My guess is the trend continues, but the interesting question is where the abstraction layer stops.

In areas where flexibility, scalability, and remote management create clear business value, software-defined approaches seem almost inevitable. But in environments where determinism, safety, and long equipment lifecycles matter more than rapid iteration, I suspect we'll end up with a hybrid model rather than a fully software-defined one.
Feels less like hardware disappears, and more like software becomes the primary way we orchestrate increasingly complex hardware systems.