The growing role of IT in cars will deliver some major opportunities over the next several years, suggests a new Frost & Sullivan report.

While it’s main focus is on this year, the forecast, “Global Automotive Industry Outlook, 2018“, also predicts that data monetization opportunities will reach a value of $32 billion by the year 2025. And that growth trend is already underway, with AI, voice recognition, and cybersecurity helping to “propel rapid growth opportunities” in the coming months, according to a report synopsis.

Other important trends “driving transformational change” in the automotive market include the ‘dawn of blockchain platforms” for cars, the ‘development of urban lifestyle vehicles,’ the ‘impending advent of automated taxis,’ and a ‘big push toward electric vehicles with related manufacturing investments’. Indeed, with respect to the latter, we’re already starting to see the arrival of electric cars featuring sophisticated technologies such as facial recognition, helping to market the vehicles not just as environmentally friendly but the next technological leap in automotive innovation.

There are market obstacles, of course. For example, as Frost & Sullivan Mobility Senior Industry Analyst Joe Praveen Vijayakumar explains, while electric vehicle battery prices are on the decline, “in most countries, charge stations and supporting infrastructures are inadequate.” But as OEMs and their partners seek to address that issue, the ascent of electric vehicles should help to further lift these other IT solutions for the automotive industry.