McKinsey's 2025 Tech Trends: Agentic AI, Chips, & Connectivity

McKinsey & Company has released its fifth annual “Technology Trends Outlook,” offering insights into the frontier technologies poised to deliver competitive advantages in 2025. The consulting firm’s analysis draws on a comprehensive methodology, considering equity investment, patent activity, search trends, and talent demand to identify the most significant innovations transforming businesses over the past year.

Here’s a summary of the key trends highlighted by McKinsey:

Agentic AI
Among the standout trends, McKinsey highlights Agentic AI, defining it as a “virtual coworker that can plan and execute workflows.” This technology attracted $1.1 billion in equity investment in 2024, contributing to the total $124 billion invested across AI technologies. The rapid growth is underscored by a remarkable 985% increase in job postings from 2023. McKinsey attributes this surge in investment to the diverse applications of AI, including last-mile logistics, navigation in dynamic environments, and the deployment of virtual coworkers. This signifies AI’s evolving role towards more dynamic and autonomous capabilities.

Application-Specific Semiconductors
The proliferation of agentic AI and other advanced technologies has spurred significant investment in Application-Specific Semiconductors. These innovations are crucial for managing cost, heat, and power consumption, particularly as AI training demands exponentially higher computing capacity, memory, and networking capabilities. Consequently, $7.5 billion in equity investment has flowed into this sector. Despite the ongoing need for research, McKinsey notes that Moore’s Law—the empirical observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years—continues to hold true.

Advanced Connectivity
As the global data economy expands and devices become increasingly “smart,” the demand for scalable communications technology has intensified. McKinsey highlights that devices ranging from phones and cars to home controls and industrial equipment now require robust cloud connectivity. To meet these growing needs, Advanced Connectivity solutions like wireless low-power networks, 5G, cellular systems, and low-Earth-orbit satellites have attracted $44.2 billion in capital investment.

Cloud/Edge Computing
Recognizing that many companies lack the capital for large-scale data centers, Cloud/Edge Computing has emerged as a vital solution, allowing businesses to outsource their processing to regional nodes. As AI processing increasingly moves to the cloud, companies are prioritizing improvements in latency, transfer costs, and security. McKinsey notes a trend towards relocating data centers to areas with advanced infrastructure, adopting sustainable power programs, and investing in liquid cooling solutions. For instance, Meta has developed specialized data center networks utilizing GPU clusters to optimize AI training for tasks like ranking, content recommendation, and natural language processing. Overall, cloud technology has seen $80.8 billion in equity investment.

Immersive Reality Technology
While relatively quiet this year, Immersive Reality Technology saw notable product releases in 2024, including Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest 3S. Further indicating market interest, Meta also partnered with Ray-Ban to launch lightweight AI glasses. This sector has garnered approximately $6 billion in equity investment.

Cybersecurity
With the widespread use of cloud storage, the imperative to protect sensitive data has driven substantial growth in Cybersecurity. McKinsey reports that this critical sector has attracted $77.8 billion in equity investment.

Quantum Computing
Though still a nascent field, Quantum Computing is gaining traction, despite AI dominating much of the business-technology focus. Its potential for complex calculations and secure communication networks has led to $2 billion in equity investment. McKinsey points to ongoing investments in enhancing qubit reliability and real-time error mitigation, crucial for more precise and dependable quantum software. Recent breakthroughs include Atom Computing’s achievement of 99.6% two-qubit gate fidelity, a significant stride in error correction, and Google’s Willow Chip, designed to exponentially reduce errors as more qubits are added. These developments suggest quantum technology is accelerating its pace of innovation.

Future of Robotics
AI-augmented robots are drawing significant attention for their industrial applications, particularly their capacity to perform tasks autonomously or semi-autonomously. This growing interest has translated into $7 billion in equity investment for the Future of Robotics.

Future of Mobility
AI advancements have profoundly improved autonomous vehicles, exemplified by developments from companies like Tesla and Waymo. This sector, representing the Future of Mobility, has attracted a substantial $131 billion in equity investment.

Bioengineering
AI is also a powerful accelerator in Bioengineering, significantly advancing genome mapping and gene editing. This has led to a substantial $57 billion in equity investment. McKinsey notes AI’s role in expediting drug development by modeling unique molecular structures for rapid compound design, as well as its utility in modeling cell culture systems and designing tissue architecture for stem cell research.

Space Technology
Private investment in Space Technology reached $9.3 billion this year, with the majority of innovation concentrated in satellite constellations and direct-to-device connectivity, according to McKinsey.

Energy Sustainability
Remarkably, Energy Sustainability technologies garnered the largest share of equity investment in 2024, securing an impressive $223.2 billion. This funding supports a broad range of initiatives, including clean electrons, electrification, and clean molecules, all aimed at decarbonizing the global energy system. McKinsey points out that the demand for electricity has surged significantly, with data centers—frequently used for AI training—being major contributors. This escalating energy consumption places considerable strain on local power grids, underscoring the urgent need for decarbonization. However, to meet peak demand, some cities hosting these energy-intensive operations are concurrently building gas plants and engines alongside battery energy storage systems. This highlights the critical need for clean, sustainable, and efficient energy solutions to support growing data processing demands.

In summary, the 2025 outlook reveals substantial capital flowing into a diverse array of technologies, from cybersecurity to bioengineering. Energy Sustainability and the Future of Mobility stand out as areas attracting particularly massive investments. While these figures indicate strong confidence in technological advancement, the full impact of these investments on corporate workflows and daily life remains to be seen.