Industrial Digital Technology Outlook 2026
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Questions answered
- Which emerging technologies are driving innovation in the industrial sector?
- How do emerging technologies rank in terms of maturity, impact, and industry interest?
- Which companies are leading in the adoption and development of these technologies?
- How are individual technologies impacting the industrial product lifecycle and operations?
- What recent trends and developments are shaping these technologies?
- Which upcoming startups have received significant funding in each of these areas?
Table of Contents
Industrial Digital Technology Outlook 2026
- 1. Executive summary
- Executive summary (3 parts)
- Starting point: A growing set of technologies is shaping the industrial sector
- All 4 areas analyzed in the report saw major uplift in public interest in 2025
- Industrial AI started to move into core processes in 2025, with robotics likely next
- 2. Introduction
- IoT connectivity and cloud platforms are evolving into the backbone of industrial technology stacks
- The big 2025 shift: Silicon Valley turns to industry
- Report overview: This report presents 64 emerging industrial technologies across 4 technology clusters – 5 aspects analyzed for each
- 60+ digital emerging technologies in the industrial sector
- Emerging technologies radar / Scoring methodology
- Definitions: Maturity level
- 3. Emerging industrial technologies: Overview
- Analyst takeaways: 5 things that stand out to us
- Top movers in the last 4 years
- List of the top 200 startups identified as part of this report (2 parts)
- How the 64 emerging technologies are discussed in corporate earnings calls
- Guidance on reading one-pager emerging technology slides
- 4. Emerging AI & ML technologies
- Emerging AI & ML technologies: Overview
- Application specific integrated circuits (ASICS)
- Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)
- Graphic processing units (GPUs)
- High bandwidth memory (HBM)
- Neural processing units (NPUs)
- Vector databases
- Knowledge graphs
- Synthetic data
- Deep learning
- Transformer architectures (for industry)
- Large language models (LLMs)
- Small language models (SLMs)
- Vision language models (VLMs)
- Machine vision
- Edge AI
- TinyML
- Generative AI
- Federated learning
- Agentic AI
- Causal AI
- Physical AI
- 5. Emerging automation & robotics technologies
- Emerging automation & robotics technologies: Overview
- Open platform communications unified architecture (OPC-UA)
- Asset administration shell (AAS)
- Time sensitive networking (TSN)
- Unified namespace (UNS)
- Advanced physical layer (APL)
- Digital thread
- Robot operating system 2 (ROS 2)
- Uncrewed systems
- Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs)
- Robotic exoskeleton
- Soft robotics
- Humanoid robots
- 3D printing
- Sensor fusion
- Autonomous control
- Virtual PLC (VPLC)
- Augmented reality (AR)
- Open control architectures
- 6. Emerging IoT hardware & connectivity technologies
- Emerging IoT hardware & connectivity technologies: Overview
- Low-power wide-area network (LPWAN)
- Mesh networks
- Ultra-wideband (UWB)
- Satellite IoT
- Private 5G
- Wi-Fi 7
- 6G
- Low-power microcontroller units (MCUs)
- Real-time operating systems (RTOSs)
- Secure elements
- Edge gateways
- Time-of-flight sensors
- Chiplets
- 7. Emerging cloud, software, & security technologies
- Emerging cloud, software, & security technologies: Overview
- Hybrid cloud
- Distributed cloud
- Quantum computing
- Microservices
- Serverless computing
- WebAssembly (Wasm)
- Data lakes
- Digital twins
- Data fabric
- Cloud security posture management (CSPM)
- Secure access service edge (SASE)
- Post-quantum cryptography (PQC)
- 8. Appendix
- Appendix A: List of 60+ emerging technologies in the industrial sector (6 parts)
- Appendix B: List of abbreviations
- 9. About IoT Analytics
- Other publications by IoT Analytics
- Information and contact
Companies mentioned
A selection of companies mentioned in the report.
ABB
AMD
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Bosch
Boston Dynamics
Broadcom
Cisco
Databricks
Honeywell
IBM
Intel
Microsoft
NVIDIA
NXP
OpenAI
Qualcomm
Rockwell Automation
Schneider Electric
Siemens
About the report
Industrial Digital Technology Market Overview: The Rise of AI & Autonomous Operations
The Industrial Digital Technology Outlook 2026 analyzes the maturity and impact of 64 emerging technologies shaping the future of the industrial sector. Data indicates that public interest in these technologies surged in 2025, with search interest across all four analyzed clusters increasing by more than 2x compared to previous years. This uptick reflects a prioritization of digitization, heavily influenced by hyperscalers and semiconductor vendors integrating hardware and software stacks.
This report outlines the four core technology clusters driving this evolution:
- AI & ML (21 technologies): Including Generative AI, Edge AI, and Deep Learning.
- Automation & Robotics (18 technologies): Including Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Humanoid Robots.
- IoT Hardware & Connectivity (13 technologies): Including Private 5G, 6G, and Chiplets.
- Cloud, Software & Security (12 technologies): Including Hybrid Cloud, Data Fabric, and Post-Quantum Cryptography.
Related reading
A research article derived from this report will be made public soon.
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