The Top Strategic Technology Trends Identified for 2026 reflect the realities of an AI-powered, hyperconnected world.
Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company, recently announced its list of top strategic technology trends that organisations need to explore in 2026.
“Technology leaders face a pivotal year in 2026, where disruption, innovation, and risk are expanding at unprecedented speed,” said Gene Alvarez, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “The top strategic technology trends identified for 2026 are tightly interwoven and reflect the realities of an AI-powered, hyperconnected world where organisations must drive responsible innovation, operational excellence, and digital trust.”
“These trends represent more than technology shifts; they are catalysts for business transformation,” said Tori Paulman, VP Analyst at Gartner. “What feels different this year is the pace. We’ve seen more innovations emerge in a single year than ever before. Because the next wave of innovation isn’t years away, organisations that act now will not only weather volatility but shape their industries for decades to come.”
The top strategic technology trends for 2026 are:
AI Super Computing Platform
AI supercomputing platforms integrate CPUs, GPUs, AI ASICs, neuromorphic and alternative computing paradigms, enabling organisations to orchestrate complex workloads while unlocking new levels of performance, efficiency and innovation. These systems combine powerful processors, massive memory, specialised hardware, and orchestration software to tackle data-intensive workloads in areas like machine learning, simulation, and analytics.
By 2028, Gartner predicts that over 40% of leading enterprises will have adopted hybrid computing paradigm architectures into critical business workflows, up from the current eight percent.
“This capability is already driving innovation across a diverse range of industries,” said Paulman. “For example, in healthcare and biotech, companies are modelling new drugs in weeks instead of years. In financial services, organisations are simulating global markets to reduce portfolio risk, while utility providers are modelling extreme weather to optimise grid performance.”
Multiagent Systems
Multi-agent systems (MAS) are collections of AI agents that interact to achieve individual or shared complex goals. Agents may be delivered in a single environment or developed and deployed independently across distributed environments. “Adopting multiagent systems gives organisations a practical way to automate complex business processes, upskill teams, and create new ways for people and AI agents to work together,” said Alvarez. “Modular, specialised agents can boost efficiency, speed up delivery, and reduce risk by reusing proven solutions across workflows. This approach also makes it easier to scale operations and adapt quickly to changing needs.”
Domain-Specific Language Models (DSLMs)
CIOs and CEOs are demanding more business value from AI, but generic large language models (LLMs) often fall short for specialised tasks. Domain-specific language models (DSLMs) fill this gap with higher accuracy, lower costs, and better compliance. DSLMs are language models trained or fine-tuned on specialised data for a particular industry, function, or process. Unlike general-purpose models, DSLMs deliver higher accuracy, reliability, and compliance for targeted business needs. By 2028, Gartner predicts that over half of the GenAI models used by enterprises will be domain-specific. “Context is emerging as one of the most critical differentiators for successful agent deployments,” said Paulman. “AI agents unpinned by DSLMs can interpret industry-specific context to make sound decisions even in unfamiliar scenarios, excelling in accuracy, explainability, and sound decision-making.”
AI Security Platforms
AI security platforms provide a unified way to secure third-party and custom-built AI applications. They centralise visibility, enforce usage policies, and protect against AI-specific risks such as prompt injection, data leakage, and rogue agent actions. These platforms help CIOs enforce use policies, monitor AI activity, and apply consistent guardrails across AI.
By 2028, Gartner predicts that over 50% of enterprises will use AI security platforms to protect their AI investments.
AI-Native Development Platforms
AI-native development platforms use GenAI to create software faster and easier than was previously possible. Software engineers embedded in the business, acting as “forward-deployed engineers,” can use these platforms to work together with domain experts to develop applications. Organisations can have tiny teams of people paired with AI to create more applications with the same level of developers they have today. Leading organisations are creating tiny platform teams to allow non-technical domain experts to produce software themselves, with security and governance guardrails in place.
Gartner predicts that by 2030, AI-native development platforms will result in 80% of organisations evolving large software engineering teams into smaller, more nimble teams augmented by AI.
Confidential Computing
Confidential computing changes how organisations handle sensitive data. By isolating workloads inside hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs), it keeps content and workloads private even from infrastructure owners, cloud providers, or anyone with physical access to the hardware. This is especially valuable for regulated industries and global operations facing geopolitical and compliance risks and for cross-competitor collaboration. By 2029, Gartner predicts more than 75% of operations processed in untrusted infrastructure will be secured in use by confidential computing.
Physical AI
Physical AI brings intelligence into the real world by powering machines and devices that sense, decide, and act, such as robots, drones, and smart equipment. It brings measurable gains in industries where automation, adaptability, and safety are priorities. As adoption grows, organisations need new skills that bridge IT, operations, and engineering. This shift creates opportunities for upskilling and collaboration but may also raise job concerns and require careful change management.
Preemptive Cybersecurity
Preemptive cybersecurity is trending as organisations face an exponential rise in threats targeting networks, data, and connected systems. Gartner forecasts that by 2030, preemptive solutions will account for half of all security spending, as CIOs shift from reactive defence to proactive protection. “Preemptive cybersecurity is about acting before attackers strike using AI-powered SecOps, programmatic denial and deception,” said Paulman. “This is a world where prediction is protection.”
Digital Provenance
As organisations rely more on third-party software, open-source code, and AI-generated content, verifying digital provenance has become essential. Digital provenance refers to the ability to verify the origin, ownership, and integrity of software, data, media, and processes. New tools such as software bills of materials (SBoM), attestation databases, and digital watermarking offer organisations the means to validate and track digital assets across the supply chain.
Gartner predicts that by 2029, those who failed to adequately invest in digital provenance capabilities will be open to sanction risks, potentially running into the billions of dollars.
Geopatriation
Geopatriation means moving company data and applications out of global public clouds and into local options such as sovereign clouds, regional cloud providers, or an organisation’s own data centres due to perceived geopolitical risk. Cloud sovereignty, once limited to banks and governments, now affects a wide range of organisations as global instability increases. “Shifting workloads to providers with an increased sovereignty posture can help CIOs gain more control over data residency, compliance and governance,” said Alvarez. “This greater control may improve alignment with local regulations and build trust with customers who are concerned about data privacy or national interests.” Gartner predicts that by 2030, more than 75% of European and Middle Eastern enterprises will geopatriate their virtual workloads into solutions designed to reduce geopolitical risk, up from less than 5% in 2025. This year’s top strategic technology trends highlight those trends that will drive significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs, IT and high tech leaders within the next five years. Gartner clients can read more in the Gartner Special Report “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2026.”
Image Credit: Gartner
