Key Future Technologies: The View from McKinsey

By Shlomo Maital  

Innovation Score (Y axis) vs. Interest (Investment) (X axis)

    In the global consulting company McKinsey’s latest survey of technology trends for 2025, the above graph caught my eye.  On the X Axis:  a measure of interest, as measured by total investment.  On the Y axis, a measure of the degree of innovation.

    Normally, graphs for previous years showed a scattering of interest among several key topics.  This is natural.  Hi-tech is risky and businesses generally do not ‘play poker’ by putting all their chips on one single new technology.

       Except for now.  The graph shows Artificial Intelligence as leading by far in both innovation and in resource bets, globally.

       But take a look at #2.   Future of energy and sustainable technologies.  Less innovation, far more resources. Globally. 

       The cost of solar energy is today the cheapest of the varied forms of energy. 

        Can one understand how the Trump administration is single-mindedly revoking tax credits, laws, regulations, everything, designed to promote solar and wind energy?  Yes – as a short-sighted political deal based on the huge contributions of Big Oil to the Trump PACs.  Big Oil spent $445 million (nearly half a billion dollars) on contributions to Trump, in the last election.

           A terrific investment, given how Trump has repaid it.  The McKinsey graph for the US would show it as a backward, lagging outlier in energy. 

           In this, as well as in science, healthcare, social services, education, research, vaccines, and global aid programs, Trump has set America back decades, in a very short time.  The damage can be repaired – but the road to do so will be long and hard.