The Intersection of Technological Trajectories: The Case of Medical Instrumentation and Artificial Intelligence

This article examines the interaction between the technological trajectories of artificial intelligence (AI) and medical instrumentation (MI) from 2010 to 2020. Using patent data, we created a cumulative graph of technological codes and measured the direction and intensity of the two fields’ interactions. The results reveal three things. First, there was a rapid expansion of AI/MI interaction, with a tendency toward a center/periphery structure in which AI technologies are dominant. Second, cognitive flows are highly asymmetrical, with AI transferring many more new combinations to MI than vice versa. Third, our prediction method had a very high success rate at the beginning of the decade; however, its advantage eroded as the structure solidified, reflecting the transition from a logic of exploration to a logic of exploitation.