For some time now, observers have been predicting that 2018 will see another very strong year for technology investments, so it’s certainly an area that’s well worth watching if you’re looking for a potentially lucrative place to put your money.
This isn’t just idle speculation either. One only has to look at how investments in digital technology grew in the UAE between 2013 and 2016. In the space of just three years these rose from just $35 million to $799 million, a growth rate of over 2200%. Therefore, with a track record like this, it promises even greater prospects for the future.
So what sorts of investments are looking to be the big growth areas for 2018?
Well, for some time now we’ve been hearing about the fast approach of “the internet of things”. It’s predicted that the IoT will transform the world in ways that we can only imagine and its effects will be felt everywhere from the way that we control the traffic to automatically ordering more when our refrigerators detect that we’re all out of orange juice. However, so far, the tech to make this all happen has yet to be developed and the market is wide open for a business to step into this space. Wayne Chang, a highly successful start-up investor hopes that at least one company will step in and take hold of this opportunity just as Apple did with the smartphone and the tablet.
No-one can have failed to notice that cryptocurrencies suddenly hit the headlines late in 2017 and continue to do so. But while there’s still much speculation about whether Bitcoin’s a bubble that’s about to burst, the blockchain technology that’s behind it is still very much of interest to many organisations. For example, major banks are known to be looking into it as a fast and secure way of managing transactions and some other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum are using it as a basis for a wide range of decentralized applications (DAPPS). Therefore, any companies that are involved in driving forward blockchain tech are ones to be watched.
However many are also urging caution about cryptocurrencies themselves as tech investments, mainly because of the extreme volatility they have been showing recently. So anyone looking to invest in currency would probably be better advised to deal in the forex market instead. The added security of so-called fiat currencies, which have the backing of banks and governments, makes them a far more stable prospect altogether.
Finally, if you were asked to name one person who typifies the future of tech, many people would single out Elon Musk and his Tesla Corporation. He certainly knows how to hit the headlines even if his company is yet to show a profit. Nevertheless, shares in the company continue to rise on the back of the growing importance of renewable energy. So even if you’re sceptical as some other observers are that Tesla will be heading into the black anytime soon, investing in companies who are developing renewable tech would certainly seem like quite a good idea.
So, those are three areas that are definitely worth exploring if you’re looking for investment opportunities. And with developments in all fields from AI to robotics advancing at such a rapid rate, these are also well worth exploring if you want to turn tech into a profit in 2018