The bottom line
Research capital is shifting rapidly toward a smaller number of technologies and geographies perceived to offer outsized future returns.
Why it matters
Where R&D money, talent and infrastructure concentrate will shape the next generation of companies and scientific capability. The trend is as much about the geography and concentration of investment as its total size.
From the foresight archive
Jim Carroll first published this as Megatrend #26 on 2025-08-06. He revisited it one year later on 2026-09-10, using the retrospective to test the original call against what had happened since.
In that retrospective, Carroll’s own shorthand assessment was: Understated it. This isn’t reallocation — it’s concentration. Capital didn’t just flow toward ideas. It flowed almost entirely toward one idea.
This page treats the 2025 article as the original foresight call and the 2026 article as the first evidence checkpoint. Later signals and scorecards can be attached without rewriting the historical record.