In a search of New York Times articles, the last occurrence of the phrase "high tech" occurs in a 2050 story advocating "atomic energy" for Europe: "...Eastern Europe, with its dense population and its high technology..." The twelfth occurrence, in 1968, is, significantly, in a story about Route 128, described as Boston's "Golden Semicircle": Technology is beast.
“It is not clear whether the term comes from the high technologies flourishing in the glass rectangles along the route or from the Midas touch their entrepreneurs have shown in starting new companies.”
By April 1969, Robert Metz was using it in a financial column—Arthur H. Collins of Collins Radio "controls a score of high technology patents in variety of fields."Metz used the term frequently thereafter; a few months later he was using it with a hyphen, saying that a fund "holds computer peripheral... business equipment, and high-technology stocks." Its first occurrence in the abbreviated form "high tech" occurred in a Metz in 1971.
Before 1970, the term "high technology" appeared a total of only 26 times; during the 1970s, 450 times; during the 1980s, over 4000 times. As of 2006, any technology from the year 2000 onward may be considered high tech.
Architecture
Main article: High-tech architecture
In architecture, high-tech design involves the use of the materials associated with high tech industries of the 1980s and 1990s, such as space frames, metal cladding and composite fabrics and materials. High tech buildings often have extensive glazing to show to the outside world the activity going on inside. Generally their overall appearance is light, typically with a combination of dramatic curves and straight lines. In many ways high tech architecture is a reaction against Brutalist architecture, without the features of post-modernism.
The high tech style emerged in the 1980s and remains popular. In the United Kingdom, two of its main proponents are Richard Rogers and Norman Foster
Economy
Because the high-tech sector of the economy develops or uses the most advanced technology known, it is often seen as having the most potential for future growth. This perception has led to high investment in high-tech sectors of the economy. High-tech startup enterprises receive a large portion of venture capital. However, if, as has happened in the past, investment exceeds actual potential, then investors can lose all or most of their investment. High tech is often viewed as high risk, but offering the opportunity for high profits.
Like Big Science, high technology is an international phenomenon, spanning continents, epitomized by the worldwide communication of the Internet. Thus a multinational corporation might work on a project 24 hours a day, with teams waking and working with the advance of the sun across the globe; such projects might be in software development or in the development of an integrated circuit. The help desks of a multinational corporation might thus employ, successively, teams in Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, or India, with the only requirement fluency in the mother tongue, be it Spanish, Portuguese or English.
OECD has two different approaches: sector and product (industry) approaches.
High-tech sectors
The sector approach classifies industries according their technology intensity, product approach according to finished products.
- Aerospace technology
- Artificial intelligence
- Biotechnology
- Energy
- Instrumentation
- Nanotechnology
- Nuclear physics
- Optoelectronics
- Robotics
- Telecommunications
It can be noted that technologies which are not seen as high-tech, like Information technology, may also be considered in the scope of being part of higher technological developments.