Read time: 6 minutes
Highlights
Energy has moved from background input to strategic accelerator, and that’s why my TECHXponential™ concept now needs a fourth engine.
- The Proven Foundation: My core TECHXponential™ model, built on 5 technologies and 3 accelerators, has been the backbone of my foresight and speaking work for years and remains incredibly strong.
- The Veterans Still Matter: AI, Quantum Computing, and Sensors have withstood the test of time since the model’s inception; they haven’t been replaced, they’ve matured and continue to accelerate the 5 core technologies.
- The Cost Floor: Energy sits underneath the cost structure of almost every food technology, which means the future of abundant, near-free power changes the economics of the entire system.
- The Cheap Energy Shift: The logic behind the Energy Accelerator is captured in Cheap Energy, Cheap Food, where falling power costs start unlocking food production models that once looked too expensive to scale.
- The Strategic Buffer: Energy is the metabolism that enables local, resilient production and helps smooth out supply chain shocks caused by regional conflict, climate volatility, and logistical fragility.
Have you ever had one of those moments where a framework you’ve trusted for years still feels right, but one emerging force becomes impossible to ignore? That’s exactly where I am with my TECHXponential™ model right now.
For years, my core TECHXponential™ model, built on 5 technologies and 3 accelerators, has been the proven foundation of my foresight and speaking work. It has helped me interpret signals, frame disruption, and guide leaders through a food system that keeps changing faster than most organisations can respond.
When the model went through a major update in April 2026, one point became crystal clear. The original accelerators, AI, Quantum Computing, and Sensors, have absolutely withstood the test of time. If anything, they are more relevant than ever.
But here’s the problem… they are no longer the full story.
The blistering pace of the energy transition now necessitates a fourth accelerator pillar.
This isn’t a replacement. It isn’t a retreat from the original model. It’s a sharp and necessary fine-tuning.
The rationale is simple; energy is the ultimate cost floor. It sits underneath the cost structure of almost every food technology. If energy becomes abundant and near-free, the economics of the entire system begin to change.
The Durability of the Veterans
Before I get to Energy, I want to be clear about the three veterans.
AI has proven its value repeatedly. We’ve moved from chat interfaces to autonomous agents, and that means faster formulation, faster modelling, faster decision support, and faster execution right across R&D and operations.
While still some years from true commercialisation, Quantum Computing has also earned its place. The molecular complexity of food, biology, and materials hasn’t gone away. If anything, it has become more commercially relevant as businesses search for breakthroughs in enzymes, metabolic pathways, and optimisation.
Sensors continue to deliver as well. From plant-side diagnostics to body-side biometric feedback, they provide live visibility into systems that used to be hidden. That’s an extraordinary advantage.
So no, the original accelerators haven’t faded. They have matured. They have continued to accelerate the 5 core technologies. But they are no longer the whole picture.
The Rationale for Energy
This is where the model evolves.
Energy is not just another trend line to monitor. It is the substrate beneath the substrate. It powers production, cooling, processing, logistics, controlled environments, bioreactors, sensors, computation, and the infrastructure that makes advanced food systems possible.
That means falling energy costs don’t just improve margins. They alter viability.
A platform that looks marginal under expensive electricity can look highly investable under abundant low-cost power. A production system that once seemed too energy-intensive can suddenly become strategic.
Something doesn’t quite add up if we continue treating energy as a background variable. It isn’t background anymore. It’s becoming the new force multiplier.
Cheap Energy, Cheap Food
That’s why I’ve written about Cheap Energy, Cheap Food.
I believe this idea captures one of the biggest shifts of the decade ahead. As renewable electricity becomes cheaper, more distributed, and more abundant, it starts buffering the food system in entirely new ways. It changes where food can be produced, what can be produced competitively, and how resilient those systems can become.
Just think about this for a minute… when the cost of power drops far enough, the commercial threshold moves.
That changes the map.
Power to Food
This is where the Energy Accelerator becomes genuinely exciting.
We are moving towards a world of Power to Food, where electricity, CO2, and water can be converted into proteins, fats, and nutrients through biological and electro-biological systems. That is not a small shift. It rewrites one of the oldest assumptions in the food economy.
Food is no longer only something we grow in fields or raise in paddocks. Increasingly, it can be manufactured through energy-enabled biological systems.
And here’s why that matters so much. Many of these technologies have not been waiting on scientific imagination. They’ve been waiting on economics.
Technologies can be technically impressive but commercially constrained by the cost of energy and infrastructure. Near-free energy changes that. It can unlock production models that were previously too expensive to scale, centralise manufacturing closer to demand, and make local biological production far more realistic.
That’s not just innovation; it’s economic reclassification.
Traditional Agriculture: Decarbonising the Backbone
We also need to look at how this accelerator transforms the bedrock of our current system; traditional field-based agriculture. The backbone of modern food production is the Haber-Bosch process, which produces the nitrogen fertiliser that sustains half the global population.
Currently, this process is heavily dependent on natural gas to produce hydrogen. But with the Energy Accelerator, we can bridge this gap using renewable-powered electrolysis to create Green Hydrogen. While renewables like wind and solar are intermittent; which traditionally “kills” the catalyst in standard reactors designed for a continuous fossil fuel flow; innovation is already solving this. We are seeing the rise of flexible, electrified Haber-Bosch reactors from pioneers like ASPIRE and Starfire Energy that can ramp up and down with the availability of clean power.
In many ways, our current reliance on solar, wind, and battery storage represents what I call “Type 1 Training Wheels.” Batteries provide the critical bridge for continuous power supply, buffering the peaks and troughs of renewable generation. This is already unlocking new levels of reliability for precision fermentation and vertical farming sectors; and it’s the next logical step for green ammonia.
Looking further ahead, nuclear fusion could provide the massive, continuous, high-density base load that existing industrial infrastructure prefers. This isn’t science fiction; it’s a 2028 reality for Helion, which has signed a deal to supply fusion-generated electricity to Microsoft. Other major players like Commonwealth Fusion Systems and TAE Technologies are following close behind, each working to solve the engineering challenges of bringing the sun’s power down to earth. This technology would allow us to maintain our global-scale fertiliser plants without a complete rebuild of the manufacturing fleet.
Whether we take the decentralised AgTech approach with modular renewables or the legacy play with fusion, the conclusion is the same. As the cost of energy approaches zero, the price floor of nitrogen fertiliser; and therefore the price of food; collapses. That is a visionary leap for global food security.
The Strategic Buffer
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about fragility in the global food system. Regional conflict, climate volatility, freight disruption, input inflation, and brittle logistics are no longer edge cases. They are becoming part of the operating environment.
This is where Energy becomes the metabolism.
Cheap, reliable, abundant power allows production to be more local, more modular, and more resilient. It gives nations and businesses a stronger buffer against external shocks. It smooths some of the volatility that comes from overdependence on long, vulnerable supply chains.
That matters for ingredient security. It matters for food sovereignty. And it matters for strategic planning over the next decade.
When I look at the model now, this is the missing piece that can no longer be left implicit.
So where does that leave the TECHXponential™ model?
Stronger.
The 5 technologies still matter. The original 3 accelerators still matter. But Energy now deserves its own place because the economics of power are beginning to reshape the economics of food at system level.
That’s why I now see Energy as the fourth engine.
If you’re thinking about what this means for your business across the next 1, 3, 5, or 10 years, email me for FutureCUBED™ foresight.
To continue the conversation email me at tony@futuristforfood.com
