Technology is advancing at a rapid pace and changing everything along the way. Some of the wealthiest people on the planet are the tech moguls of Silicon Valley and beyond, and it’s not just the inventors or founders of large businesses, such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, who reaped the rewards of the consumer tech boom.
Savvy and early investors also profited hugely; these were the people who got behind the entrepreneurs with great ideas and backed their visions with hard currency.
Investing in the right companies and ideas now could be a lucrative decision, in fact, seven of the fifteen richest self-made billionaires in the world began with a tech start-up company. So, without further ado here’s a brief analysis of the best tech trends to invest in right now.
Virtual and Augmented Reality
VR and Augmented Reality are not the sole domain of video gamers and Pokemon Go’ers. Their practical applications are vast in terms of healthcare, education, design, engineering, training, and more.
This technology is being rapidly adopted at the moment and is only going to become more widespread. This one is not a possible future tech, this is a tech that is developing and paying out right now, we can see this with Facebook purchasing the Oculus Rift back in 2014 for around $2 billion.
Electric cars
Currently, the only real name in electric vehicles is Tesla. However, we are now seeing almost every large car company come out with a line of electric vehicles in order to compete for a share of this opening market, and they are becoming far more common on the roads. Even now, most large supermarkets have had bays installed for recharging electric cars.
Tesla is expanding beyond cars as well, to fully electric lorries, which could change the landscape of the delivery and logistics market. Rest assured they will become more and more common.
Driverless vehicles
This one will affect similar industries to Electric cars, with experts saying your current car may be the last car you ever buy. Google, Apple, and just about every large car manufacturer out there are putting their money into research to be the first to corner the market.
Companies could raise fleets of driverless cars that operate 24/7 as taxis or delivery services.
Without a human driver, who generally needs to eat and sleep and rest in order to maintain safety on the roads, this could raise the efficiency of just about every industry you could think of.
Efficiency equals time, which equals money so it’s not hard to believe that when the technology is perfected it’s going to become all-pervasive.
Automotive technology
This was always the holy grail and greatest fear of capitalism, and we are closer to full automation than most people think.
The future is bright for some sectors, however, with machine automation on the not-so-distant horizon you will want to consider how this will affect the economic landscape: Which jobs are likely to be automated?
Which sectors are likely to suffer or benefit from this? These are all examples of questions that smart investors are asking now.
The smartest investors, however, would go straight to the source and invest in the automation technologies themselves.
Asteroid mining
OK, this one may seem more science fiction than science fact right now, however, there are a number of companies investing hugely in this endeavour.
Bizarrely, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is also a staunch investor in this sci-fi pursuit via an asteroid mining start-up called Planetary Resources. The general line of thought in the expert community is that the world’s first multi-trillionaires will be asteroid miners.
Our solar system has an abundant supply of asteroids, a lot of which are believed to contain or be entirely made of precious metals such as platinum. Investing money into this area is risky right now, but if the emerging tech is successful the dividends will be (apologies in advance)… astronomical.
We are living are exciting times for technology and society; these are just a few of the emerging tech trends that we believe will be the most successful and transformative in the coming years.
Creating a start-up or buying stock in companies with a focus on one or more of these trends is as close to a sure thing as you can get. It will undoubtedly ensure healthy payouts in the years to come and create a lasting legacy for the first big names associated with the inexorable rise and success of these tech trends.
Nothing in this article is intended to constitute investment advice
Image Creator: John F. Williams | Credit: U.S. Navy
