Lux Research Releases Annual List of Top Transformative Technologies

Leaders trying to identify key innovative technologies for their industry are often stuck relying on either subjective opinions or an excess of raw data without context or insight. To provide a more reliable guide, Lux Research, a leading provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services on technology innovation, identified the technologies with the greatest potential to transform the world using both unique data analytics and insight from leading domain experts.

“Our data science platform – the Lux Intelligence Engine – taps into many data sources, and when combined with our own proprietary data and analyses, helps us find the leading indicators of technologies that will have business impact. Our expert research team adds context and explains what it means, allowing our clients to make better decisions, faster,” explains Andrew Stockwell, Senior Vice President of Research, Product, and Operations at Lux.

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Lux’s “19 for 2019” identifies and ranks 19 technologies that will reshape the world, based on innovation interest scores from the Lux Intelligence Engine, along with input from Lux’s leading analysts.

The top 5 transformative technologies to watch in 2019:

1. Machine learning and AI. These programs can quickly generate insight from vast datasets for uses in retail, transportation, medicine, and more – 2018 saw more than 10,000 AI patents filed.
2. Wearable electronics. Wearables are evolving beyond the smartphone to serve as connected, personalized sensors, and venture capital funding over the past five years has totaled $2 billion.
3. 3D printing. Long used for prototypes, this type of digitally controlled manufacturing is now being used for tooling and parts production, and patent filings have soared 60% since 2014.
4. Genome editing. Using CRISPR and other tools can provide the next level of personalization and customization from farms to consumers to patients, and IP activity is up 7× from five years ago.
5. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Enterprise uses for AR and VR are on the rise for training, quality, productivity, and more as more than $2 billion in VC funding pours in each year.

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For each of the 19 technologies, the report provides an innovation data score, key data points, commentary on what the impact will be, and what clients should do – as well as links to Lux Research Tech Pages that provide additional data, curated analysis, case studies, key players, and more.

Lux also examined which companies are the innovation leaders in these technologies, comparing both their “vision” – how many of the 19 for 2019 the company is a leader in – and their “activity” – the total patent activity across all innovations over the past 10 years. These two factors define:

• Focused winners, such as Google, Siemens, Qualcomm, and Intel, which don’t have as much total activity as others, but have strong vision to focus on the right innovations.
• Conservative giants, such as Toyota, Panasonic, LG Electronics, and Huawei, which have high activity but lower vision scores, as they focus innovation on their core businesses.
• Finally, just two companies, Samsung Electronics and IBM, are innovating in all 19 technologies, with both a large amount of activity and vision scores that reflect leadership in many areas.

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