Nanotechnology is less than four decades old and has already affected fields as diverse as consumer goods, weapons and therapeutic procedures. As it promises to revolutionize industries and accelerate convergence of sciences and disciplines, it’s also bringing about societal and geopolitical shifts.

A nanometre is a billionth of a metre. A human hair is about 80,000-100,000 nanometres wide. The manipulation of matter at this scale offers innovative tools to expand the limits of what is possible, allowing for the creation of new materials or the modification of existing ones. At the nanoscale, the properties of materials can differ fundamentally from their characteristics at the macro scale. For example, despite weighing one-sixth as much as steel, carbon nanotubes are 100 times stronger.

Btw: It is crucial to understand that the repercussions of nanotechnology on geopolitics and national power are more far-reaching.