Why Hard Tech—and Why Now: How the IEEE Systems Council Is Expanding IEEE’s Role in Venture Building
Over the past decade, much of the innovation narrative has been dominated by software. Today, that cycle is shifting. As artificial intelligence moves beyond the digital world and into physical systems, innovation is once again becoming hardware-intensive, system-level, and deeply interdisciplinary.
This shift places Hard Tech—technologies rooted in hardware, systems integration, and physical AI—squarely at the center of the next innovation wave. It also places IEEE, and particularly the IEEE Systems Council, in a uniquely strong position to lead.
Hard Tech Is Systems Engineering in Action
Hard Tech innovation rarely lives within a single discipline. Robotics, semiconductors, photonics, climate technologies, space systems, industrial automation, and AI-enabled physical systems all require complex systems integration, cross-domain engineering, long development cycles, and rigorous technical validation.
These are precisely the domains where systems engineering is essential—and where IEEE’s technical societies and councils have built decades of global leadership.
In this sense, Hard Tech is not adjacent to IEEE’s mission; it is deeply aligned with IEEE’s technical DNA.
A Strategic Gap and a Strategic Opportunity
While IEEE is globally recognized across academia, standards, and engineering communities, its presence in the venture-building and investor ecosystem has historically been limited.
At the same time, a growing number of IEEE-affiliated academic researchers are:
- Commercializing patents and research
- Exploring startup formation
- Seeking pathways to scale innovation beyond the lab
- Navigating fundraising and venture capital for the first time
Bridging this gap, between technical excellence and venture execution, represents a strategic opportunity for IEEE.
The Hard Tech Venture Summit: From Pilot to Platform
In 2025, IEEE Entrepreneurship launched the Hard Tech Venture Summit in San Francisco as a pilot initiative to connect Hard Tech founders with investors who understand hardware-intensive innovation. Building on its success, the Summit is expanding in 2026 into a North American initiative, with events planned in Silicon Valley, Boston, and Toronto.
This expansion is being developed in partnership with the Industry Committee of IEEE Systems Council, positioning the Summit as a strategic platform at the intersection of systems engineering, entrepreneurship, and venture capital.
The Summit is not a traditional conference. It is a curated, investor-driven forum designed to foster meaningful relationships between Hard Tech startups and founders, venture capital investors specialized in hardware and deep tech, and innovation platforms supporting venture creation.
Supporting Researchers on the Path to Commercialization
One of the Summit’s strategic objectives is to support IEEE-affiliated academic researchers who have commercialized—or are preparing to commercialize—their research.
For many researchers, venture capital remains an unfamiliar ecosystem, with its own language, expectations, and decision frameworks.
The Summit provides exposure to investors who understand long development timelines, context on how technical risk is evaluated in venture settings, and opportunities to build early relationships that can support venture formation and fundraising. In doing so, the Summit complements existing IEEE activities by extending IEEE’s reach into a new industry: venture building and capital formation.
Why This Matters for the Systems Council
The IEEE Systems Council sits at the convergence of disciplines required to make Hard Tech succeed. By engaging with this initiative, Systems Council societies and communities can extend IEEE’s impact from research to real-world deployment, support members pursuing commercialization and startups, increase IEEE visibility in high-growth innovation ecosystems, and reinforce the relevance of systems engineering in the AI + hardware era.
This initiative positions IEEE—through the Systems Council—as a trusted convener where engineering rigor meets venture execution.
It enhances the Systems Council's connections with the industry. Attendees include several venture arms of major innovative companies, such as Intel, Yamaha Motor, Samsung, Sony, and Bosch, making the Summit also an effective platform for industry engagement".
Looking Ahead
As innovation becomes increasingly system-driven and hardware-intensive, IEEE’s role must evolve accordingly. The IEEE Entrepreneurship Hard Tech Venture Summit represents a concrete step in that direction—opening doors to new ecosystems, supporting researchers beyond the lab, and ensuring IEEE’s technical leadership remains visible where the next generation of technology companies is being built.
Event details:
IEEE Entrepreneurship Hard Tech Venture Summit – Silicon Valley
Dates: April 16-17, 2026
Location: SRI, 333 Ravenswood Ave, Menlo Park, CA
Registration: sv.vsummit.ieeesystemscouncil.org/
Other summits: Boston, June 10-11 / Toronto, Oct 20-21