The technology story of 2026 has moved off the screen and into the physical world. Innovation is accelerating in the power grids and chips that underpin the data center boom; in the intelligent robots that embody AI; in the agentic systems discovering new chemical compounds; and in the launch pads sending thousands of satellites into orbit.
AI needs energy to scale. That’s one reason energy technologies alone drew nearly $200 billion in investment in 2025, among the highest capital influx in any technology domain. And spending on AI infrastructure doubled in a single year. These developments show that the defining questions today are not only about what technology can do. They are also about who can build the hardware and assemble the skilled workforce to deploy AI in the real world. At the same time, huge leaps were made in cybersecurity and software development—illustrating that AI is accelerating the digital frontier, too.
McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook 2026 examines 14 technology trends that define 2026, expanding our coverage from last year to include two new fast-emerging domains: agentic software development and AI for scientific discovery and engineering. We group the trends into three broader categories: AI revolution, compute and connectivity frontiers, and cutting-edge engineering. The lines between these domains are blurring, and much of the innovation is happening in the gaps.
Click here for a full list of the trends
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Originally published by McKinsey
