Ark Invest Big Ideas for 2021

Ark Invest has 15 big ideas for 2021 and these are their main investment themes. Ark Invest now has funds with $50 billion in assets.

1. Deep Learning. From $2 trillion in market cap today to $30 trillion by 2037.
2. Reinvention of the Data Center (mainly cloud computing and GPU, ARM/RISC V. $60 billion in revenue by 2030)
3. Virtual Worlds
4. Digital Wallets
5. Bitcoin Fundamentals
6. Bitcoin – Preparing for Institutions
7. Electric Vehicles
8. Automation
9. Autonomous Ridehailing (robotaxis)
10. Delivery Drones
11. Orbital Aerospace
12. 3d Printing. From $12 Billion now to $120 billion in 2025
13. Long Sequencing
14. Multi-cancer screening
15. Cell and Gene Therapy – Generation 2

Ark Invest expects pre-cancer screening to become a $150 billion a year industry and it will prevent 66,000 deaths each year.

Nextbigfuture discussed pre-cancer management many times back in 2019.

Here is another article about using AI and advanced genomic analysis for disease risk prediction.

Using pre-cancer screening to cure and prevent cancer was one of the topics of Brian Wang’s keynote speech at a Monte Jade annual event in 2019. The vision that I, Brian Wang, have is that AI can predict the first signs of cancer. This has been seen at MIT where mammography images were used to predict breast cancer 5 years before cancer develops. We can transition to pre-cancer management like pre-diabetes management today.

SOURCES – Ark Invest
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

31 thoughts on “Ark Invest Big Ideas for 2021”

  1. Yes, it's the panic detected in the announcements – Jaguar to go fully electric in 2025, Ford in 2030 but most surprising of all the complete reversal in Toyota now doing a Manhattan type project to catch up on EV's.
    Beyond that there are more factors. Just to name 5:

    1. The very rapid drop in cost of production of EV's due mainly to reduction in battery costs making them a better buy;
    2. The fear that IC cars will rapidly have no resale value;
    3. More and more cities banning or at least restricting entry of IC cars;
    4. Total global production of cars, SUV's included, peaked in 2018 and with EV's taking an increasing portion of the decreasing need for cars mainly due to transport as a service, the IC producers are caught in a vice rapidly closing.
    5. There is also a teenie, weenie bit of guilt driving IC's
    6. Could go on about Government policy, longer life of EV's, better performance…………………………
  2. "-pro-active/ real-time health monitoring/ testing – genomic, proteomic, …"
    I would add using all that "big" health data to run "big" physiological simulations. Imagine a digital "twin" of your body running in the "cloud" that can accurately predict a fatal heart attack/cerebral hemorrhage months in advance.

  3. I would say the most bang for the research buck would be Bio-tech stuff, as in allowing work to get into pre-clinical, animal studies (or animal-less studies – where's that now?), proof of concept-ish documents (or the medical equivalent), and fostering tourism-based medical projects wouldn't be subject to as much FDA crushing oversight. Hopefully, this includes:
    – anti-ageing: moving into pre-clinical for early stuff, get senescent cell into front-line doctor's offices, get thymus restoration into pre-clinical, drug therapy approvals, etc. This is mostly a top-10% field – as early-adopters and enthusiasts embrace early.
    – way, way more SARS and related research, to prepare for the next outbreak
    – automation and AI of drug combinations, pharmacology, and testing regimes (self-contained AI/robo-tech in a auto-lab) to hit pretty much every pathology with more than 10,000 patients worldwide
    – pro-active/ real-time health monitoring/ testing – genomic, proteomic, home-based blood/lab work to submit – though small appliances, existing remote sensor tech, etc.

  4. Yes, the ones that like loud noise, horrid petrol smell and don't care about car exhausts killing so many people and don't even think of the environment

  5. Yes, I agree that EVs are on track to take over from ICVs. Just that they won't be the perfect cars of people's dreams.

  6. Personally I am more concerned that Elon Musks Neuralink will be a bigger threat to humanity than run away AI. Supposedly the researchers have found that memories can be downloaded. With this would supposedly come the knowledge associated with the memories. At that time I think humans have entered the human/android world. No wonder so many people are buying up islands out in the middle of oceans.

  7. Long Sequencing? I imagine that is why she has been pushing Pac Bio. I bought it last week. Would have bought it earlier if I could have figured out what they were up to.

  8. Agree
    However, lower cost EV's with shorter useful life will make them competitive with IC cars faster for initial purchase cost which will accelerate their uptake.

  9. I agree with your Tesla forecasts but I think that you underestimate what panic is doing to EV production by other car makers. Their combined EV production will grow well over 100% per year for a few years.

  10. I'm not confident that "EVs last longer" will result in cars lasting longer.

    It could also result in "hey, we can reduce costs in a dozen different ways to get the product life back down to the minimum that customers will accept".

    We could have the first generation of Teslas being a brief moment of glory that will last 1000 000 km each before it sinks back to the normal lifetime. (Much like the late 1980s Mercedes S class and Lexus LS400)

  11. 82% growth for the next 3 to 5 years? I've love to see it, but it seems unlikely. Kathy herself notes that EV growth in 2020 was only 25%-27%.

    Even Tesla has seen production growth averaging only around 40%-50% a year. Tesla has invested heavily in new plants, so they could see a couple years of doubling production – but the rest of the industry will move a lot slower.

    Even if Tesla keeps doubling every year, that only gets them to 16M globally in 2025, leaving another 24M BEVs that would have to come from other makers to hit 40M – a BEV production growth rate for those other car makers of around 70%.

    Beyond battery production growth, another factor to consider could be constraints on electric motor production growth, especially if automakers choose to switch rapidly to hybrids as a way to reduce their need to buy regulatory credits from Tesla and other EV makers.

  12. Pre-cancer screening prevents 66k of deaths at a cost of 2.27m per death prevented.

    …Yeah, Idk about the financials on that. I think we need to know if it won't just prevent that many deaths but also reduce treatment cost by at least the value of the market.

  13. The most amazing thing about humankind facing the perceived problems of seeing or hearing a future for cities is the fact that generally "risk taking" and "deep thinking" institutions only prescribe self interests for their profitable progress. Future final business/governance urban design decision-making is the core intersect of where distributed decision "powers" will execute concepts from theory to reality.

  14. I think he's pretty much on target but they need to be organized a bit differently and not all of them are sufficiently well developed to be be targeted yet. Also, some of these advances drive others. I'm targeting AI (in which I include deep learning) and cognitive automation as the rainmakers that will drive all the rest.
     
    I avoid bitcoin for obvious reasons. That might ultimately prove to be a missed opportunity but, if so, I'll miss it.
     
    The real problem being that people that are good at figuring out where to invest aren't necessarily the best fund managers. Additionally, a lot of the little tiny ventures that might grow the most are not available for you or me to invest in. My recommendation is to figure out how you want your investments focused, then go with established and proven fund managers for those kinds of assets.
     
    It won't grow your portfolio ten times in a five years but you might be surprised. I've been getting around 30% per year for the past 3 years and, yes, I have more than doubled the value of our retirement portfolio in that time without engaging in anything terribly risky and staying fairly diversified.

  15. Transport as a service and the fact that EV's last longer will reduce total annual car production. Hence, IC car production will fall faster than EV growth creating a mad scramble among car makers to make EV's

  16. I think they are about right, perhaps a bit conservative. So many companies are rushing for battery production and all car companies are now in a mad rush to convert to EV's

  17. Taking pictures, inside and outside, before and after but not during passenger rides should avoid the first, as well as disuading potential violent criminals.

    I agree that hookers will use SD taxis or private SD vehicles – I've predicted as such. Maybe drug dealers also, until drug prohibition ends.

    But why would use by hookers or drug dealers frighten people away from using an empty SD taxi? Post-use interior imaging (including UV imaging) could detect the need for cleaning (e.g. discarded condoms), with costs charged to the rider who created the issue.

  18. They will be sued for looking down women's blouses. Hookers will be using the cars as hotel rooms. Drug dealers will be using them for transactions. 

    They will earn a terrible reputation and people will be frightened to use the things.

  19. That seems like an example of a rare new low end job produced by robo taxis. People who respond to the demand to look in on robotaxis and take action of some kind. I’m guessing car washes also get contracts to inspect and clean fleets daily, maybe in off peak hours at night when they otherwise have no business.

  20. In order to protect the SD taxi from abuse, I expect cameras will grab and transmit pictures of the interior and exterior just before a passenger gets in or out, with a little AI to detect if the cameras get blocked. There could be a prominent lever to pull in emergencies to get the cameras turned on and a human looking within seconds to see what the problem is.

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  22. My guess is that they'll drop "Reinvention of the Data Center" next year because it doesn't seem to offer any big investment opportunties. The data center companies are doing their own processors, NVidia may get into it, Intel may fall hard – but that won't dramatically change the value of an industry segment – just a shift between players.

    'Bitcoin Fundamentals' seems too vague/broad – will have to see tightened focus on actual big opportunties in the future, beyond 'buy and hodl bitcoin – the big corporations are buying'.

    'Virtual Worlds' is also too broad. VR gaming will continue to grow, and eventually (as tech improves) take over most 'immersive' 3D gaming. Realtime online socializing and virtual personal media (akin to Twitch streaming, Tik Tok, etc) could get big once gaming drives a sufficient critical mass of users.

    Once entertainment drives XR to adequate quality (tolerable to use at least 4 hours a day, with readable virtual documents) virtual office/personal workspaces will be a big opportunity. Someone may make a double resolution grayscale (no color, or dual merged displays) VR headset to make documents reasonably readable, akin to what happened with early PC displays for business.

  23. For 2021-2 Top is restoring pandemic business loss: fitness centers (+climbing/parkour/laser-tag), pizza+fun, ambiance restaurants, bars & travel.

    I don't think robotaxis are going to work as well as desired. Not the autonomous driving, the aspect of the driver as protector/maintainer of the interior of the vehicle. There is potential for predation/crime in the vehicles. An actual driver understands what is happening and can call the police/ambulance.
    It might work fine in low crime countries. But the main touted advantage is in cities where parking is more scarce, but that is also where there is more crime and predators.

    I think automated parking garages that pack cars densely, perhaps with optional charging, personal human flying drones…and infrastructure to support them, tunneling technology, low operating cost solar charging campers and supporting infrastructure (secure parking areas with acceptable food, shuttles to all the highlights of the towns and cities, laundromats, exercise centers, jacuzzis, pools, showers…motels without the rooms), AI CGI movie industry (machine learning is going to take off. actors will be mostly dancers, martial artists, gymnasts, highly coordinated extreme sports people. all just wearing balls/stickers for the cameras…AI will fill everything else in), electric vehicle stuff will continue to grow rapidly. Aptera's approach still looks good to me. Battery demand is going to be high. Less batteries but with range is advantageous.

  24. Worth noting what they've dropped from their "Big Ideas of 2020:

    • Streaming Media – probably because everyone is aware of it by now
    • BioTech R&D Efficiency – seemed vague and not clearly tied to investment. Split-into/replaced by more specific 'Long Sequencing', 'Multi-cancer screening', 'Cell and Gene Therapy – Generation 2'
    • Aerial Drones – Seemed rather broad, has narrowed to focus on "Delivery Drones", likely to be the single biggest profit area IF it takes off.
  25. 15. Cell and Gene Therapy – Generation 2

    Hell, I'd be happy to see some generation 1 therapies generally available.

  26. Ark Invest's projections for EVs seems too aggressive. They apply Wright's Law to project 26M EVs sold (globally) in 2023! Did they consider the huge up-scaling of battery production that'd be needed to sustain the rate of growth they project?

  27. They have hypersonic as part of *orbital* aerospace, but that is only the high end that ends up in orbit. Is the Chinese Supersonic (edit: Standing) Oblique Detonation SODRam the same as the Australian advance announced a few years ago? Seems like a big deal if true.

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