John Sculley as Chairman of Apple in the 90s famously imagined a $3.5-trillion convergence of IT, consumer electronics, media, and communications. Thirty years later, it looks like John was being pessimistic.

To wit, Gartner projected worldwide spending of $3 trillion for IT in 2022, consumer electronics is a $1 trillion business, media a $2 trillion business, and communications a $1.5 trillion business. This adds up to $7.5 trillion, give or take a few dollars here and there.

All of the businesses within these groups may not yet be fully converged, but their trajectory is in that direction, and will not change. The great, ongoing Digital Transformation is upon us. As I noted before, the Internet will process an average of 152 terabytes per second this year, as the nations, organizations, and peoples of the world engage in connecting everything everywhere.

Fixing the missing bits and focusing on Digital First for anything new results in a specific Digital Transformation market valued at $492 billion in 2021, according to Emergen Research, The firm estimates a healthy CAGR of 20.8% in coming years, bumping the Digital Transformation revolution to a value of $2.7 trillion in 2030.

Emergen analysts say the work-from-home migration during the covid pandemic accelerated this transformation, with “an increased reliance on digital tools and platforms. Many businesses have had to quickly adopt digital technologies to continue operating and serving their customers.”

As we look to this year and beyond, “the increasing demand for big data and cloud computing has played a significant role in the growth of digital transformation," according to Emergen. The company also cites the new era of AI as a primary driver.

"Big data refers to large, complex datasets that require advanced processing power and analytics tools to extract value from them. Cloud computing refers to the delivery of computing services such as storage, networking, analytics, and intelligence over the internet rather than using local servers or personal devices.'

Thus the $7.5-trillion convergence will generate another $2.5 trillion annually to achieve more convergence, which should create a positive feedback loop that continues to drive strong growth in the original convergence itself. The global economy has reached the $100 trillion level, so these numbers do not seem unrealistic for a world that is steadily experience digitization, digitalization, and transformation.