Contrary 2026 Tech Trends: AI Scaling, Energy Pressures, and Digital Trust Shift

[Para 1: The Lead] Contrary, the venture capital research firm founded in 2018, released its 2026 Tech Trends report, a 350-page analysis across AI, energy and resources, industrialization, healthcare, and digital interfaces. The report underscores intensifying compute demand and efficiency gains, rapid enterprise AI adoption, and escalating energy and resource pressures as AI expands into physical systems. [Para 2: AI and Enterprise Adoption] The report documents the continued scaling of foundation models alongside gains in efficiency, with inference costs falling from ~$40 per million tokens in 2023 to <$1 in 2025. Enterprise AI revenue surged from $17B in 2023 to $370B in 2025, now about 6% of the $3T SaaS market. OpenAI leads at ~35.8% in usage, while open-source models like DeepSeek are closing the gap. China’s open-source community is gaining influence in Western ecosystems. [Para 3: Industrialization and Automation] Waymo leads in autonomous ride-hailing with >1B miles and plans to expand to 15 new cities in 2026, while Tesla trails with ~1.5M miles in Austin. Widespread adoption of driverless taxis could save ~37,000 annual lives in the U.S. and cut social costs by $100B. Long-haul trucking, urban rail, and logistics automation show rapid deployment, with major implications for labor and urban planning. [Para 4: Energy and Compute Challenges] AI is driving record data center power use, with U.S. consumption expected to reach 219GW by 2030 versus 82GW in 2025, and global data center electricity demand set to quadruple. The report projects a 40% supply-demand gap in 2026 and rising water stress due to cooling needs. Nuclear power is repositioning globally, with China leading new reactor construction and U.S. public support at ~75%. [Para 5: Healthcare and Biotech Innovations] GLP-1 receptor agonists are reshaping the obesity and metabolic drugs market, growing from ~$10B in 2019 to over $150B in 2024 with dietary behavior shifts重塑 food industry demand. Biologics now account for ~50% of new molecular entities, and AI is accelerating protein folding and cell reprogramming. China is closing the gap in new drug approvals. [Para 6: Digital Interfaces and Trust Erosion] Millennials and Gen Z average 4+ hours daily screen time, outpacing older generations. AI chatbots are increasingly dominant in digital engagement, overtaking mobile games in revenue in 2025. AR is outperforming VR, with Meta, Apple, and Amazon pursuing consumer headsets. Meanwhile, trust in traditional media declines, deepfakes and malign AI tools rose 34.2% in recorded incidents, and loneliness and AI companionship are on the rise among young users.