From cabinet maker John Harrison’s development of a clock to understand longitude, there has always been a tradition of looking to the margins of industries for ideas that can cut across technologies and business models. It is interesting, therefore, to see how scientists are trying to develop a quantum computer to gain a better understanding of the subatomic activity of photons, the particles making up light, at the same time as corporations are increasingly investing in photonic companies across a sweep of sectors (see New technologies).
Where these developments end up remains uncertain, but their potential for change is huge, at a time when existing machine-learning technology on standard electronic supercomputers is already offering great opportunities and risks.
Traditional large sectors, such as energy and healthcare – the latter the focus of next month’s industry coverage in GCV (see Winter Mead analysis for a taster) – have been exploring digital disruption and going beyond the binary of ones and zeros to incorporate new opportunities. Oil major BP explores the impact of technology in our profile this month (see interview).
However, the future is often forged from what people have invested in and focused on in the past and the present. That investment could be in university, public or corporate research, or through supporting entrepreneurs and those with new ideas.
Keeping and building on the links involving governments, universities, corporations and business angels is probably the area where most opportunity lies – and challenges remain. The decision by Alphabet’s GV corporate venturing unit to back an Oxford University spin-out, SpyBiotech, is an interesting case study (see University Corner) but some countries, such as Ireland (see Innovative region) and Canada (see Government House), are trying to scale.
Bringing both sides together can create the opportunity to find these opportunities. China’s Tsinghua Holdings Capital’s support, with UK-based HLD Capital, of the Global University Venturing GUV:Fusion awards and conference at the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium this month will bring together the leading academic institutions, from Asia, Israel, Europe and the US, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford to Oxford, Cambridge, King’s and Imperial, and beyond, with more than $100bn of corporate venturing assets.
It is a unique opportunity to build the links between and within both industries, even if it probably will do little to reconcile the theories of relativity and quantum that have remained unresolved since Albert Einstein’s seminal papers more than 100 years ago.
Let us see there what new “truth springs from argument among good friends”, as another enlightened individual, Scottish philosopher David Hume, once said.
