Emerging Technologies: Meaning, History and Impact
An emerging technology is one that is still taking shape: it works on a new basic principle, it is growing quickly compared with similar technologies, it is expected to matter a great deal, and much about how it will turn out is still uncertain.[1] This page explains that definition, looks at two historical cases, and asks who gains and who bears the costs when a new technology spreads.
Short answer
- Researchers describe an emerging technology by five attributes: radical novelty, relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity.[1]
- Not every emerging technology shows all five at once, and the attributes change as a technology matures.[1]
- Even major technologies can take decades to show their full economic effects, and the benefits and costs are shared unevenly.[2, 3, 4]
How to read this page. Numbers in square brackets point to the sources under References. A statement without a number is our own plain-language explanation or illustration, not a research finding. Where we give an interpretation of the evidence, it is labelled. This page makes no forecasts about specific technologies.
What is an emerging technology?
In research on innovation, an emerging technology is one that is radically new, growing relatively fast, becoming a coherent field, expected to have a prominent impact, and still uncertain in how it will turn out.[1] Rotolo, Hicks and Martin proposed these five attributes after reviewing earlier work on emergence in innovation studies.
| Attribute | What it means in plain language | Common misunderstanding (our explanation) |
|---|---|---|
| Radical novelty | The technology does a job using a different basic principle from what came before. This can come from a revolutionary change, or from applying an existing technology in a new area.[1] | Novelty is not the same as being the newest gadget. |
| Relatively fast growth | It grows quickly in the number of people and organisations involved, in funding, or in published outputs, compared with other technologies in the same field.[1] | “Relatively” matters: fast compared with similar technologies, not fast in general. |
| Coherence | Over time a recognisable community and body of knowledge forms, and the technology becomes distinct from the older technologies it grew out of.[1] | A passing trend is not yet a coherent technology. |
| Prominent impact | It is expected to reshape organisations, institutions or how knowledge is produced, either in one field or across the wider economy and society.[1] | Expected impact is not the same as proven impact. |
| Uncertainty and ambiguity | How it will develop, what it will be used for, and even what it means are not yet settled, and most of its impact lies in the future.[1] | Uncertainty is not a flaw in the definition; it is part of it. |
Do all five attributes have to apply at once?
No. The authors describe emergence as a phase in a longer sequence (before emergence, emergence, and after emergence), with the attributes following stylised S-shaped curves over time. They stress that the attributes co-evolve and vary in strength: novelty can be high before a technology has much impact, and novelty tends to decline as the technology matures.[1]
Our interpretation: this is why calling a technology “emerging” is a judgement and not a fact you can look up. Two careful people can disagree about whether a particular technology currently meets the attributes.
Is “emerging” the same as “new”?
No. Newness (radical novelty) is only one of the five attributes. A technology can be new without growing, or can grow without being based on a radically new principle, and as novelty fades and uses settle, a technology leaves the emerging stage.[1]
Quantum computing, which we cover in Quantum Supremacy Near?, is the kind of technology often discussed as emerging. Whether it meets all five attributes today is a matter of judgement, and this page does not claim to settle it.
What can history show about technologies that changed society?
Two well-studied cases show how effects arrive, and how uneven they can be. The figures come from published research. The comments around them are ours.
The printing press and city growth
Dittmar compared European cities. Cities that had printing presses by the 1400s grew about 60% faster between 1500 and 1600 than otherwise similar cities. Those cities had shown no earlier growth advantage, printers did not simply choose already-prosperous places, and the results also held when distance from Mainz, where printing began, was used to account for which cities adopted the press.[5]
Steam power and the economy
Watt’s improved steam engine was patented in 1769, yet steam only matched water as a source of power in 1830, when about 160,000 steam horsepower had been installed, roughly 1.5% of the capital stock. Even in 1870 nearly half of all steam power was used in mining and cotton textiles, while agriculture and services (apart from transport) were largely untouched. Crafts finds that steam’s greatest effect on productivity growth came in the second half of the 19th century, not during the Industrial Revolution, and that its effect on the annual rate of productivity growth was always much smaller than that of information and communication technology.[2]
| Technology | What the research reports | What it suggests | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printing press | European cities with presses by the 1400s grew about 60% faster between 1500 and 1600 than otherwise similar cities.[5] | In this study, the technology itself, and not just a head start, was linked to faster city growth.[5] | One study of city-level data. It does not show how benefits were shared inside cities, or for places without presses. |
| Steam power | Steam reached parity with water power only in 1830, about 60 years after Watt’s improved engine was patented in 1769, and its main effect on productivity growth came in the second half of the 19th century.[2] | A famous technology can change the economy slowly and unevenly.[2] | One country (Britain) and one method (growth accounting). Estimates rest on incomplete historical data. |
Our interpretation: a technology can be famous for starting a revolution and still change the economy slowly and unevenly. Hindsight can make the effects of a technology look faster and more even than they were.
How do technologies spread and mature?
Comin and Hobijn studied 15 technologies in 166 countries over about two centuries. On average, countries adopted a technology around 45 years after it was invented, but the timing varied greatly between technologies and between countries. More recent technologies spread faster than older ones. Differences in adoption timing accounted for at least a quarter of the differences in income per person between countries.[3]
Crafts describes a “general purpose technology” as one that at first has much scope for improvement, and eventually comes to be widely used, to have many uses, and to work together with other technologies. In the economics literature he reviews, the first effect on overall productivity growth is typically minimal, and the full effects can take decades to arrive.[2]
How do technologies influence each other?
Few technologies work alone. A system of connected sensors, for example, depends on sensing, computing, communication and actuation working together,[6] which is why improvements in one area can open up uses in another. We look at this example on the Internet of Things page.
Our interpretation: because usefulness often depends on complementary technologies, a technology’s timeline is shaped by the slowest essential part, not only by the invention itself.
Revolutionary or evolutionary: what is the difference?
Revolutionary change introduces something fundamentally new; evolutionary change improves what already exists. Innovation researchers add a third idea, architectural innovation, which keeps the parts but changes how they are connected.[7]
| Type | Meaning | Where the idea comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Incremental (evolutionary) | Small improvements to an existing product or process. | The traditional contrast with radical change, which Henderson and Clark argue is incomplete.[7] |
| Radical (revolutionary) | Something fundamentally new that does a job on a different basic principle. | Rotolo, Hicks and Martin treat this as “radical novelty”: a revolutionary change, or an existing technology applied in a new domain.[1] |
| Architectural | The same components, connected or arranged in a new way. It can look minor yet make established firms’ knowledge of how the parts fit together less useful, and that is hard to notice because the knowledge is built into their structures and routines.[7] | Henderson and Clark, who studied the photolithographic alignment equipment industry used in making semiconductors.[7] |
Steam shows that the labels can describe different stages of the same technology. Crafts reports that steam technology took a long time to perfect, with progress in higher-pressure steam after 1850,[2] so a revolutionary invention can have an evolutionary spread.
Our interpretation: neither type is “better”. Gradual improvements are often what turn an invention into something widely useful, and the labels are usually easier to apply in hindsight than at the time.
Who benefits, and who bears the costs?
Benefits
- In the printing-press study, cities with presses grew faster than comparable cities.[5]
- Autor argues that automation can raise output and productivity, which can increase demand for workers, because machines complement human work as well as replacing it.[8]
Disruption and costs
- Machines do replace human labour in some tasks, and technology changes which jobs exist and what they pay. In recent decades, wage growth has clustered at the top and bottom of the skill range, a pattern called polarisation.[8]
- Architectural innovation can seriously harm established firms, because their knowledge of how the parts fit together stops applying.[7]
- Adoption takes time and capital. In the steam case, water power stayed cost-effective in many activities for a very long time.[2]
Unequal effects
- Differences in when countries adopt technologies explain at least a quarter of the differences in income per person.[3]
- ITU reports that about 6 billion people, roughly three-quarters of the world, were online in 2025, and 2.2 billion were not. Internet use was 94% in high-income countries and 23% in low-income countries, and 85% among urban residents against 58% among rural residents. ITU also notes that gaps in quality, affordability and skills persist.[4]
Our interpretation: access to a technology is only one ingredient. Whether people can afford it, use it well and benefit from it also shapes who gains, so the same technology can narrow some gaps and widen others.
Common questions
Can anyone tell in advance which technology will matter?
Not reliably. Uncertainty and ambiguity are part of the definition of an emerging technology, because outcomes and uses are not yet settled.[1] The five attributes help describe a technology; they are not a forecasting tool, and the steam example shows how long full effects can take to appear.[2]
Does new technology always cost jobs?
The evidence is mixed. Automation replaces some tasks and complements others, and it can raise demand for workers by raising output, while also changing which jobs exist and how well they pay.[8]
Why do some countries adopt technologies later?
Comin and Hobijn find large differences in adoption timing between countries,[3] and ITU data show large gaps in internet use between income groups and between town and country.[4] The sources reviewed here describe the differences, and do not on their own explain every cause.
References
Each source is listed in the order it is first cited. The note under each one says what it supports and how it was checked. Where only an abstract or summary page was read, the note says so.
- What is an emerging technology?. Daniele Rotolo, Diana Hicks and Ben R. Martin. Research Policy 44(10), 1827–1843. 2015.Supports: the definition of an emerging technology, its five attributes, and the point that the attributes vary over time. Checked against the authors’ preprint on arXiv (the journal version was not accessible to us), so wording in the published article may differ.
- Steam as a general purpose technology: a growth accounting perspective. Nicholas Crafts. Economic Journal 114(495), 338–351. 2004.Supports: the figures on steam power and productivity, and the description of general purpose technologies. Checked against the full text of the LSE working paper version (Economic History Working Paper 75/03, May 2003); the journal version may differ.
- An exploration of technology diffusion. Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn. American Economic Review 100(5), 2031–2059. 2010.Supports: the average adoption lag, the variation between technologies and countries, and the link to income differences. Checked against the publisher’s abstract page; the full article was not read.
- Global number of Internet users increases, but disparities deepen key digital divides. International Telecommunication Union, press release on Facts and Figures 2025. 17 November 2025.Supports: the numbers of people online and offline, and the income and urban–rural gaps. Checked against the press release; the full report was not read. ITU revises earlier estimates between editions.
- Information technology and economic change: the impact of the printing press. Jeremiah E. Dittmar. Quarterly Journal of Economics 126(3), 1133–1172. 2011.Supports: the comparison of European cities with and without early printing presses. Checked against the abstract on LSE Research Online; the full article was not read.
- Networks of ‘Things’ (NIST Special Publication 800-183). Jeffrey Voas, National Institute of Standards and Technology. July 2016.Supports: IoT described as involving sensing, computing, communication and actuation, and the five building blocks (“primitives”) of a network of things. Checked against the full text.
- Architectural innovation: the reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. Rebecca M. Henderson and Kim B. Clark. Administrative Science Quarterly 35, 9–30. 1990.Supports: the incremental/radical distinction and the idea of architectural innovation. Checked against the abstract on BYU ScholarsArchive; the full article was not read.
- Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace automation. David H. Autor. Journal of Economic Perspectives 29(3), 3–30. 2015.Supports: how automation both replaces and complements human work, and wage polarisation. Checked against the publisher’s abstract page; the full article was not read.