McKinsey: five compute and connectivity frontiers underpinning the next wave of AI

By McKinsey & Company.

This email from McKinsey & Company promotes its annual "McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook" report, authored by Michael Chui, Roger Roberts and Tanguy Catlin. This year's edition looks at 14 technology trends relevant to business leaders, along with the forces shaping their development and adoption. The email focuses on five of those 14 trends, which it groups under the heading "five frontiers of compute and connectivity" and presents as the infrastructure on which AI and other emerging technologies are built and deployed.

The first trend is application-specific semiconductors: custom-designed chips optimized for specialized computing workloads. According to the email, chips for artificial intelligence are increasingly designed in close coordination with software systems, memory architectures, network infrastructure and data center operating models to meet the demands of large-scale AI deployment. The email quotes associate partner Yvonne Ferrier, who notes that "the competitive frontier in AI infrastructure is shifting from chips to full-system performance." Ferrier adds that custom accelerators are no longer just a source of cost and performance advantage for hyperscalers. They are becoming the foundation of differentiated cloud platforms, so the value goes to those who can co-design silicon, systems, software and services in an integrated way.

The second trend is cybersecurity and trustworthy systems, which McKinsey describes as technologies that help protect computer networks, make digital interactions more verifiable in interconnected environments and strengthen trust in digital systems. The email says these cybersecurity systems are increasingly AI-enabled and include zero-trust architectures and identity and access management. They sit alongside other trust-enhancing technologies such as blockchain-based record-keeping systems, tokenization platforms and quantum-safe cryptography.

The third trend is advanced connectivity, which covers the technologies that move data between people, devices and systems: 5G and the emerging 6G, Wi-Fi 6 and 7, low-power IoT networks, fiber and optical transport, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, direct-to-device services, and software-defined, AI-managed networks.

The fourth trend is immersive-reality technologies, which blend digital experiences with the physical world: augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), haptics and AI-powered smart glasses. According to the email, this category is moving beyond headset-centered immersion toward context-aware wearables that help people see, hear and interact with their surroundings in new ways.

The fifth trend is quantum technologies, which harness quantum mechanics to unlock new capabilities in computing, communication and sensing. The category includes quantum computers for selected problems such as simulation and optimization, quantum-safe security against future encryption risks, and quantum sensors for high-precision measurement of physical signals.

Beyond these five trends, the email also promotes another McKinsey piece titled "What is the state of AI in 2026?" According to the text, it covers recent research on coding agents and other agentic AI tools, investment and costs, workforce implications, and practices that can help turn AI momentum into lasting business value. The email notes that the companies getting the most out of AI ("AI high performers") stand out for how they put it into practice and how they turn adoption into measurable impact.

The email is a promotional corporate newsletter and gives no specific figures, client cases or quantitative data in the body of the message. It only describes the trend categories and links to longer content: the full 14-trend report and the state of AI in 2026 report. This summary therefore sticks to the descriptions and the direct quote in the email and does not add figures or details from the full report that the email leaves out.