The world associates investment booms with speculative bubbles. This is often true. Not to forget, however, that these waves are engines that accelerate the emergence and scaling of new industries. Over the past years, the world has experienced peaks in digitalization (2021), the ESG agenda (2023), and artificial intelligence (2025). Now, the question is: what will come next?
The Dynamics of a Productive Investment Boom
Evgeny Vinokurov.
In its productive form, an investment boom (or, as we call it, a “wave of investment megahype”) acts as a catalyst for economic evolution: quickly directing capital, attention, and entrepreneurial energy into new areas that later become full-fledged industries.
From an investor’s perspective, such a boom unfolds in several phases. First comes the sector’s hidden formation, dominated by large players with long-term capital and access to research. Next is the growth phase: numerous startups enter the market, and expansion accelerates rapidly, often exponentially. Finally, the normalization phase emerges, marked by clear leaders, market consolidation, and the initial hype transitioning into a mature economic sector.
A common investor mistake is mistaking an emerging trend for a fully developed boom—what could be called “creative self-deception.” The proclaimed potential of a technology often diverges significantly from its actual maturity. As a result, capital flows too early, and returns may take years to materialize.
Thus, successful investment in new technology waves requires not only belief in the growth story but also the ability to accurately identify the market phase.
The most recent three waves – Digital, ESG, and AI
The past several years have been characterized by a series of major investment waves. The peak of digitalization came in 2021, ESG reached its high in 2023, and artificial intelligence became the current global wave by 2025.
Each new wave builds on, rather than replaces, the previous one. Digital created vast datasets, cloud infrastructure, and digital channels. ESG reshaped corporate strategy, capital allocation priorities, and demand for new standards. AI elevated the value of computation, data, and automation to a fundamentally new level.
AI is important not only in itself—it already acts as a catalyst for adjacent areas: drug development, autonomous systems, new materials, medical diagnostics, augmented reality devices, and complex infrastructure management.
Likely Investment Waves Over the Next 20 Years
Seven areas appear poised to generate new investment booms over the next two decades: biotechnology and longevity, robotics and autonomous systems, the space economy, virtual reality, energy storage and grids, climatetech, and quantum computing.
This does not mean all will emerge simultaneously or with equal intensity. Each shows either a large potential market, critical technological shifts, or pressure from fundamental global economic constraints—labor shortages, climate risks, the need for new growth sources, and efficiency improvements.
In other words, these are not just “trendy” topics. The next probable waves are rooted in long-term structural needs of the global economy.
The Most Likely Candidates in the Coming Years
Among all candidates, three stand out as particularly likely before the end of this decade: biotechnology focusing on longevity; robotics and autonomous systems; and maybe (I speak here with less conviction), virtual reality.
Biotechnology addresses multiple challenges simultaneously: aging populations, labor shortages, growing demand for personalized medicine, and faster development of new treatments. According to recent reports, the global biotechnology market was approximately $1.9–2.2 trillion in 2024–2025 and could reach nearly $5.9 trillion by 2034, growing at an average annual rate of 11.7%.
Robotics and autonomous systems are another likely area. The global robotics market is projected at $64.8 billion in 2025 and could grow to $376 billion by 2035—almost sixfold. Drivers include labor shortages, the need for efficiency, and advances in AI, logistics, and autonomous manufacturing.
Virtual reality has experienced a few false starts. Nevertheless, it has the potential to change our offices, healthcare, education, and entertainment. The global AR/VR market is estimated at $75 billion in 2025 and could reach $693 billion by 2035. Beyond entertainment, applications include education, healthcare, vocational training, digital twins, and new forms of remote collaboration.
Viewed from the perspective of large corporations or governments rather than venture capitalists, these three areas appear highly practical: they promise not only corporate value creation but also tangible benefits for labor markets, productivity, and quality of life.
Why Biotechnology Could Become the Next Megatrend
Biotechnology differs from many other emerging fields because it is underpinned by a strong macroeconomic rationale. The global economy is increasingly constrained by labor shortages—a trend made starkly visible by the COVID-19 pandemic and now a persistent feature of labor markets, including in advanced economies.
The pandemic also highlighted a fundamental truth: people remain the key economic factor. According to recent data, in 2020, the world lost the equivalent of 500 million full-time jobs in work hours, with a global GDP loss of around 3%.
Traditional solutions to labor shortages—higher birth rates, migration, automation—have limitations. Higher birth rates take 20–30 years to affect labor supply. Migration is increasingly complex and politically sensitive amid deglobalization. Automation is critical, but cannot fully replace humans across all sectors in the near term.
In this context, extending the economically productive period of life becomes particularly important. The goal is not merely to live longer but to remain healthy, capable, and economically active for longer. Biotechnology, along with advances in medicine, genetics, regenerative therapy, and AI-driven drug development, creates a fundamentally new horizon.
The potential macroeconomic impact of extending productive longevity in the world’s leading economies is enormous. One additional year of healthy life could deliver an economic impact equivalent to increasing GDP over 20 years by $18.2 trillion in China and $15.1 trillion in the US.
The key point is that biotechnology is not just a trendy sector. It represents a likely investment wave where technological breakthroughs align with a fundamental global economic need. Investments in extending healthy and productive life function simultaneously as social policy and economic growth policy.
The next investment wave is likely to emerge where a new technology can alleviate structural constraints on global growth. Today, that constraint is labor scarcity. This is why biotechnology appears not just as a candidate, but perhaps as the strongest contender for the next megatrend. Robotics and virtual reality are also likely to scale quickly, for much the same reasons. But biotechnology has a rare advantage: it combines a large market, strong technological momentum, and a direct response to the structural challenge of aging populations and labor shortages. In the logic of long investment cycles, such combinations typically generate the most powerful waves.
The author is Evgeny Vinokurov, Chief Economist of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB)
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
