August 2025 Industry Musings by Brian Paxton

People Change:

A study published in the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology journal found that doctors who regularly use AI to assist with diagnoses become less skilled personally within a few months.

Migration:

The heads of the European, Japanese and UK Central banks have all warned that without immigrants advanced economies will stagnate due to growing populations of retirees and fewer young workers.

Climate Change and the Environment:

The WHO and World Meteorological Organization calculate that 50% of the world population regularly suffers from heat exposure. Between 2000 and 2019, Europe averaged 83,000 heat-related deaths a year.

During the past month, major fires have been reported in Colorado, Canada, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania, Croatia and Greece with the incidence of European fires up 50%. There have been major floods in Central Asia. Climate change has led to record levels of dengue fever cases in the Pacific Islands. Saudi Arabia is building a ski resort with 30 kilometers of artificial piste created from red sea water desalinated and piped to 2,600 metres above sea level.

According to the ITOPF, the amount of oil spilled from tankers annually has decreased from more than 300,000 tonnes in the 1970's to 100,000 tonnes in the 1990's to 10,000 tonnes today.

Low Cost Renewable Energy:

China installed 268 GW of renewable capacity, mostly solar, in 1H2025, nearly double that of 1H2024.

During 1H2025, US$ 35 billion was spent on American renewable energy projects, down 36% on 2H2024, while US$ 75 billion was spent on European renewable energy projects, up 63% on 2H2024.

One of the world's largest solar and wind projects, with 3,000 wind turbines and 35 solar farms providing 70 GW of capacity, has been proposed for Western Australia. Italy's Eni is the only major oil company that continues to invest profits from its oil and gas business in renewable energy facilities. Market Forces found that Australia's gas industry burns more gas to run its gas expert terminals than the whole Australian manufacturing sector. Finland's Polar Night Energy has inaugurated the world's largest sand battery.

Autonomous Electric Vehicles:

Chinese battery company CATL plans to build an initial 1,000 E-car battery swapping stations in China by end 2025, increasing network to 10,000 stations serving one million cars a day. In China, Tesla's new 6 seater model Y L generated 40,000 orders on its first day. Uber purchased 20,000 Lucid SUVs with self-driving capability.

Mass Data Mining and Storage:

Morgan Stanley predicts that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta will spend US$ 750 billion between 2025 and 2026 on AI data centres.