Historically known as the global back office for the software industry, India has a tech ecosystem that evolved with a services-first mindset. Giants like Infosys and TCS built their success on efficient software delivery, but invention was neither prioritized nor rewarded. Meanwhile, India's R&D spending hovered at just 0.65% of GDP ( 25.4 billion) in 2024, far behind China's 2.68% ( 476.2 billion) and the US's 3.5% ( 962.3 billion). The muscle to invent and commercialize deep tech, from algorithms to chips, was just never built. Isolated pockets of world-class research do exist within government agencies like the DRDO (Defense Research & Development Organization) and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), but their breakthroughs rarely spill into civilian or commercial use.

In early 2020, when scientists rushed to develop a vaccine to take on the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it seemed like a really long shot. The fastest a vaccine had ever previously been developed was for mumps, back in the 1960s--an effort that took 48 months. Still, just nine months later, in December 2020, the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and a German deep-tech startup, BioNTech, had developed the first COVID-19 vaccine, validating the use of the new technology of mRNA-based vaccines. The first studies on DNA vaccines began 25 years ago, and the science of RNA vaccines too has been evolving for over 15 years. One outcome was mRNA technology, which required the convergence of advances in synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, and has transformed the science--and the business--of vaccines.

Move to Leeds and benefit from the jobs boom, says Melissa Berthelot, boss of medical appliance maker WarnerPatch, who relocated her business from London two years ago to benefit from a burgeoning deep tech industry in the West Yorkshire city. With skilled data science and software engineers in short supply across the south-east – and most other parts of the country – Leeds has proved a happy hunting ground for Berthelot, an engineer turned chief executive who used the first lockdown to make the jump north. Deep tech refers to sectors including artificial intelligence, robotics and bio-technologies. Its Blade Runner-like image may seem worlds away from the Emmerdale village tour on offer just west of town, but Leeds is managing to straddle old and new as it jumps up the UK rankings for job creation and productivity. The city has gained a reputation for developing the skilled staff and financial muscle needed to fund startups and innovation, especially in healthcare, but also in the city's more traditional areas of expertise – financial and legal services, manufacturing and retail.

Here are some postcards from 2021 and wishing you all the best for 2022! According to Crunchbase, 26 robotics startups were founded and funded in 2021. Many others were founded but not funded, or funded but not founded. AION Prosthetics Electronics, Manufacturing, Medical Device, Robotics AION Prosthetics develops a prosthetic system designed to provide an adjustable, durable, and affordable future for amputees. Atorika Augmented Reality, EdTech, Education, Edutainment, Leisure, Personal Development, Robotics, Subscription Service, Virtual Reality Atorika offers edutainment that adapts to any child.

Champ Suthipongchai is a General Partner at Creative Ventures, a method-driven venture capital firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among these, only 5% are decacorns, commanding a valuation of $10 billion or more. Unbeknownst to many, one-third of the decacorns are deep tech companies, commanding more than $500 billion in aggregate valuation. They are not always the household names we hear, but they are already among us. Deep tech is nothing new.

The U.K. is gaining in popularity as a great place to start a tech firm. The country is quickly catching up to China on the tech investment front, with VC investments reaching a record of $15 billion in 2020, according to TechNation. A global health crisis notwithstanding, London remained a favorite for investors. U.K. cities made up a fifth of the top 20 European cities, with names such as Oxford, Dublin, Edinburgh and Cambridge rising to the fore in 2020. Bristol proved especially popular among tech investors last year -- local businesses raked in an impressive $414 million in 2020, making it the third-largest U.K. city for tech investment.

The latest State of European Tech report highlights that investment in "deep tech" like AI has dropped 13 percent this year. Data from Dealroom was used for the State of European Tech report. Dealroom defines deep tech as 16 fields: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Drones, Autonomous Driving, Blockchain, Nanotech, Robotics, Internet of Things, 3D Technology, Computer Vision, Connected Devices, Sensors Technology, and Recognition Technology (NLP, image, video, text, speech recognition). In 2019, there was $10.2 billion capital invested in European deep tech. In 2020, that dropped to $8.9 billion: I think it's fair to say that 2020 has been a tough year for most people and businesses.

As European startups try to gain a competitive edge against the U.S. and China, there has been a big push to promote "deep tech." And recent years have indeed seen a surge in European startups developing products based on scientific breakthroughs. But it looks like the pandemic has put a dent in that momentum, at least for now. According to the latest State of European Tech report, funding for deep tech in Europe fell from $10.2 billion last year to $8.9 billion in 2020. The report is produced annually by venture capital firm Atomico in partnership with Slush, Orrick, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Technology companies provide much of the critical infrastructure of the modern state and develop products that affect fundamental rights. Search and social media companies, for example, have set de facto norms on privacy, while facial recognition and predictive policing software used by law enforcement agencies can contain racial bias. In this episode of Deep Tech, Marietje Schaake argues that national regulators aren't doing enough to enforce democratic values in technology, and it will take an international effort to fight back. Schaake--a Dutch politician who used to be a member of the European parliament and is now international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center--joins our editor-in-chief, Gideon Lichfield, to discuss how decisions made in the interests of business are dictating the lives of billions of people. Also this week, we get the latest on the hunt to locate an air leak aboard the International Space Station--which has grown larger in recent weeks. Elsewhere in space, new findings suggest there is even more liquid water on Mars than we thought. It's located in deep underground lakes and there's a chance it could be home to Martian life. Space reporter Neel Patel explains how we might find out. Back on Earth, the US election is heating up. Data reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley breaks down how technologies like microtargeting and data analytics have improved since 2016. Check out more episodes of Deep Tech here. Gideon Lichfield: There's a situation playing out onboard the International Space Station that sounds like something out of Star Trek… But there is an air leak in the space station.

Russia's biggest technology company enjoys a level of dominance that is unparalleled by any one of its Western counterparts. Think Google mixed with equal parts Amazon, Spotify and Uber and you're getting close to the sprawling empire that is Yandex--a single, mega-corporation with its hands in everything from search to ecommerce to driverless cars. But being the crown jewel of Russia's silicon valley has its drawbacks. The country's government sees the internet as contested territory amid ever-present tensions with US and other Western interests. As such, it wants influence over how Yandex uses its massive trove of data on Russian citizens. Foreign investors, meanwhile, are more interested in how that data can be turned into growth and profit. For the September/October issue of MIT Technology Review, Moscow-based journalist Evan Gershkovich explains how Yandex's ability to walk a highwire between the Kremlin and Wall Street could potentially serve as a kind of template for Big Tech.