What technology is important? What trends should be monitored closely?

How can society and industry prepare for 2030? Our Technology Outlook 2030 explores the following questions within the framework of known 2030 trends:

Over the next decade, a growing aging population and global GDP will grow by more than a third, while energy use and emissions decouple from economic growth as the energy transition takes effect.

The reality of climate change is everywhere – in policy conversations, and clearly in the form of more frequent and impactful extreme weather events2, disrupting businesses, displacing people and harming our ecosystems. 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the United Nations' framework action plan for people, planet and prosperity. However, it is clear that a deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated3:"The natural environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate: sea levels are rising; ocean acidification is accelerating; the past four years have been the hottest on record; one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, and land degradation continues to be curbed."

We also expect that geopolitical uncertainty will continue, potentially limiting trade and thus the availability and access to technology, but our analysis does not assume major global disruption in the form of war or pandemics. 

digital

The milestones are well known: IBM's first PC in 1981; The advent of the World Wide Web in 1990; the iPhone in 2007. Digital technology has now penetrated every aspect of business and life and is increasingly dominated by a handful of technology giants.

Today we can discover the characteristics of six digital technology trends that will shape our world in 2030:

• Connect people more closely to the internet

• Ubiquitous sensors (IoT)

• Ubiquitous communications and computing

• Artificial intelligence

• Platform-based socioeconomic model

• Digitizing materials with additive manufacturing

Technology and trust

While the pace of technological change accelerates, the management of digital technologies lags behind. Several recent incidents related to the integration of digital technologies into physical systems have highlighted the limitations of regulations.

In the rush to exploit the potential of technology, we may forget that we are creating complex systems, and that these systems have inherent risks that are different from the sum of their parts. The world is at risk of no longer being equipped to deal with these complex systems, which could lead to significant unmanageable risks and, therefore, new trust gaps. 

We assume the world will follow current trends, with political and environmental uncertainty shaping the global risk profile through 2030. Often technology introduced to create an advantage can also add new risks. 

The key question therefore is: What technologies will emerge that will create new risks and uncertainties that will impact the long-term value of our assets and the well-being of people and the planet? And, what emerging technologies can help us better manage risks and help us achieve our sustainability goals?

Which technologies are important?

This Outlook introduces trends and related technologies and then describes their expected impact on society and industry. We use a two-step approach to identify these trends and technologies. 

Our first step - from the top down - looked at the industries we serve and the technology areas and trends adjacent to them that are thought to be potentially impactful. Our second step – bottom-up – draws on insights from DNV GL's wider organization to identify technologies that will have an impact by 2025 and those we believe will emerge by 2030. We validated our findings in a series of workshops, inviting our stakeholders.

We grouped selected technologies into ten key technology trends and further divided them into three categories:

• Enable. Three technology trends can be considered "enabling" and promoting the development of other technologies: accelerated digitalization, virtualization and automation throughout the life cycle, and the use of precision materials.

• Transformation. Across key industries, five technology trends can be considered transformative: transportation and logistics, low-carbon energy systems, health data, precision food and space.

• Maintain. The third category of technology trends includes technologies that help sustain our biosphere: ocean spaces and other natural ecosystems.

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For each trend, we selected those technologies that have the greatest expected economic and social impact over the next decade on our target industries (maritime, oil and gas, energy, healthcare, and food).

Society

We place society at the center of this publication: society is the fulcrum through which technology gains leverage - technology influences society, and society in turn regulates and shapes technological trends. In the coming years, the world will face difficult choices regarding the energy transition, privacy, security and ethics in the digital environment, and within the overall framework of meeting the needs of society within the context of a sustainable development of the planet. Policy matters, and arguably never matters again.