Technology investment is entering one of its most expansive periods in recent memory. Capital is flowing into the power grids and chips behind the data centre boom, the robots giving artificial intelligence a physical form, the agentic systems discovering new chemical compounds and the launch pads sending thousands of satellites into orbit. The Technology Trends Outlook 2026 from McKinsey & Company maps where this growth is concentrated and where the next opportunities are forming.
The report examines 14 trends across three groups: the AI revolution, compute and connectivity frontiers, and cutting-edge engineering. Two categories appear for the first time, agentic software development and AI for scientific discovery and engineering, reflecting how quickly AI is changing the way software is built and research is carried out. Cloud and edge computing has graduated from the list altogether, having matured into widespread adoption.
The overall picture is one of strong and rising confidence. Energy technologies drew nearly $200 billion in 2025, among the highest capital inflows of any technology domain, and spending on AI infrastructure doubled in a single year. Every trend but one is on course to attract more funding in 2026 than in 2025.
Record capital
Investment data provide the clearest signal of where the market sees value. The authors measured deals closed in the first half of 2026 and extrapolated the current pace to the end of the year, finding five trends on track to receive more than double their 2025 investment. Agentic software development leads with a multiple of 12.8×, followed by space technologies at 12.1×, AI infrastructure and model architectures at 5.3×, AI for scientific discovery and engineering at 3.2× and robotics at 2.1×.
AI infrastructure and model architectures is the largest destination for capital by value. Equity investment reached $145 billion in 2025 and rose to nearly $384 billion by mid-2026, putting the full-year figure at roughly $769 billion if the current pace continues. It was also the most searched technology trend of 2025, and job postings grew by 47%, pointing to broad demand for foundational AI capability across every sector.
Faster code
Agentic software development has become one of the fastest-growing categories in the report. Investment in companies providing agentic coding tools reached roughly $5 billion in 2025 and passed $61 billion in the first half of 2026, lifted by the Cursor transaction. These tools allow AI agents to write, test and deploy code with growing independence.
The strongest adopters are already recording substantial gains. The top 20% of software engineers using AI tools see a 55% productivity boost, and one-quarter of companies using agentic tools have achieved meaningful acceleration, with more than a quarter of their teams reaching twofold or greater productivity. The difference between these leaders and typical users shows considerable headroom for organisations that spread their best practices across teams.
Legacy modernisation is a particularly valuable application. The report finds that AI agents can accelerate modernisation work by 40 to 50% and reduce its cost by up to 40%. For organisations running long-established systems, this opens a faster and more affordable route to renewal.
Robots at work
Physical AI is described as the next frontier, adding perception, reasoning and action to robotics, mobility and wearable devices. General-purpose robots are being trained to learn about their surroundings and carry out complex tasks in varied settings. Vehicles can make real-time decisions without drivers, and industrial systems can produce complex goods in fully automated dark factories.
Robotics investment climbed to $19.5 billion in 2025, its highest level to date, and job postings grew by 12%. Manufacturing and logistics are the first to benefit, and the report points to hospitals, construction sites, farms and city infrastructure as the next markets. China had about two million industrial robots in operation in 2024, accounted for 54% of annual installations worldwide and has placed robotics at the centre of its 15th Five-Year Plan, illustrating the scale of demand now building.
Accelerated discovery
AI for scientific discovery and engineering has attracted rapid investment since its emergence. Funding rose to nearly $8 billion in 2025 and reached $12.5 billion in the first half of 2026, with job postings up 18%. Biopharmaceutical companies can now use AI to propose thousands of drug candidates in the time it once took to produce a handful.
Autonomous experimentation is already delivering measurable savings. Ginkgo Bioworks gave an AI model access to a cloud laboratory in Boston to improve the reaction conditions for cell-free protein expression. After six cycles of experiments designed by the model, the company achieved a 40% reduction in the cost of cell-free protein synthesis compared with state-of-the-art practice.
The volume of promising candidates now emerging is creating fresh demand further along the research chain. Laboratory synthesis, testing and validation capacity are all set to grow in value as discoveries arrive at greater speed. This gives specialist research providers and life sciences firms a strong platform for expansion.
Energy demand soars
Rising demand for AI is creating one of the largest energy opportunities in decades. US data centres running AI workloads are projected to consume as much electricity by 2030 as California does today, and data centres overall are expected to account for 14% of US power demand by 2030, up from 3% in 2022. Energy and sustainability technologies attracted $194.2 billion in 2025, the highest of any trend that year, driven by renewables, storage and grid infrastructure.
The pipeline of work ahead is substantial. More than 2,500 gigawatts of energy projects are waiting for grid connections worldwide, and transformers in many markets carry order books stretching beyond two years. For manufacturers of grid equipment and developers of energy infrastructure, this points to sustained demand, and for enterprises the report notes that secure access to compute power is becoming as valuable an advantage as talent or capital.
Semiconductors are evolving to match the new workloads. Inference, the process of running trained models at scale, is overtaking training as the dominant AI workload, and application-specific chips are being designed to deliver more output per watt at a lower cost. The largest hyperscalers are working with chipmakers to codesign custom silicon for their own models, and some are exploring selling these chips to outside customers, creating new revenue lines for equipment makers and energy suppliers alike.
Cyber Defence at machine speed
Security teams now have faster tools at their disposal than ever before. AI is helping defenders find and fix vulnerabilities at machine speed, which matters when more than three-quarters of vulnerabilities are classified as zero day. The report has renamed the category cybersecurity and trustworthy systems to reflect how security is being built directly into integrated hardware and software.
Anthropic’s approach with its Claude Mythos Preview model offers a practical example of AI placed in the hands of defenders. The model identified thousands of potential security flaws, and the company gave a limited group of defenders gated access through Project Glasswing to identify, validate and patch them. Investment in cybersecurity and trustworthy systems is on course to grow by 1.6× this year.
Orbit and quantum rise
Space technologies are forming an infrastructure layer that increasingly supports the economy on the ground. Research cited in the report projects the global space economy could grow from $630 billion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion by 2035, about 9% a year, including adjacent services such as ride-hailing and delivery tracking. Reusable rockets and higher launch frequency have reduced the cost of reaching low Earth orbit by around 95% over four decades, from roughly $65,000 per kilogram to about $1,500, bringing new commercial applications within reach.
Equity investment in space grew by roughly 70% between 2022 and 2025 to $15.7 billion, and public-market enthusiasm accelerated when SpaceX raised $85.7 billion in its June IPO, including an overallotment option. Quantum technologies show similar momentum, with investment rising more than fivefold from $2.5 billion in 2024 to $13.3 billion in 2025 as investors position ahead of broad commercialisation.
Hiring follows growth
Talent data show several technologies moving firmly into commercial use. Across connectivity, cybersecurity, energy, life sciences and mobility, more than half of job listings were for roles outside research and development, including operations, administration, sales and marketing. Companies in these fields are now selling and scaling proven applications.
The four AI trends and application-specific semiconductors are at an earlier stage, with over 75% of postings in research and development. This leaves a long runway of growth ahead and a clear window for organisations building capability now. The report expects these 14 trends to contribute to a new wave of progress, with the potential to accelerate productivity and economic growth, improve health and longevity, and create more abundant and sustainable energy systems.