Top 4 Trending Tech Sectors for Smart Investors in 2020

These are exciting times for tech investors. Thanks to industry disruptors like blockchain, it is never been easier for a company to get off the ground.

Many of today’s startups are bootstrapping it and working with remote teams and cloud services to improve productivity and cost-containment. 

That is great for the companies, themselves, but it does muddy the waters for investors. We have seen a deluge of tech startups. And the unicorns amongst them are relatively rare.

That is why investors are faced with performing their due diligence from the outset, to ensure a startup is, in fact, suitable for investment.

In this post, we are going to take a look at the hottest trending tech sectors of 2019 to help you find the perfect investment sphere for you.

1. Manufacturing and Robotics

In the first place, with a growth of 189.4 percent is the robotics and manufacturing industry. This number is based on averages between 2012 and 2017.

The Washington Post attributes the strong growth in the industry to improvements in AI.

Before these advancements, machines were only able to perform simple functions. They were useful for one particular task, and not much else. Incorporating AI has changed things, though.

 2. Agtech

Coming in at a close second is Agtech with a growth rate of 171.4 percent. Tech in agriculture has typically followed the same one-use pattern as the manufacturing industry.

Thirty years ago, the idea that a robot could assist in performing tasks such as picking ground crops and weeds was laughable.

Today we have machines that identify weeds using height sensors. They are pulled out before they’ve had a chance to grow bigger.

3. Blockchain

Blockchain comes in third with 162 percent growth. That is nothing short of amazing considering that it is relatively new technology.

What is even more impressive is that the tech was written off by most as a bad idea.

For the first nine years or so of its existence, blockchain was a branch of tech that few knew about, and even fewer understood.

The inner workings of blockchain remain a mystery to many, but it has certainly become more mainstream.

We’ve already seen some impressive applications of this technology, but so far, we’ve barely scraped the surface.

Take, for example, the Bitcoin phenomenon. Ten years ago, Bitcoin was a concept that few people believed in.

The idea behind it was simple – to cut out the middleman and make peer to peer transactions a reality. And, at the same time, to create a system that wasn’t hackable.

It was an idea that seemed entirely outrageous at the time. Financial institutions were quick to point out potential flaws.

The coin’s reputation was further tarnished when it was discovered that Bitcoin transactions were the preferred means of payment on the infamous dark web marketplace, the Silk Road.

Fast-forward to today. The situation is very different.

It was only in 2013 that the currency really started to gain traction. At that stage, the size of the Bitcoin blockchain was just 4,225 megabytes. At the end of June 2019, it had increased to a massive 226.6 gigabytes.

Thanks to the massive growth of the platform, it soon became clear that Bitcoin was not easily scalable.

Due to the data size of each block, the number of transactions authenticated per hour is limited. 1 megabyte per block sounded like a lot in 2010. Today, though, it’s virtually nothing.

Still, despite these issues, Bitcoin has proven that blockchain tech has significant value.

So much so, in fact, that even the world’s largest banks are working on changing over to a blockchain-based system.

This area will be an interesting one to keep an eye on over the next few decades. 

4. Artificial Intelligence

Frankly, it is surprising that this category isn’t further up on the list. At present, the growth rate is “only” at 77.5 percent, but this category is certainly one to watch. 

 AI, in its infancy, was limited to practical use. The initial programs couldn’t understand natural language and they had limited success.

AI-driven search results, for example, were notoriously unreliable. It was like asking a toddler what the capital of Kenya was.

You might get lucky if the toddler guessed right, but, for the most part, it was extremely frustrating.

In the interim, the “toddler” has grown up. AI has learned very quickly. We’ve gone from hoping Siri understood you to a point where Siri can just about finish your sentences.

You might be wondering why, if AI is getting so good, we haven’t seen as much growth as we’d expected. The answer is simple.

It’s only over the last five years, or so that AI has made significant progress. It wasn’t until 2014 that a computer first passed the Turing Test.  

Up until this point, everyone had high hopes for AI. Unfortunately, the tech just wasn’t there yet. Now that the tech has finally caught up, we’ll start seeing even more of an upsurge in this area.

Think about it logically for a second-most tech will require some sort of basic AI to operate properly in the future.

It, therefore, makes sense that AI is going to become the most important industry.  

Add to that the fact that new tech is making it easier to develop AI-based systems and you’ve got the perfect conditions for an upsurge in demand.

There are platforms online that allow you to train your AI to operate as you’d like. So, even if your company doesn’t have the right skill set, there is a way to create an AI system.

If you’d like to learn more about how AI has already changed the way that we do things, have a look at this post on the subject of Artificial Intelligence.

Final Notes

While it might be surprising to see Agtech take the second spot or AI come in last, the truth is, tech has always been a dynamic industry.

Unexpected shifts over time are, well, to be expected. There is no smart investing in this field without keeping a close eye on the ever-changing trends.