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TECHNOLOGYCYCLES.ORG EXPLORING TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS

250 Years. Six Technological Revolutions.One World Transformed.

From the first water-powered factories to artificial intelligence, explore six technological supercycles and the five overlapping waves of innovation within each.

THE WEALTH THAT MAKES WEALTH

Each Revolution Inherits What Earlier Generations Built.

Factories, cities, schools, scientific knowledge, skilled workers, infrastructure and institutions accumulated into a productive ecosystem that enabled each successive revolution. The modern middle class became a vital part of that process.

Explore the Six Supercycles CARLOTA PEREZ: FIVE REVOLUTIONS
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As the sixth revolution unfolds, the question is no longer just how much wealth new technology can create, but how that wealth will strengthen the ecosystem that makes innovation possible.

The Six Technology Supercycles:
A New View of Technological Revolutions

For more than two centuries, technological revolutions have repeatedly transformed how humanity produces wealth, organizes work, builds industries, and connects markets. Building on Carlota Perez’s groundbreaking research, I have developed a new interpretation of these transformations. My research suggests that each technology supercycle unfolds through five overlapping waves of innovation, with each wave building upon the capabilities created by those before it. Examining these patterns across industrial history has led me to a significant conclusion: artificial intelligence represents the beginning of a sixth technology supercycle, one that is already developing while the fifth continues toward maturity. A new way of understanding the past 250 years of economic transformation, the forces reshaping our world today, and the extraordinary changes that may lie ahead.


Explore the Six Technology Supercycles and the Five-Wave Model ?

All models are wrong, but some are useful

This quote comes from the late statistician George Box. Box meant that all models are imperfect representations of reality because the factors are, by definition, simplified. However, simplified factors can still be valuable for providing insight and understanding in predicting real-world phenomena. Here at Technology Cycles Org, we seek to remedy that. Models are necessarily simplified representations of reality, but their value lies in helping us understand complex systems and recognize recurring patterns. TechnologyCycles.org explores how these models can be refined and expanded to better understand the technological revolutions that shape our world. Scroll on …

The Mission of TechnologyCycles.org

TechnologyCycles.org was created to explore how technological revolutions transform economies, industries, and societies. Building on the pioneering research of economists such as Nikolai Kondratiev, Joseph Schumpeter, and Carlota Perez, the website traces the evolution of technology-cycle theories, examines their historical and mathematical foundations, and maintains an extensive reference library of innovations and supporting research. This work has now expanded into a new six-supercycle model identifying five interconnected waves of technological development within each revolution. The ultimate objective is to assemble a comprehensive, curated knowledge base that future artificial intelligence systems can use to model economic transformations, anticipate disruptions, and help societies navigate technological change. The articles below explain the intellectual foundations, historical evidence, and long-term ambitions behind this mission.

TechnologyCycles.Org – our Mission

Technology Cycle Section Highlights

Perez’s 5 Revolutions

Evolution of Cycle Theory

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Singularity Stacks
Technology Cycles Primer

SuperCycles

Modeling the math

Supercycle Math

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Disruptions Dawn

Carlota Perez: The Foundations of Technology Supercycles

Carlota Perez’s pioneering research identifies five great technological revolutions beginning with the Industrial Revolution in 1771. Her model explains how these transformations progress through economic and institutional phases, from the initial emergence of revolutionary technologies through speculative investment, financial crises, adjustment, and eventual widespread deployment.

Her distinction between Installation and Deployment, separated by a critical Turning Point, provides an essential framework for understanding how societies adapt to new productive capabilities. Building on this research, my five-wave model examines how successive clusters of technological innovation create the industries, infrastructure, and markets that sustain each supercycle.

Together, these perspectives help explain both the technological development of great economic transformations and the financial and institutional challenges that accompany them.

Explore Carlota Perez’s Five Technological Revolutions

Disruptions Dawn

Every technology supercycle begins with breakthrough innovations that unleash powerful forces of economic transformation. Yet the full impact emerges as complementary technologies, infrastructure, investment, labor capabilities, and markets develop together through successive waves of innovation. Disruptions Dawn examines the fundamental forces that allow these breakthroughs to expand, disrupting established industries and ultimately transforming entire economic systems. The articles explore the structural conditions, historical innovations, and economic relationships that make these transformations possible.


Chapters summarized from the book: Disruptions Dawn – from Steam to Silicon

Artificial Intelligence: Modeling the Technology Supercycles

Artificial intelligence presents two extraordinary opportunities for the study of technology supercycles. First, AI is itself the foundation of the emerging sixth supercycle, introducing new productive capabilities that may transform knowledge work, science, infrastructure, and economic organization. Second, AI offers the possibility of studying the five preceding revolutions in ways never before possible.

The five-wave framework provides a new structure for organizing historical innovations, infrastructure development, industrial investment, economic transitions, and institutional responses. One of the long-term objectives of TechnologyCycles.org is to assemble the historical knowledge necessary for AI systems to recognize these relationships, examine emerging technological waves, and model alternative economic futures. Better understanding these patterns could help businesses, governments, and societies anticipate disruptions and prepare for the transformations ahead.

Explore AI Modeling of Technology Supercycles

Visualizing Technological and Economic Transformation

Technological revolutions transform far more than industries and economic systems. They reshape how people experience the world, influencing architecture, art, communication, cultural expression, and the organization of society.

My visual research explores how these transformations can be represented through patterns, relationships, and historical imagery. As artificial intelligence develops increasingly sophisticated abilities to analyze visual information, these experiments may contribute to new methods for representing complex technological and economic systems. The ultimate ambition is to develop visual and conceptual tools that can support AI models examining the interconnected forces driving technological supercycles.

Coming in Future: Explore How Technological Revolutions Shaped Modernism

Building an AI Visual Lexicon

Visual Explorations of Technological Change

Beginning in the 1980s, I explored the cultural and social consequences of technological change through a series of visual experiments. These studies examine the effects of industrial transformation, changing economic conditions, and technological innovation upon art, music, communities, and society. Together, they provide another perspective on the profound transformations associated with successive technology supercycles.

Began 1980s

technology cycles 1980s visual experiments

De-industrialization

See early studies

Codex Studies

technology studies the Codex studies

Tech impact on art

The Codex studies

Post-Mod Prayers

Technology cycles postmodern prayer series

Tech impact on music

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Eyewitness Series

Technology cycles eyewitness series

Eyewitness series

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