How AI/ML Could Return Manufacturing Prowess Back to US

I grew up in a small manufacturing town in Northeast Iowa. The factory in my hometown made tractors (no surprise given that it was Iowa), but eventually the economics of cheap foreign labor and an interconnected global economy caught up with that factory – as it did with many US-based manufacturers – and soon the factory closed, and many people were laid off. But the technology world continues to evolve – especially with respect to IoT, Data Science and AI/ML – and so comes an opportunity for manufacturing to make a big return to the US. However, tomorrow's manufacturing battles won't be fought with cheap labor. In fact, measuring a country's manufacturing strength by the number of manufacturing jobs is fighting yesteryear's battle.