Over the past few years, we have heard many talks/discussions about innovation. Indeed, an up-and-coming familiar term is Deep Technology. Its having a profound impact on areas including autonomous systems, robotics, smart home/cities, medical devices, clean tech, energy efficiency and many more developing or emerging application areas. What actually is Deep Tech? How have people defined them? How deep is Deep Tech? and how are they affecting our lives?

It can be said that Deep Tech within organizations involves companies founded on a scientific discovery or meaningful engineering innovation. However, aren’t all tech firms founded on these kind of principles? In reality, most companies are built on ‘business model innovation’ using existing technology. An good example of this is Uber… which is based on the sharing economy concept wherein everyone can share existing resources.

Deep Tech startup companies often spend years in the lab during R&D then patenting the intellectual property. Aside from establishing an executive committee for the business side of things, there is also one for the technical side. Deep Tech startup’s generally have the potential to create change in the market and provide huge economic value… all whilst giving a positive and meaningful impact for mankind.

Generally, it can be fair to say that developing deep technology is the process of combining existing disruptive technology, such as artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning with the research methods of scientific and engineering to create break-through technology.

They provide revolutionary solutions, which redefines and profoundly impact industries and citizens.

How does Deep Tech differ from other technology?

There can be numerous ideas out there on what Deep Tech actually is… Let’s take a look at Quora, a famous social media, question-answer website. How have people replied to the question ‘How would you define “Deep Tech”?’ Interesting replies are those who isolated Deep Tech from other technology from a tech startup perspective. In a time that technology is widely applied, Deep Tech is different because it requires scientific advancement, are unique, and difficult to build.

Conclusion

Deep technology is developed as a result of fundamental scientific discovery or meaningful engineering innovation. These technologies are often developed from research and lab testing and solve previously-intractable real-world problems, e.g. medical devices and drugs that cure disease and extend life; artificial intelligence to forecast natural disasters such as earthquakes; and clean energy solutions that can help stem global warming etc.

Deep Tech is where engineering meets scientific discoveries… And we are only at the beginning!

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