5 investing ideas in emerging technologies

Many of today's most compelling investment themes were difficult to imagine just a decade ago. While predicting the next wave of breakthrough technologies is not an exact science, Fidelity portfolio managers are watching 5 emerging technology themes, from commercial space and AI agents to robotics, the “virtual cell,” and agricultural gene editing, all of which they believe could reshape industries and create compelling investment opportunities.

5 emerging technologies that could be investing opportunities

1. Potential investing opportunities in space technology

The emerging space industry is becoming a broad investment theme with implications across technology, communications, manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. As rocket launch costs fall and new commercial applications emerge, Fidelity portfolio managers see potential investment opportunities across the broader space ecosystem.

Sonu Kalra, who manages the Fidelity^® Blue Chip Growth Fund (), says a major catalyst has been the success of reusable rockets, which have reduced launch costs dramatically. If next-generation rockets are able to cut these costs by another order of magnitude—as some companies are aiming to do—he believes it could unlock entirely new commercial opportunities. "The great thing about space is that it is happening in front of our eyes," he says. Lower launch costs could eventually make activities such as space-based storage, mining, and even ultra-fast global travel commercially viable, Kalra says.

One of the opportunities attracting growing attention is orbital computing, or data centers in space. Kalra estimates that a conventional 1-gigawatt data center costs around $60 billion to build, with roughly $25 billion tied to land, power infrastructure, and physical facilities. By taking advantage of continuous solar power and the cold environment of space, he believes those infrastructure costs could fall dramatically. If launch costs continue to decline and other technical hurdles can be overcome, Kalra believes space-based computing could eventually become economically attractive for some computing workloads.

Other areas of potential application include satellite networks and space-based cellular broadband networks. Kalra says he prefers to invest through what he calls the industry's "picks and shovels," such as the semiconductor and aerospace suppliers that provide many of the components used throughout the sector. This approach could allow investors to potentially benefit from high levels of investment across the sector now, rather than trying to forecast exactly which use cases will ultimately prove successful.

2. Potential investing opportunities in AI agents

AI has become adept at answering questions, generating content, and writing software, but Kalra believes the next major evolution will be AI agents—software that can carry out tasks on a user's behalf. Rather than simply responding to prompts, AI agents are increasingly able to follow instructions, complete assignments, and even run multiple tasks simultaneously in the background.

Kalra says rapid improvements in large language models over the past year have accelerated progress toward this. With some models, it’s now possible to create AI agents simply by describing the tasks they should perform.

Although Kalra compares today's technology to the early days of the internet, when creating a website still required some technical knowledge, he believes AI agents are becoming increasingly accessible. "I think where the world is headed is that creating an AI agent will become as simple as clicking a mouse," he says. "You'll simply type in a prompt: 'I want to create an agent that does this.'"

Kalra expects AI agents to become increasingly common across businesses, where they could automate routine work, ranging from data processing and accounting to finance and legal services. He believes one of the biggest misconceptions about AI agents is that they will replace human workers. Instead, by taking over certain repetitive tasks, agents could free employees to focus on work that depends on creativity, experience, and judgment, while reducing the time spent on routine administrative tasks.

"Agents could actually enable humans to do a lot more and free up valuable time," he says. "They could make humans much more productive."

Everyday uses for consumers are also likely to expand as the technology becomes easier to use. Kalra envisions AI agents that compare grocery prices, research and book vacations, or handle other recurring tasks.

3. Potential investing opportunities in robotics and physical AI

While humanoid robots often capture the public's imagination, Kalra believes the potential uses and investing impacts for robotics extend much further. "I think of it as physical AI," he says, describing a category that includes autonomous vehicles and other AI-powered systems that can sense, navigate, and interact with the physical world.

In many ways, that future has already arrived. Autonomous vehicles and taxis are currently operating on public roads in several US cities. Kalra points to these as early examples of AI moving beyond the digital world and into the physical one.

The biggest near-term opportunity, however, may arrive in industrial settings rather than inside people's homes. Factories, warehouses, and distribution centers are increasingly using robots to move goods, sort inventory, and perform repetitive tasks. While developing humanoid robots remains a priority for some companies, Kalra believes deploying robots safely in homes remains a much more complex challenge. "It's relatively easy to have a robot in a controlled environment. It's much more difficult in the home, where you have pets and kids," Kalra says.

From an investment perspective, Kalra believes some of the most attractive opportunities may lie beyond the robot manufacturers themselves, many of which remain privately owned. Instead, he focuses on the companies supplying the semiconductors, sensors, and software that make physical AI possible.

While the commercial opportunity is emerging first in warehouses and factories, Kalra says household robotics could still be a longer-term opportunity. Today's robotic vacuum cleaners and autonomous lawnmowers automate individual tasks, but he expects more capable robots to eventually assist with a much broader range of household chores.

4. Potential investing opportunities in the “virtual cell”

AI could eventually help scientists answer one of biology's biggest unanswered questions: why human cells behave the way they do. Eddie Yoon, who manages the Fidelity^® Select Health Care Portfolio (), believes solving that puzzle could transform drug discovery and create a new wave of investment across the healthcare industry.

At the center of Yoon's thesis is the concept of the “virtual cell”— a computational model that aims to simulate how human cells function, interact, and respond to disease or potential treatments. Yoon believes advances in AI, combined with increasingly sophisticated analytical tools, could bring that vision closer to reality.

Yoon compares the opportunity to the genomics revolution of the 1990s. Just like the internet transformed computing, the human genome project transformed biotechnology, though it took years and cost billions of dollars to accomplish. Yoon believes virtual cells could prove to be just as consequential for biology.

Realizing that vision will require more than increasingly powerful AI models. It also depends on a new generation of life science tools capable of analyzing individual cells, proteins, and biological tissues in far greater detail. Yoon believes the life science tools industry, to which his fund allocated nearly 24% as of July 31, 2026, is likely to be among the earliest beneficiaries as AI helps researchers better understand human biology. "That's the industry group where you're going to see these green shoots turn into revenue," he says.

Yoon believes these advances could fundamentally change the way new medicines are developed. "There's going to be just a waterfall of investment that opens up in that space," he says, as researchers gain a deeper understanding of human biology and uncover new opportunities for drug discovery.

Although Yoon believes building a virtual cell is still 5 to 10 years away, he expects investment opportunities to emerge much sooner as computing capacity continues to expand. Many of the experiments scientists hope to perform today remain challenging simply because there is not enough computing power available. As that constraint eases, he believes AI could help researchers better understand human biology, opening the door to new approaches to drug discovery and biotechnology.

5. Potential investing opportunities in agricultural gene editing

Gene editing could become a major driver of agricultural productivity, according to Kyle Willinger, manager of the Fidelity^® Agricultural Productivity Fund (). He believes advances in the field could accelerate crop innovation by allowing scientists to make precise changes to plants far more quickly than previous breeding methods.

For decades, improving crop yields relied on either conventional breeding—selectively combining plants with desirable traits over many generations—or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which introduced foreign genetic material into a plant's genome. While both approaches have produced significant gains, Willinger says they are time-consuming, expensive, and often require lengthy regulatory approvals.

Unlike GMOs, gene editing allows researchers to target specific sections of a plant's existing genome without introducing foreign genetic material into the finished crop. That precision could accelerate the pace of innovation.

"The precision you're able to have will not only speed up product cycles, but create the potential to have higher yield gains," Willinger says. He also notes that AI is already helping researchers identify which genes to modify to improve traits such as yield, water efficiency, and pest resistance.

Gene-edited crops are beginning to move toward commercialization. Willinger notes that some recent advances in gene editing have led to faster fruit growth among new trees, or crops that produce multiple harvests per year instead of just one, or that require less water. In major row crops such as corn and soybeans, Willinger says some estimates have suggested the rate of annual yield improvements could eventually double as gene-edited products become more widely adopted.

While gene editing is creating new possibilities for crop development, Willinger notes it’s important to understand competitive dynamics in the seed business. Intellectual property ownership—such as ownership of elite germplasm, the underlying genetic foundation on which gene editing builds—can be an important competitive advantage in the industry. And he says decades of breeding expertise and distribution networks additionally pose significant barriers to entry to the seed business.

The bottom line on investing in emerging technologies

Taken together, these themes share a common thread: advances in computing, automation, and biotechnology are expanding what is technically and economically possible. While many technologies remain in the early stages of development, Fidelity's portfolio managers believe they could eventually create new markets, reshape existing industries, and open up investment opportunities far beyond the companies most directly associated with the technologies themselves. At the same time, due to the complexities of these themes and their potential to create rapidly shifting new winners and losers, it is as important as ever for investors to follow a research-based approach when considering an investment.

Investors can learn more about the mutual funds mentioned in this article, including fund objectives and most recent complete holdings, by visiting the fund summary pages on Fidelity.com:

• Fidelity^® Blue Chip Growth Fund ()
• Fidelity^® Select Health Care Portfolio ()
• Fidelity^® Agricultural Productivity Fund ()