High Technology

High technology refers to the applied use of sophisticated knowledge and is commonly associated with scientific and engineering innovations. High-technology industries are characterized by the broad application of innovations to a multiplicity of intermediate and end products as well as both process and product innovations.

This broad application has led to the common characterization of high-technology industries as “enabling” industries. They contribute to innovations in traditional industries and form the technical basis for emerging industries. High-technology firms provide devices and processes that are applied to a range of industrial contexts, including new hi-tech consumer end products (e.g., smart phones, digital cameras) and intermediate products for traditional industries (e.g., geographic information systems [GIS] in automobiles). High-technology industries include biotechnology, nanotechnology, information and communication technologies, and a range of material sciences (e.g., advanced polymers).

High technology is often associated with important intermediate products and process innovations, including software and microelectronics. Much of the focus of high-technology industries is on the research and development phase of production, although there are high-technology end producers. Consequently, the central inputs and locational factors for high technology are human and social capital and research and development capacity. Evidence indicates that high-technology firms tend to locate close to pools of skilled labor and close to each other.

A distinctive characteristic of high-technology industries is their extensive potential markets with (relatively) small production footprints. High-technology industries are often measured by significant patent rates and venture capital investment. These metrics are also applied to high-technology industrial districts and innovative regions. However, the measurements are imprecise. For example, the auto industry and agricultural industries have extensive patents and large research and development divisions but are generally considered to be traditional industries. Indeed, a discrete definition of “high-technology” firms, occupations, industries, or regions is complicated by their enabling role across multiple supply chains. Accordingly, high-technology occupations and industries are loosely understood as high skill, high wage, and high value-added.

The geographic distribution of high technology is a significant area of research, theory, and policy practice. Geographers have produced numerous studies of high-technology industrial districts such as Silicon Valley and Boston, as well as studies of the location patterns of industries such as microelectronics, biotechnology, and photonics. Simultaneously, theories about the development of high-technology regions have emerged that include learning regions, regional innovation systems, the “creative class,” the spatial implications of tacit and codified knowledge, and the factors that create an “innovative milieu.”

These theories and the body of empirical work that has grown around them have informed an emerging set of public policies aimed at technology-led economic development strategies. These policies include public investment in [Page 1427]targeted science and technology policies, expansion of applied university research, technology transfer programs between universities and industries, and investment in science parks, research centers, and high-technology incubators. The coordination of these policy strategies has become increasingly conscious of the spatial distribution of high-technology activities and is increasingly organized into and around regional innovation systems in both industrialized and industrializing countries.

Aerial view of Silicon Valley in Northern California

Source: Xin Zhu/iStockphoto.