GaN-on-Si low-voltage e-mode MISHEMT developed by Finwave delivers the best RF Power Amplifier performance for Wifi7, FR3, and mmWave usage in cellular handsets and will be used in handset RFFE within the next few years, once in full volume production at GlobalFoundries. Transfer of the GaN-on-Si low-voltage e-mode MISHEMT technology and production ramp up at GlobalFoundries needs to happen before GaN-on-Si RF Power Amplifiers can be integrated into a cellular handset RFFE. With a release for production slated 2026, this prediction will come true in 2026-2027.
Molex anticipates steady growth in high-speed connectivity in 2025
Continued use of high-speed optical transceivers for hyperscale data centers: the rapid adoption of generative AI is escalating demand for massive processing and capacity scaling in hyperscale data centers. In response, operators are increasing their use of high-speed optical transceivers for inter- and intra-rack connectivity to offer additional port density, greater signal integrity, and reduced power consumption.
Spike in 224 Gbps PAM-4 interconnects requires thermal management improvements: with deployments of 224 Gbps PAM-4 interconnects growing and the path to 448 Gbps PAM-4 coming into view, it is clear that air-cooled data center solutions are reaching operational limits. This reality is driving the emergence of new thermal-management solutions, including liquid cooling solutions, such as direct-to-chip and immersion cooling. Molex is working closely with customers, power-ecosystem partners, and groups like OCP to speed the development of next-gen cooling technologies and standards.
Momentum in 48-Volt systems propels advancements in automotive functionality: By quadrupling system voltage, 48V technology boosts electric turbocharging, regenerative braking, infotainment systems, and battery preconditioning for auxiliary charging. Delivering higher current and voltage is also crucial to increasing power efficiencies in sensors, actuators, and control units needed for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
Power systems remain one of the biggest product design engineering challenges: unrelenting demand to balance power capacity, functional safety, efficiency, and cost and performance monitoring is driving aggressive investment and innovation in battery technology, along with solutions designed to reduce signal and power interference.
Slow pace of 5G rollouts will continue to stall as consumers await “killer apps:” the arrival of Meta’s Orion illuminates the future of AR glasses but will take time to drive 5G momentum. As “killer apps” emerge, the pace of 5G rollouts will gain speed accordingly amid rising requirements for high-speed wireless connectivity, along with the need for small, dense connectors, such as the millions of miniaturized connectors Molex supplies to leading mobile device manufacturers.
Convergence of ruggedized, miniaturized connectors will fuel cross-industry innovations: use of compact, durable connectors with a pitch of 2.54mm or less will dominate in electric vehicles and zonal architectures while gaining major traction in other areas, including consumer electronics, medical devices, industrial automation, and smart agriculture. Blending the best of miniaturization and ruggedization improves space efficiency, signal integrity, and thermal management.
Advancements in material science balance strength, weight, and sustainability: using digital twins, AI, and material databases will continue to play ever-increasing roles in material characterization, processing innovation, selection, application engineering, and testing. Expect more material science breakthroughs in building miniaturized connectors, especially in balancing strength, weight, conductivity, chemical resistance, sustainability, the use of bio-based materials, and more.
Mass customization and consumerization of the automotive experience varies by market: vehicle architecture development will align with different driving preferences and experiences worldwide. In China’s dynamic market, ongoing experimentation will drive innovation, while the European market, led by German automakers, considers a mix of technologies. American OEMs will advance software-driven architectures, particularly in passenger and sport utility vehicles.
Cross-industry collaborations to thrive as design engineers tap different experiences: continued cross-industry collaborations are expected to increase at an accelerated pace as design engineers leverage expertise in hyperscale data centers to address concerns and challenges in power and thermal management, sensor fusion and signal integrity in automotive and consumer electronics.
Ongoing supply chain volatility requires inventory rebalancing and supply optionality: operationalizing intelligence and data to gain faster, more precise access to real-time insights will lead to better forecasting and risk management, with a shift toward predictive, scenario-based supply chain planning and faster, more adaptive decision making.
Ronnie Vasishta, VP of NVIDIA Telecoms, on the telecommunications industry
The AI connection: telecommunications providers will begin to deliver generative AI applications and 5G connectivity over the same network. AI radio access network (AI-RAN) will enable telecom operators to transform traditional single-purpose base stations from cost centers into revenue-producing assets capable of providing AI inference services to devices while delivering the best network performance more efficiently.
AI agents to the rescue: the telecommunications industry will be among the first to dial into agentic AI to perform key business functions. Telco operators will use AI agents for a wide variety of tasks, from suggesting money-saving plans to customers and troubleshooting network connectivity to answering billing questions and processing payments.
More efficient, higher-performing networks: AI will also be used at the wireless network layer to enhance efficiency, deliver site-specific learning, and reduce power consumption. Using AI as an intelligent performance improvement tool, operators will be able to continuously observe network traffic, predict congestion patterns, and make adjustments before failures happen, allowing for optimal network performance.
Answering the call on sovereign AI: nations will increasingly turn to telcos — which have proven experience managing complex, distributed technology networks — to achieve their sovereign AI objectives. The trend will spread quickly across Europe and Asia, where telcos in Switzerland, Japan, Indonesia, and Norway are already partnering with national leaders to build AI factories that can use proprietary, local data to help researchers, startups, businesses, and government agencies create AI applications and services.
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