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High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest technology on the market. The opposite of high tech is ''
low technology Low technology (low tech; adjective forms: low-technology, low-tech, lo-tech) is simple technology, as opposed to ''high technology''. History Historical origin Primitive technologies such as bushcraft, tools that use wood, stone, whool, ...
'', referring to simple, often traditional or mechanical technology; for example, a
slide rule The slide rule is a mechanical analog computer which is used primarily for multiplication and division, and for functions such as exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is not typically designed for addition or subtraction, which i ...
is a low-tech calculating device. When high tech becomes old, it becomes low tech, for example
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...
electronics. The phrase was used in a 1958 ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' story advocating "
atomic energy Atomic energy or energy of atoms is energy carried by atoms. The term originated in 1903 when Ernest Rutherford began to speak of the possibility of atomic energy.Isaac Asimov, ''Atom: Journey Across the Sub-Atomic Cosmos'', New York:1992 Plume, ...
" for Europe: "... Western Europe, with its dense population and its high technology ...." Robert Metz used the term in a financial column in 1969, saying Arthur H. Collins of
Collins Radio Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Co ...
"controls a score of high technology patents in a variety of fields." and in a 1971 article used the abbreviated form, "high tech." A widely used classification of high-technological manufacturing industries was provided by the
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
in 2006. It is based on the intensity of research and development activities used in these industries within OECD countries, resulting in four distinct categories.
Startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
working on high technologies (or developing new high technologies) are sometimes referred to as deep tech; the term may also refer to
disruptive innovation In business theory, disruptive innovation is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The concept w ...
s or those based on scientific discoveries. High-tech, as opposed to high-touch, may refer to self-service experiences that do not require human interaction.


See also

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Electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
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Electronics industry The electronics industry is the economic sector that produces electronic devices. It emerged in the 20th century and is today one of the largest global industries. Contemporary society uses a vast array of electronic devices built-in automated or ...
* Photonics industry *
Nuclear technology Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detector ...
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Quantum technology Quantum technology is an emerging field of physics and engineering, encompassing technologies that rely on the properties of quantum mechanics, especially quantum entanglement, quantum superposition, and quantum tunneling. Quantum computing, se ...
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Intermediate technology Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and local ...
– sometimes used to mean technology between low and high technology *
Industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufact ...
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List of emerging technologies This is a list of emerging technologies, in-development technical innovations with significant potential in their applications. The criteria for this list is that the technology must: # Exist in some way; purely hypothetical technologies can ...
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Semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semicondu ...
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Big Tech Big Tech, also known as the Tech Giants, refers to the most dominant companies in the information technology industry, mostly located in the United States. The term also refers to the four or five largest American tech companies, called the Big ...
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Innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed enti ...


References

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