Focus on AI-driven foresight and open innovation
InnoTech 2026 took place in Beijing from May 23 to 25, 2026—an international conference focusing on innovation management, technology foresight, and digital transformation.
Our colleague Jan Peuckert attended the event on behalf of the New Production Institute and presented the latest research findings from the Value Creation Radar project. His observations show that many topics we have been methodically developing at the NPI for years are gaining global significance.
Research on relevant future trends presented
In his presentation titled “Relevance Metrics for Weak Signal Selection,” Jan presented findings from the Value Creation Radar. The focus was on how AI-supported horizon scanning methods can help identify strategically relevant future signals within large volumes of data. The study was based on a horizon scanning process for the German mechanical and plant engineering industry, involving more than 2.5 million documents and approximately 30,000 topic clusters.
The results underscore the potential of data-driven methods, but at the same time show that assessing strategic relevance still relies on the input of experts. Topics that are developing steadily and have already reached a certain level of maturity proved to be particularly relevant—not necessarily those with the strongest short-term growth.
International Perspectives on Innovation and Foresight
In addition to our own presentation, the conference offered numerous insights into current developments in innovation research. A highlight was the opening keynote by Eric von Hippel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the leading scholars in the field of open innovation. Equally noteworthy was the presentation by Jin Chen of Tsinghua University, who highlighted the growing importance of open source and innovation commons in China’s innovation strategy for the digital age.
Of particular interest from the NPI’s perspective: AI-driven strategic foresight is increasingly becoming a central research topic in international innovation management. The discussions at InnoTech 2026 thus confirmed the high relevance of approaches such as those developed in the Value Creation Radar for analyzing future changes in value creation systems.
