on these tools to reach customers, deploy products or services, track success, communicate and more.

While businesses need to always be at the ready to adapt and pivot, evolving technology offers a huge opportunity for companies that embrace it early – before that opportunity becomes a differentiator for the competition. Embracing technology early enables businesses to achieve efficiency and productivity gains that result in better outcomes for customers and businesses.

FROM SEPARATION TO INTEGRATION

Integrating leading-edge technology in business is about the intersection and embedding of a combination of these tools rather than the potential of a single technology. Investing in the growth of these technologies requires people who understand these fields – AI, regulation, legal, due diligence and the industries these tools are being applied in – and complex, multidisciplinary teams (not just software coders) to enable these technologies to move up the value curve and do more complex work.

From AI to quantum computing, these advanced technologies will inevitably cause our daily lives to look drastically different in the not-too-distant future. The combination of these same individual technologies makes more advanced applications possible. Now we’re seeing advanced, intelligent, instructible robots in pharmacies to dispense drugs – with safer outcomes. One study from Japan found incidents of dispensing the wrong drug or dosage falling to almost zero when using robotic dispensing systems.1 AI is also turbocharging drug discovery and biotech. Personalized medicine means we can now test cancer tumors and find the right, targeted drugs to treat that specific cancer.2 Many patients no longer have to go through blanket chemotherapy. As many countries face physician shortages, AI can help fewer doctors read more scans, for example, with greater accuracy.3 That precision is possible because of the processing of vast amounts of data.

As technology becomes more advanced, it comes down the cost curve and becomes more accessible through new applications. For example, we have GPS technology, a standalone interface 20 years ago, mapped directly into vehicles as the cost has come down.

The energy transition is another great example: wind, solar and nuclear fusion are all more affordable which has led to clean energy producing more than 40% of our electricity, globally.4 We’re continuing to adapt and come down the cost curve as adoption is making more sense economically.

Quantum computing will drive all this advancement further, empowering work to be done with multiple combinations and permutations at once using physics. That shift opens up the fields of chemistry and biology to study proteins, including how they interact, how we model drugs and what works (and doesn’t). Quantum computing is also powering us to fight climate change by enabling scientists to map complex mathematical questions, predict within minutes the impacts of hurricanes and tornadoes, and find technological solutions like carbon capture to reverse some of the impacts of climate change.

When I see that pace of innovation and combination of technologies for undertaking complex tasks, it’s clear accuracy is coming soon. AI will play a significant role in cybersecurity and healthcare where we have a massive shortage of resources. Soon, we should be able to improve healthcare outcomes and access to care as tasks that were formerly done by doctors can be managed by others. In this sense, we’re not losing jobs in high-knowledge industries but overcoming gaps, increasing productivity and reducing costs to gain better outcomes for more people.

INVESTING IN THE NEXT (FAR-OFF) INNOVATION

When it comes to finding the next great technology investment, being too early is worse than being too late. Being invested for so long without the market being there kills returns. That’s why public investment in the core building blocks of technology is essential and the public-private partnership matters early on. It can be difficult to bring private money in at the beginning, which is why university or military research is important and helps derisk technology investment for private investors. The internet came out of such a collaboration between research universities and the military.5 Today in the U.S., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) continues to facilitate innovation that trickles into the private sector.

Research and academia shouldn’t be separated from private enterprise in technology development. It needs to be an integrated ecosystem as the really successful innovations come through the combination of private market expertise coupled with the intellectual capacity from academia. Marrying that combination with strong capital markets supercharges scalable, defensible, deep technology.

Investors have their ear to the ground to know if the market is close to its tipping point and if it is time to get behind the technology to test and scale it. We see this process as a finely tuned machine in the U.S. which is more advanced at investing and scaling at later stages. With the deepest capital markets in the world, the U.S. has a huge advantage when it comes to scaling innovation.

Those capital markets are critical since most private capital is not structured for some of the time cycles that come with the development of leading-edge technology. We’ve also been managing various global crises every couple of years that have elongated investment cycles. For example, many 10-year fund lives are now 12-15.6 Given the need for liquidity, the idea of patient capital – where money is locked up for that length of time – only suits certain investors like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

With technology evolving at such a rapid clip, avoiding obsolescence has become another challenge for technology investment. Historically, technology used to have just a few moving parts, but now it’s very complex with a lot of components.

To manage these investments, first, leaders need sectoral expertise to understand the technology sectors, competitors, entrants and who’s breaking out. They also need to be able to benchmark globally and understand how technology interacts with government and global business. That’s why Atlantic Bridge is global with many local offices that can compare businesses worldwide. Finally, teams need to have a track record of success built with a wealth of experience over time to understand risk factors, timing of the market, pricing and more.

While early investment in these innovations might feel like pipedreams with returns so far away, it’s what drives healthy advancements in important technologies. As the adage goes, the best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

LEVERAGING INNOVATION TO MEET MARKET NEEDS

Digitization of business is meeting changes in consumer preferences. Financial services, for instance, are leaning into digital payments, cryptocurrency, AI and biometric sensors to provide services to customers how they want to receive them – Millennials and Gen Z won’t wait for a letter from a bank and want an answer to their question on an app, now.

This digitization is also innovating how advanced skill practitioners perform their craft, including making work more efficient. On the healthcare side, LUMA Vision, one of Atlantic Bridge’s portfolio companies, is offering a new tool for cardiac surgeons performing AFib surgery to get a 360-degree view of the heart in 4D, leading to better navigation.7 These tools have the potential to increase the capacity of surgeons while leading to better patient outcomes, including a reduced rate of revision surgery.

There is so much IP being developed in biotech, medical technology and healthcare that is moving into scale and meeting the needs of a broader base of healthcare consumers. We’re just starting to see the impact of GLPs on diabetes, obesity and overall health. We all have benefited from mRNA research that led to COVID-19 vaccines and that is now being applied to find vaccines to cure cancer.8 The convergence of technology is leading to healthcare for better outcomes – improving productivity, decreasing cost and leading to better, quality lives for more people who are not getting sick and who are living longer. That’s tech-enabled progression.

MANAGING TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION ON THE HORIZON

Even if business leaders can’t get ahead of the next big evolution in technology, they have to be agile to adopt innovations when they happen. Leaders must look for anything that improves efficiency, how they reach customers or that gives customers a better, more frictionless experience. Fortunately, there are steps leaders can take to manage this integration.

First, leaders must engage internally, externally or both to implement new technology tools. Internally leaders must power the skillsets and capacity for employees to spend more time with new technology to become internal experts – whether it’s crypto, AI, robotics or other tech-powered tools. These early internal adopters can work with these tools to see what the opportunity is within the company. Leaders also need to get folks out in the market to work with investors to keep up to date with what is on the horizon so they can rise above the noise.

Next, the executive team needs to engage with the board to make the tech roadmap strategy a priority on the board agenda, whether it’s cyber, systems development, the technology stack or digital innovation.

Third, leaders need an open-growth mindset. They need to be paranoid in a good way about tech’s ability to change business and adapt or be killed by it when that technology enables competitors.

Finally, businesses must encompass a scrappy, entrepreneurial mindset and adapt to new things. Everyone hates change and it’s no secret

that major corporates struggle with R&D. Even in these large enterprises, employees must be willing to take risks and fail, and leaders need to incentivize risk-taking as it brings energy, new thinking and enthusiasm.

TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN, AND DRIVING TECHNOLOGY

The pressures companies face to be digitized and have a clean, clear view of data are not going away. However, business leaders are facing challenges getting the 360-degree, real-time view of their businesses that they need, even as global factors like tariffs make it necessary to know every component of the supply chain. Leaders are often flying without perfect information but better, clean data means more informed decision making and better outcomes. Technology is powering improvement in these businesses’ ability to make better decisions even in increasingly evolving environments.

As much as technology is helping companies innovate, it is also driving innovation on its own and leading to new opportunities for companies and nations. That means the need for collaboration with government is increasingly important for business as leaders must engage on the strategic economy, supply chains, tariffs and more to mutually support innovation in new technologies.

It also means focusing on the right thing. While we’re often getting distracted by the discussion of manufacturing sneakers and automobiles, the real consequences for advanced economies are in developing leading-edge technologies like AI, quantum computing, robotics, space, logistics, and communications.

Finally, as investors, we have to stay ahead of the curve even as technology is evolving so rapidly. If something is already in demand, we’re too late.