A little over a month ago, a private economic research group released a 450-page tome that's selling for a tidy $1,995 per copy. What could merit such a hefty price? Information about nanotechnology. Billed as "the first worldwide overview of this burgeoning field from a business perspective," the Nanotechnology Opportunity Report details the nanotech project advancements of some 455 companies and covers 95 investment firms that are pumping money into the field.
The report comes at a time when nanotechnology-the science of manufacturing goods at the level of atoms and molecules-is moving from tech-lab natter into the lexicons of a variety of industries. Experts say the technology will improve everything from medicine (which will better target diseases) to metals like aluminum (which has already been made more durable) to a range of consumer goods.
That promise has the lilliputian technology attracting big companies and big dollars. Governments worldwide have spent $2 billion over the past two years on research, and the Bush administration has budgeted more than $600 million for 2002. Private venture capital investment in the field could reach $1 billion this year. The companies developing nanotechnology run the gamut. Targesome, Inc., a California drug development company, and Merck, for example, are researching its use in the treatment or diagnosis of cancer. IBM, meanwhile, is building computer components that pack more data into less space.
"It's still early," says Jennifer Fonstad, managing director of the Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "But companies are developing uses for nanomaterials. It will be another several years before industries such as those in biosciences and molecular computing will make any money off nanotech." Considering how quickly tech buzzwords come and go, it's probably not too soon to commit this one to memory before it's yesterday's news.
