Designing and manufacturing specific chips for key sectors of the economy is one of the technological trends set to shape 2025 says the scientific team at the Eurecat technology centre. They also predict that generative artificial intelligence will continue to grow in the coming year with disruptive applications and greater integration with technologies including robotics and quantum computing.

In 2025, precision fermentation will additionally gain prominence, especially in agri-food, biomedicine and the environment, while in sustainability a boom in technologies to protect, conserve and enhance natural capital is expected drawing on solutions powered by artificial intelligence, blockchain, satellite imagery and new sensor development.

“Every year, Eurecat compiles the technological trends which will set the pace in its digital, industrial, biotechnological and sustainability areas of specialisation to provide pointers for the business and innovation ecosystem to enable it to identify the fields where opportunities may emerge in order to get ahead of the curve and stand out from the rest,” says Daniel Casellas, Eurecat’s scientific director.

In 2025, there will be “a huge technological challenge posed by the European Chips Act which seeks to make the continent more competitive and resilient in this critical sector, which in turn is pivotal for the digital and green transitions,” adds Ricard Jiménez, scientific director of Eurecat’s Industrial Area.

Over the coming year, the innovation system “will have to cooperate and work hard to position a wide range of technology areas in microelectronics in the state of the art as there is a tremendous opportunity for a vibrant semiconductor ecosystem to emerge in our country.”

“We will see initiatives targeted at designing and manufacturing the specific chips required by some applications for core sectors in our economy including the automotive industry, industrial electronics and the Internet of Things (IoT), medical devices and wearables.”

Next year will also feature initiatives to make industry much more sustainable by ramping up the efficiency of these devices. Examples of this “include technologies for semiconductor cooling and materials for chip encapsulation.”

In digital terms, generative artificial intelligence “will continue to be a growing technology field in 2025 and we will see how applications based on this branch of artificial intelligence will impact business sectors or processes where creativity is a core component,” notes Joan Mas, scientific director of Eurecat’s Digital Area. “In general it will help to step up productivity across practically all economic verticals with disruptive applications, new models and enhanced algorithms and greater integration with other technologies such as robotics or quantum computing.”

Business interest in investing in fermentation technologies

“Evolution in functional foods, new proteins and new ingredients with a technology and health function are reshaping the business interest in investing in fermentation technologies,” points out Francesc Puiggròs, scientific director of the Biotechnology Area at Eurecat.

“Scientific and technological development of this ancient technology, now a leader in the sector, makes it possible to enhance not only the functionalities and nutritional value of food products but also to deliver new standout features in terms of taste, texture and food safety while making these processes more efficient.”

In particular he underscores “the development of targeted fermentation processes with gene-edited strains of micro-organisms, known as precision fermentation, with enormous potential in the near future in agri-food, biomedicine and the environment.”

Technologies to protect, conserve and enhance natural capital

“There is growing interest in investing in natural capital,” argues Miquel Rovira, director of Eurecat’s Sustainability Area. “So we will soon see how omics, artificial intelligence, satellite imaging, the use of drones and new sensor development coupled with mainstream green technologies such as ecological restoration and site decontamination will come to the fore to meet a challenge that is also an emerging business opportunity.”

“Natural capital is the planet’s available stock of renewable and non-renewable resources which supply basic goods and services, including the essential conditions for human existence and from which we draw benefits such as food, water, wildlife and forests.”

Hence “natural capital has to be protected, conserved and enhanced, and this is where Eurecat comes in as innovation and technology are crucial in doing this.”

Agentic AI, a small step towards artificial general intelligence

Joan Mas thinks that 2025 will see the development of a new branch of artificial intelligence, starting to be identified as Agentic AI, which combines a number of artificial intelligence techniques, models and approaches that ‘‘lead to a new generation of autonomous agents able to analyse data, set goals and take action to achieve them, all with minimal human oversight’’.

This variant of artificial intelligence “will yield autonomous agents with a degree of cognition in some areas almost at the level of human cognition and the ability to autonomously solve dynamically changing problems,” meaning that “this new generation of agents will not only capture and analyse contextual data but also be able to define hypotheses, test solutions and make the best decisions.”

“Agentic artificial intelligence can be seen as a small step towards a higher stage of AI, known as artificial general intelligence or AGI, which is still some way off due to the difficulties machines have in understanding the overall context and in learning and reacting in line with human patterns.”

In lockstep, over the next year industry will be supported by mobile manipulators (MoMas) which are “a robotic technology that is scaling up very nicely from the applied research stages,” comments Ricard Jiménez.

Widespread uptake of mobile manipulators, which combine the mobility of autonomous mobile robots with the dexterity of robotic arms, is expected in the automotive, logistics, aerospace and other industries. Their ability to navigate complex environments and manipulate objects will make for further automation of tasks such as material handling, inspections and maintenance.

On the digital side, another trend that is likely to kick in during 2025 comes from the entry into force of the EU Artificial Intelligence Regulation (AI Act) which will require AI systems marketed in Europe to be certified.

“Where self-certification is not possible, we will see the emergence of notified bodies rolling out certification procedures to get the approval of certification authorities such as the recently founded Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence,” argues Joan Mas.