Watch
Plan
Act
Home
Artificial Intelligence
Immersive Technologies
Data Management
Digital Trust
Cybersecurity
Cloud Computing
Computing
Connectivity
Quantum Technologies
Wildcards
About Futuring
Tech Trends 2026 is produced by
SURF
Download the report (PDF)
Mature tech trends
Artificial Intelligence
More diversified access to large AI models
Increase in co-evolution between hardware and AI
Collaboration between humans and AI
Immersive Technologies
Democratisation of XR content creation using generative AI
Public investments in XR continue to increase
Data Management
Standardisation of data space architectures for secure and trusted data sharing
Growing significance of augmented data management
Digital Trust
Trusted digital recognitions are emerging
Digital Trust Frameworks: from hierarchical to distributed trust
Cybersecurity
Emerging dualuse of AI in cybersecurity
More accessible privacy-enhancing technologies to share data
Rising pressure to prepare for post-quantum cryptography
Emergence of measures for secure Internet of Things
The growing need for security protocols to work in the cloud
Cloud Computing
Growing investments in the European cloud infrastructure & sovereignty
More AI-driven hardware in data centres to manage workloads in the cloud
Computing
Increasing need for heterogeneous and hybrid computing platforms
Trade-offs in accuracy with approximate computing
Connectivity
Fixed wireless access
Fibre optic networks: strategic infrastructure for the knowledge economy
Quantum Technologies
Enhancing quantum computing robustness and potential
Quantum sensing integration to other domains