In 1965 Gordon Moore wrote a paper in which he described the phenomenon that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years. This is what has become known as Moore’s Law. We have all seen the picture of the IBM 5MB Hard drive in in 1956 vs an SD card. This doubling has resulted in exponential growth.
This exponential growth is now happening in a number of technologies, and these are exponential technologies that we are talking about. Singularity University describe these as below:
Exponential technologies are those which are rapidly accelerating and shaping major industries and all aspects of our lives. For a technology to be “exponential,” the power and/or speed doubles each year, and/or the cost drops by half.
Exponential technologies include artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR, VR), data science, digital biology and biotech, medicine, nanotech and digital fabrication (3D printing), networks and computing systems (incl. IoT, cloud), sensors (incl. wearables and insidables), robotics (incl. drones), blockchain, energy, and autonomous vehicles.
As described above there are a number of technologies that are on exponential growth curves and when these are combined it is providing extremely disruptive products and services which are changing the way that we live. For examples the winners of the Tricorder X Prize have leveraged the exponential growth in sensor technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, networks, etc. to develop handheld devices that can diagnose multiple diseased better than a doctor.
Having an understanding of these exponential technologies and how they are affecting the world that we live in is vital to be relevant in the 21st century. If you are running a business now or are looking to start something new it is more important than ever to understand what exponential technologies you can leverage.
I look forward to sharing more on this topic and many others.