29th June 2018

Technology report – A sector beyond definition

FAMGA is the acronym to capture the phenomena caused by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon. What is it about these companies that require their own definition?

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FAMGA is the acronym to capture the phenomena caused by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon. What is it about these companies that require their own definition? Arguably it is because they cannot be comfortably confined within a single sector definition. In terms of market cap, they are the among the most valuable companies in the world. However, when plotted on the tectonic plates of innovation and disruption, these organisations face competition like anyone else and from all quarters.

Look Deep and into the Cloud

As an alternative to analysing whether technology companies disrupt, it can be more instructive to focus on the key technologies. Two of the most ubiquitous are artificial intelligence and cloud computing. The charts below analyse these technologies using classifiers, itself a well-established field of data science. We exclude Chinese patenting

 

Deep learning and cloud computing patent owners

The fact that there are over 1,000 unique owners for each technology suggests that we are heading for a situation where it is not only devices that are connected but companies both within and across sectors.

Leopards change their spots

The West has been slow to adjust to the fresh approach to patents in China. Analysing the data provides evidence that requires close attention. More patents are filed in China than US and Europe combined. Chart 3 compares the USA and China patenting in Deep Learning and Cloud. Data speaks.

USA vs China Cloud computing and AI patent filings

How to respond means understanding the question

This report ends with the suggestion that disruption is not one thing but many. Disruption by what? Disruption by who? Disruption from where? Cipher, our analytics platform that views these questions through a patent lens, is uniquely positioned to support the multi-disciplinary teams tasked with answering these questions.

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