I’d get into optical computing.

Look up Intel’s research into optical buses, as an example. Or experiments in pure optical inference. I just find this whole field extremely practical in a wide range, from “usefully augmenting silicon PC chips” to specialized accelerators to farther-out computing paradigms.

I’d also look into Josephine Junction computation. If there’s a sudden breakthrough in room temperature superconductivity, that becomes very important, very quickly.

I also find “biological computers” or those emulating biology interesting, but don’t understand enough about them to even begin to assess it.

I’m less enthusiastic about quantum computing. It’s extremely useful in a few niches, but it feels like it’s hit crypto-like levels of hype: a narrowly useful tech that’s being pushed way beyond what it’s good at.

It is related to the other areas I listed, though.

Pretty much all this stuff will be corporate-first though.

That’s just how it works. They pay the big R&D for prototypes, and the mass commercialization comes later.

If you’re more directly interested in consumer tech, you’ll have to look into memresistors, alternative lithography like gallium or nanotubes, chiplets and “split” architectures and interconnects, things like that. ECE magazines talk about this stuff constantly because it’s closer mass commercialization.