Technological Waves That Drive Productivity: Historical Patterns and What the 2026 AI, Power, and Space Surge Means for Operations Leaders in Manufacturing and Mobility

I still remember standing on an old rail bed in southern Michigan, overgrown with weeds, the ties rotting away. A century and a half ago that line moved coal, steel, people, and ideas faster and cheaper than anyone thought possible. Whole industries sprang up around it: Track builders, locomotive factories, coal mines, signaling systems, even new financing models to fund it all. Cities relocated. GDP exploded. And then, decades later, it matured. The easy gains were captured, margins thinned, and the economy waited for the next breakthrough.

That pattern has been repeated for 200 years. Big technological leaps create ecosystems, drive massive productivity gains, and lift entire economies. When the wave matures, growth plateaus until something new arrives. As executives in manufacturing, automotive, and mobility, we live at the enterprise level where these macro waves hit the balance sheet. Understanding the cycle isn’t academic, it’s how you decide where to place big bets and where to stay disciplined.

In 2026 we’re no longer on a plateau. We’re at the front edge of a new acceleration driven by three converging waves so far: artificial intelligence, power infrastructure, and space technologies. The executives who recognize this early and align their organizations will capture disproportionate gains over the next decade. Those who treat them as isolated trends or wait for “proof” will get left behind.

The Repeatable Pattern

Every major technological wave follows the same arc:

1. Breakthrough technology emerges.
2. Supporting ecosystem explodes (infrastructure, suppliers, standards, talent).
3. Productivity surges as the new capability is deployed at scale.
4. The technology matures, incremental gains shrink, and growth plateaus.
5. Stagnation sets in until the next breakthrough.

When multiple waves hit close together, the uplift is multiplicative.

Here’s a simplified timeline of the biggest waves since the Industrial Revolution:

The gaps between waves have been shrinking as innovation compounds.

Historical Waves in Detail

Railroads (1830–1870) The steam locomotive didn’t just move goods faster; it created entirely new categories of economic activity. Steel production scaled, standardized time zones were invented, modern capital markets developed to fund massive projects. U.S. GDP grew at rates we only see today in emerging markets.

Electricity and the Internal Combustion Engine (1880–1920) Electricity rewired factories for continuous production. The automobile required roads, fuel distribution, and suburban land development. Telephones collapsed communication latency. Together they enabled the modern corporation and mass consumption.

Computers (1940–1980) From punch cards to microprocessors, computing automated back-office work and enabled complex supply-chain coordination. Companies that adopted early (Walmart’s logistics, American Airlines’ Sabre) built decades-long advantages.

Internet and Smartphones (1985–2010) Instant global information and communication created winner-take-all platforms and supply-chain visibility we now take for granted. Cloud computing turned capex into opex and made software a utility.

Each wave eventually matured. Gains became incremental. Margins compressed. Companies optimized ruthlessly, exactly where many of us spent the last decade.

The Recent Plateau

After the smartphone peak around 2010–2012, we entered a long maturity phase. Social media, cloud scalability, and mobile apps delivered real value, but the fundamental platforms were in place. Productivity growth slowed to historic lows. Capital went into share buybacks and efficiency programs instead of new capacity.

COVID accelerated the lean imperative. Layoffs in 2024–2025 were the visible edge of a broader margin squeeze. Companies cut costs, consolidated suppliers, and delayed big capital commitments. Many of us lived it: headcount frozen, capex approvals requiring 18-month paybacks, marketing budgets slashed.

That was the plateau.

2026: Three Waves Converging

We’re now seeing the early contours of the next acceleration, and unusually, it’s not one wave. It’s three that reinforce each other.

1. Artificial Intelligence (Compute Wave) Training and inference costs are collapsing while capability explodes. Multimodal models are moving from pilots to production systems that can reason across text, vision, and physical processes. In manufacturing this means predictive maintenance that actually predicts, quality inspection that never misses, and supply-chain optimization that adapts in real time.
2. Power Infrastructure AI data centers alone are projected to consume as much power as entire mid-sized countries by 2030. Renewables, nuclear restart, grid-scale storage, and distributed generation are all scaling simultaneously. For industrial companies this is both constraint and opportunity: power availability is becoming a competitive moat.
3. Space Technologies Satellite broadband (Starlink and competitors), orbital manufacturing, and eventual lunar/asteroid resource utilization are creating new infrastructure layers. For ops leaders this translates into resilient connectivity in remote plants, real-time global telemetry, and eventually new supply sources.

These are not isolated. AI needs massive reliable power. Power projects need AI for grid optimization. Space needs both for computation and energy in orbit.

Macro Evidence We’re Turning

• U.S. productivity growth ticked up in 2024–2025 for the first time in years (BLS data).
• Private fixed investment in equipment and intellectual property is accelerating.
• Power demand forecasts have been revised upward repeatedly as hyperscalers sign massive PPAs.
• Talent is flowing back into deep-tech and industrial roles after years in consumer tech.

The plateau is cracking.

What This Means for Operations and Technology Leaders

As CTOs, VPs of Operations, and engineering leaders in manufacturing, automotive, and mobility, your job is to translate macro waves into enterprise advantage. Here are concrete moves I’m watching and recommending:

Power as Strategic Asset Stop treating electricity as a utility bill. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are co-developing generation projects because reliable, low-cost power is now a competitive requirement. You can start smaller: rooftop solar + battery storage can cut peak demand charges 20–40% and provide resilience. In some states you can sell excess back to the grid and turn energy into a profit center.

Connectivity Beyond Fiber Satellite systems now deliver low-latency broadband anywhere. Use them as primary or backup links for new greenfield plants, remote mining operations, or temporary sites. It changes where you can locate capacity.

AI Deployment with Ownership Treat AI as infrastructure, not just software. Build internal competency so you’re not locked into vendor roadmaps. Start with high-ROI use cases that compound: demand sensing, energy optimization, or quality prediction.

Internal Platform Thinking If your industry lacks a clear wave leader, consider becoming one. Package your proprietary data and processes into a platform others can build on. Apple did this with the iPhone ecosystem. Industrial companies can do the same with robotics standards, energy management protocols, or supply-chain visibility layers.

Questions Every Leadership Team Should Be Asking Right Now

1. Where in our operations is power or connectivity a growing constraint? What would change if we removed it?
2. Which of our processes still rely on human judgment that AI could augment or replace in the next 24 months?
3. Do we have proprietary data or know-how that could become the nucleus of a platform others want to plug into?
4. Are we allocating capital to ride these waves or just optimizing the last one?
5. If we do nothing different, where will our cost position and capability be relative to competitors in 2030?

Final Thought

2026 is not another year of incremental efficiency. It’s the front edge of a productivity surge that will separate winners from survivors in our industries. The executives who treat AI, power, and space as interconnected strategic imperatives, and who start aligning their organizations now, will capture the same kind of multi-decade advantage that early adopters of electricity or computing did.

The rails are being laid again. The question is whether your company will help build them or just ride the train.

If these macro shifts and their operational implications are useful, join the newsletter. I send a concise update every week on exactly these topics, tailored for manufacturing and mobility leaders. No fluff, just signal.