Technology Outlook examines future technologies, comparing them in the context of Switzerland as a centre of ideas and industry and identifying trends of particular national significance. The technologies are evaluated according to two criteria: economic significance and research capabilities in Switzerland.
Technology Outlook is published every two years and, in its latest edition, discusses 31 technologies, 16 of which are included in the study for the first time. This article charts the significance of these technologies for Switzerland and highlights general developments. It discusses three main points:
The research area Energy and Environment, not to mention Manufacturing Processes and Materials, has gained in importance and will become even more significant in the future. This development reflects the increasing urgency and vocal nature of environmental discourse.
A technology cluster focusing on the reduction of carbon emissions is emerging, alongside the development of processes that use CO2 as a raw material. There are many indicators that suggest that CO2 will become a valuable raw material in the future, spawning a carbon economy.
While Switzerland is a popular location for branches of major global IT corporations, we should not overlook the fact that small and medium-sized enterprises are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with digitalisation. It is expected that this gap will widen further, intensifying competition.
Technology Outlook currently tracks 31 technologies with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) between 4 and 7, documenting their development and highlighting opportunities and challenges for Switzerland. Of these 31 technologies, 16 – around half – are featured in Technology Outlook for the first time.
This selection is the result of SATW’s foresight activities and is based, among other things, on qualitative interviews with experts from the respective research fields, a quantitative survey of SATW’s foresight committees and literature research (see Methodology).
The relevance of technologies for Switzerland can be determined using two criteria: research capability in Switzerland and economic significance for Switzerland. Figure 1 maps these as axes. The four fields split the technologies into categories: stars, sure-fire successes, niches and hopefuls.
Figure 1: Relative importance of technologies for Switzerland. The horizontal axis represents the economic significance, and the vertical axis shows Swiss research capabilities. The technologies deep geothermal energy and quantum computing are not included in the chart, as relevant data points are missing. The Methodology section provides information on how the coordinates are calculated. (Download graphic: PDF | PNG)
In the top right field are the stars. These are relatively mature, established technologies that are of major economic importance in Switzerland. Additionally, there are numerous active and competent research groups working on these technologies, both in industry and academia. The stars include: bioinspiration and biointegration, Industry 5.0, the Internet of Things (IoT), personalised nutrition, synthetic fuels (synfuels) and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC).
In the field below, at the bottom right, are the sure-fire successes. The technologies are of tremendous economic importance to Switzerland, despite its limited research capabilities. Typically, these technologies are widely used but developing slowly. Investments in education and training should pay off. The sure-fire successes include biocatalysis, CO2-reduced concrete, CO2-based plastics, fibre-optic sensors, human augmentation, sustainable adhesives and sealants, and synthetic biology.
The top left quadrant contains the niches. Switzerland has a high level of expertise with respect to these technologies, but they only generate limited amounts of revenue. It is important to consider whether increased investment in R&D activities would actually boost revenues. Niche technologies include Earth observation, artificial photosynthesis and negative emission technologies.
The technologies in the bottom left quadrant are the hopefuls. The revenues generated by these technologies are low, while scientific and industrial expertise is also limited. It is important to closely monitor how these technologies will develop in the coming years. Will they develop into niche technologies, sure-fire successes or even stars? Or will they remain hopeful prospects? Could they even be dead ends? The following technologies are currently considered to be hopeful prospects: 2D materials, bacteriophages, bioplastics derived from waste, flexible batteries, plastic recycling, perovskites, phosphorus recycling, diamond-based photonics, photonic integrated circuits (PICs), plasma technologies, hydrogen, mRNA and thermal interface materials (TIMs).
The technologies stem from five research fields: Digital World, Energy and Environment, Manufacturing Processes and Materials, Life Sciences, and Space Sciences. Table 1 shows how the 31 technologies are distributed across the five research fields.
| Number of techno-logies | Proportion | Of which new | Proportion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital World | 5 | 16 % | 2 | 13 % |
| Energy and Environment | 8 | 26 % | 5 | 31 % |
| Manufacturing Processes and Materials | 10 | 32 % | 5 | 31 % |
| Life Sciences | 7 | 23 % | 3 | 19 % |
| Space Sciences | 1 | 3 % | 1 | 6 % |
| Total | 31 | 100 % | 16 | 100 % |
Examining the relevance of the technologies described here in a broader context reveals two trends, both of which will significantly shape the Swiss economy and society in the coming years. Environmental issues have become significantly more important, while digitalisation continues to advance, even if the discourse on new digital technologies has quietened somewhat.
The growing importance of environmental issues is evident from a synoptic view of the individual technologies in the current Technology Outlook – an impression that is reinforced by Tables 1 and 2.
| 2019 | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital World | 32 % | 35 % | 35 % | 16 % |
| Energy and Environment | 21 % | 19 % | 19 % | 26 % |
| Manufacturing Processes and Materials | 11 % | 15 % | 16 % | 32 % |
| Life Sciences | 37 % | 31 % | 29 % | 23 % |
| Space Sciences | 3 % |
The change discussed here is reflected not only in an increase in technologies in the Energy and Environment field, but also in the Manufacturing Processes and Materials research field. Although every physical, human-made object in our environment is made of materials, there is little discussion about those materials, their significance and their consequences – except in the case of plastic. But this is about to change.
Environmental issues will become even more critical in the coming years. This development is reflected not only in technological developments, but also in policy decisions, framework programmes and initiatives such as the EU’s Green New Deal.
Issues relating to sustainability, environmental compatibility and the use of resources, not to mention product lifecycle and material recycling considerations, are becoming strategically important. The future viability of businesses will increasingly depend on their positioning on sustainability issues. ESG (environmental, social and governance) activities will become central to value creation; mere image management will no longer suffice.
The second major development that will continue to strongly shape Switzerland as a centre of ideas and industry is the digital transformation. Digitalisation is progressing unabated, even though this Technology Outlook contains fewer digital technologies than ever before. What appears at first glance to be a contradiction is actually a consequence of an advancing digital transformation. Many of the technologies that drove digitalisation discourse in relation to the economy and society in recent years are now ready for production and available on the market. As a result, they are no longer merely the subjects of foresight reports like those included in Technology Outlook. Such technologies include 5G, big data analytics, blockchain, digital twins, extended reality, machine learning and the broad field of artificial intelligence. This isn’t an indication that strategic engagement with digital technologies is coming to an end; rather, it is shifting from the domain of foresight to the innovation and product development process.
Climate change, increasing resource scarcity, uncertainties in supply chains, increasingly volatile energy markets, plastic and its consequences – resourceful experts are seeking solutions to all these challenges.
At the same time, it is becoming clear that the development of resource-conserving and greener technologies, processes and materials that rely on local and renewable raw materials is a worthy goal. Innovative companies are repeatedly demonstrating that committing to greener business practices tends to pay off and that sustainability opens up opportunities for new business models.
Against the backdrop of these trends, a cluster of technologies that reduce CO2 or even use carbon dioxide as a raw material is emerging. This cluster includes new processes such as CO2-based plastics and more sophisticated, more widely established technologies such as CO2-reduced concrete, artificial photosynthesis, negative emission technologies and synthetic fuels (synfuels).
For several years now, experts and politicians have been discussing the carbon circular economy – in other words, a closed-loop economy for carbon dioxide. The concept assumes that the only way to achieve climate targets is through both drastically reduced carbon emissions and broadly established negative emission technologies. Emissions pricing and certificate trading create incentives to avoid or capture emissions or even to use CO2 as a raw material, keeping the CO2 in a cycle (through direct at-source capture using negative emission technologies or atmospheric extraction).
What is significant here is the change reflected in this technology cluster, which is taking on CO2 and no longer treating it as a problem, but rather managing it as a resource. If climate science predictions prove correct and pressure on industry and science to solve the problem intensifies, global CO2 avoidance and reuse efforts will have to be scaled up globally. The emergence of a carbon economy could then be seen as the beginning of a new cycle of innovation. This carbon economy could thus have just as profound an impact on the economy and society as past major, long cycles of innovation: mass mobility following widespread adoption of the automobile, automation of production and the current digital transformation.
New processes, technologies and products won’t be the only things to become established, though. New business models and values will too. CO2 will become a key issue. No company will be able to avoid addressing this issue and accounting for its own carbon footprint.
What opportunities does this create for Switzerland? While negative emission technologies, CO2-based plastics and CO2-reduced concrete won’t become major Swiss exports themselves, Switzerland has enormous scientific and industrial expertise in all these technologies. There is considerable potential for exporting this expertise.
Switzerland can leverage its position as an innovative centre of ideas and industry and use these technologies to position itself in the long term as a responsible, value-based economy. The associated strategic considerations for the federal government, the cantons and the education, research and innovation (ERI) sector still need to be clarified.
Never since the first Technology Outlook was published in 2015 have so few technologies from the Digital World research field been represented. This doesn’t mean that the digital transformation is complete or that Digital World topics, technologies and issues are becoming less important. On the contrary, many of the digital technologies described in previous issues of Technology Outlook are now ready for production and are being widely deployed.
Meanwhile, the Internet of Things is now Technology Outlook’s highest rated technology. Thanks to ever smaller and more efficient computer chips, cheaper sensors and easy-to-implement connectivity with other gadgets, devices and machines that until a few years ago had nothing to do with information technology are suddenly becoming information-processing devices: lighting, coffee machines, fridges and ovens, to name just a few examples from the smart home sector. This demonstrates how the digital transformation is shaping our lives in increasingly profound and far-reaching ways.
Since the high-profile launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, it has become increasingly clear that – and to what extent – computers are becoming capable of doing what were previously considered human-exclusive tasks. It is not yet entirely clear how such applications will reshape human-machine interactions. Technologies such as human augmentation, Industry 5.0 and the Internet of Things are also blurring the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds.
One of the key issues in the coming years will therefore be re-examining human-machine collaboration. It is likely that other society-structuring distinctions will also change as a result of the digital transformation. Dichotomies like information versus knowledge, consumer versus producer and public versus private are becoming blurred.
One consequence of this change is that uncertainty continues to grow, making foresight activities and innovation processes ever more important. Organisations will have no choice but to think more strategically and focus even more on the essentials than they do today. Interpersonal contact and relationships built on trust will become more important.
How can the Swiss economy succeed with respect to the digital transformation? Switzerland regularly ranks highly in digitalisation assessments, including coming in second place in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking (WDCR) published in 2024. And with good reason, too. It has excellent universities, is home to major and important branches of the IT giants and maintains a superb infrastructure. However, all of these successes must not hide the fact that there is a growing divide.
A 2025 study conducted by the Swiss Economic Institute of ETH Zurich shows that only 8 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises use AI applications, compared to just over 30 per cent of large companies. This clearly reveals that there is a growing gap between large companies and SMEs.
Business development agencies, the ERI sector and industry associations would be well advised to analyse the socioeconomic and cultural reasons behind and the consequences of this development. If Switzerland is to remain competitive in the international arena in the future, SMEs – the backbone of the local economy – must be empowered to take advantage of technological developments. How this can be achieved is a matter requiring further investigation.
Of the 37 technologies that were shown in the first version of the four-quadrant diagram (in the 2019 edition), 19 are also included in this 2023 edition’s four-quadrant diagram. It is interesting to compare how their positions have changed in the four years between the two publications. Did hopefuls become surefire successes, or even stars? Did the economic importance of technological niches increase? Have some technologies become less important for Switzerland?For some of the technologies, such as connected machines and functional fibres, the observed change in position is due to a realignment of content, e.g. narrowing or broadening the focus. A small number of technologies, such as bioplastics, geothermal energy, sustainable food production and robotic surgery, remained in a relatively constant position over the entire period. However, other technologies have changed position – some strikingly so – and these changes are summarised in the table below. Here, the technologies are listed alphabetically.
