Sailboat with full sails on open water, representing industries with long-term tailwinds
The best long-term industries have demand you can measure today, but how much you bet matters as much as which trend you pick.

Best Industries to Invest In for the Long Term: 10 Sectors With Real Tailwinds for the Next Decade

The best industries to invest in for the next 10 years are the ones with demand you can measure today, not just a good story. Based on official and industry data, the ten with the strongest long-term tailwinds are AI software, semiconductors, data centers, electric power and the grid, healthcare and biotech, cybersecurity, robotics and automation, aerospace and defense (including space), digital payments, and energy storage.

Here’s the catch most “top sectors” lists skip: a growing industry is not the same thing as a good investment. Morningstar found that only 9% of thematic funds both survived and beat global stocks over the 15 years to mid-2024, and 60% of them closed. So this guide covers both halves of the question: where the growth is likely to be, and how to own a piece of it without betting your retirement on one theme.

This article is for education only and is not personalized investment advice. Fund figures were checked in early October 2026; confirm current numbers with the fund provider before you invest.

The 10 industries at a glance

  • 1. AI software and platforms: companies are moving from AI pilots to paid, everyday use.
  • 2. Semiconductors: every AI model, car, phone and data center runs on chips, and the market is in a historic upswing.
  • 3. Data centers and digital infrastructure: global data center electricity use is projected to roughly double by 2030.
  • 4. Electric power, the grid and nuclear: someone has to generate and deliver that electricity.
  • 5. Healthcare and biotech: the US population is aging fast, and healthcare is the fastest-growing job sector in official projections.
  • 6. Cybersecurity: reported US cybercrime losses passed $20 billion for the first time in 2025.
  • 7. Robotics and automation: factories installed a record number of industrial robots in 2025.
  • 8. Aerospace, defense and space: NATO members have committed to much higher defense spending through 2035.
  • 9. Fintech and digital payments: noncash payments in the US have more than tripled since 2000.
  • 10. Energy storage and clean power: US developers plan a record amount of grid battery storage in 2026.

What dropped off since our original version of this list: e-commerce. It still grows, but it’s now a mature, crowded part of the consumer and tech sectors rather than an early-stage industry, and its biggest winners already sit in every S&P 500 index fund. Its payment plumbing lives on in pick #9.

Sector, industry or theme: what are you actually picking?

These words get used interchangeably, but they mean different things, and the difference matters when you go to buy a fund.

  • Sector: the broadest bucket. Under the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) used by most US index providers, there are 11 sectors, such as Information Technology, Health Care and Utilities.
  • Industry: a narrower slice inside a sector. GICS currently has 25 industry groups, 74 industries and 163 sub-industries. “Semiconductors” is an industry inside Information Technology.
  • Theme: a trend that cuts across sectors. “Artificial intelligence” touches chipmakers (Information Technology), cloud and search companies (Communication Services), and power producers (Utilities). Thematic ETFs build their own baskets instead of following GICS.

If you want the plain 11-sector menu with tickers and costs, our guide to sector ETFs explained covers it. For a shorter-term, 12-month view of which sectors look interesting right now, see our best sectors to invest in for 2026 watchlist. This article is the long-term version: industries and themes with drivers that should still matter in 2035.

How we picked these 10

A long-term list is only useful if the reasons are checkable. Each industry here had to pass four tests:

  • A measurable demand driver. Official or industry data (US government agencies, the International Energy Agency, industry trade bodies) showing demand that is already growing, not only forecast.
  • Multi-year commitments behind it. Budgets, demographic shifts or capital spending plans that run for years, not one product cycle.
  • Investable for US readers. Exposure available through US-listed stocks or ETFs with meaningful assets.
  • A clear “what could go wrong.” If we couldn’t name the main risk, the industry didn’t make the cut.

1. AI software and platforms

Why it can grow: Generative AI has moved from demos to products that businesses pay for every month: coding assistants, customer service agents, search, and document tools. The spending is visible further down the stack too. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that worldwide investment in data centers nearly doubled from 2022 to about half a trillion dollars in 2024, largely to run AI.

What could go wrong:

  • Revenue may not keep up with spending. If customers don’t renew, the build-out slows.
  • Valuations can run far ahead of profits, which is what happened to software stocks in 2022.
  • Winners are hard to pick. Many AI features become commodity add-ons that every vendor offers.

Ways to get exposure:

  • Broad tech funds such as the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT), expense ratio 0.09%, or the Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK), 0.08%.
  • Thematic: Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ), 0.68%.
  • Go deeper: enterprise AI stocks and AI’s five-layer cake, which maps where the money flows from chips to apps.

2. Semiconductors

Why it can grow: Chips are the raw material of AI, electric vehicles, phones and factory automation. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization (WSTS) put the global chip market at about $796 billion in 2025. Its Spring 2026 forecast projects roughly $1.51 trillion in 2026 (up about 90%) and about $1.9 trillion in 2027, with memory chips for AI servers doing most of the lifting (memory alone is forecast to jump around 250% in 2026).

What could go wrong:

  • Chips are famously cyclical. A year when one segment grows 250% is a boom, and booms in memory have historically been followed by gluts and price crashes.
  • Export controls and tariffs between the US and China can cut off customers or suppliers quickly.
  • Concentration: a handful of companies dominate the big chip ETFs, so you’re making a large bet on a few names.

Ways to get exposure:

  • VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), 0.35%, and iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), 0.33%.
  • Go deeper: our NVIDIA stock forecast bull and bear case.
Macro close-up of a dark circuit board with silver solder patterns and tiny micro-components
A dense circuit board under the microscope: the global chip market is forecast to roughly double in 2026, driven by memory for AI servers, but chips have always been a boom-and-bust industry.

3. Data centers and digital infrastructure

Why it can grow: AI needs buildings full of servers, cooling and fiber. The IEA’s April 2026 update projects global data center electricity use roughly doubling from 485 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 to about 950 TWh in 2030, around 3% of all electricity used on Earth. In the US, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found data centers used about 4.4% of US electricity in 2023 and could use 6.7% to 12% by 2028.

What could go wrong:

  • Power and equipment bottlenecks. The IEA itself flags grid, equipment and chip shortages as limits on how fast the build-out can happen.
  • Overbuilding. If AI demand cools, a wave of new capacity could push rents down.
  • Data center REITs are sensitive to interest rates, like other real estate.

Ways to get exposure:

4. Electric power, the grid and nuclear

Why it can grow: Every forecast in the section above is also a forecast for electricity. After years of mostly flat US power demand, utilities now have to add generation and rebuild transmission lines at the same time. Data centers, factories coming back onshore, electric vehicles and heat pumps all pull in the same direction. That is why “boring” utilities and grid equipment makers have become a growth story.

What could go wrong:

  • Regulators decide what most utilities can charge, which caps the upside.
  • Utilities borrow heavily, so higher interest rates hurt.
  • Nuclear projects have a long history of delays and cost overruns, and small modular reactors are still largely unproven at commercial scale.

Ways to get exposure:

  • Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU), 0.08%, for the broad, dividend-paying version.
  • First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure ETF (GRID), 0.56%, for transmission and grid equipment.
  • VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR), 0.52%, for nuclear operators and fuel.
  • Utilities also behave defensively in downturns. See when to invest in defensive stocks.
Silhouettes of high-voltage transmission towers against a fiery orange sunset sky
Transmission towers at sunset: data center electricity use is projected to roughly double by 2030, turning utilities and grid builders into a growth story.

5. Healthcare and biotech

Why it can grow: Demographics are about as close to a sure thing as investing gets. The US Census Bureau projects that by 2030 all baby boomers will be older than 65, making one in five Americans retirement age, and that by 2034 there will be 77.0 million people 65 and older versus 76.5 million children, the first time older Americans outnumber kids. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects healthcare and social assistance to be the fastest-growing of 20 industry sectors from 2024 to 2034, up 8.4% and adding roughly 2.0 million jobs, nearly three times the 3.1% growth expected for all jobs.

What could go wrong:

  • Drug pricing. Medicare drug-price negotiation and political pressure on prices can squeeze margins on blockbuster drugs.
  • Biotech is binary. One failed trial can cut a small company’s value in half overnight.
  • Patent cliffs: when a major drug loses patent protection, revenue can drop sharply.

Ways to get exposure:

6. Cybersecurity

Why it can grow: Attacks keep getting more frequent and more expensive, and AI is making scams easier to scale. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report logged 1,008,597 complaints and $20.877 billion in reported losses, up 26% from 2024, the first year losses topped $20 billion. Americans over 60 reported about $7.7 billion of those losses. Companies and governments can’t opt out of security spending the way they can delay other IT projects.

What could go wrong:

  • It’s a crowded field, and big platforms keep adding security features that squeeze smaller vendors.
  • Popular cybersecurity stocks often trade at high valuations, which leaves little room for disappointment.
  • A single high-profile failure can damage a vendor’s reputation quickly.

Ways to get exposure:

  • First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR), 0.58%, the largest fund in the space.
  • Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG), 0.50%.

7. Robotics and automation

Why it can grow: Labor shortages, aging workforces and reshoring all favor machines that work around the clock. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reports that factories installed a record 603,307 industrial robots in 2025 (up 11%), pushing the number in use worldwide past 5 million. The IFR forecasts about 655,000 installations in 2026 and 806,000 in 2029. The United States overtook Japan in 2025 to become the second-largest robot market, with almost 38,500 installations (up 12%).

What could go wrong:

  • Robot orders follow the factory cycle, so a manufacturing slowdown hits quickly.
  • China dominates installations (59% of the global total in 2025), and Chinese robot makers are winning share at home, which pressures Western and Japanese suppliers.
  • Humanoid robots get the headlines, but they’re still a tiny market. The IFR counted nearly 7,000 sold worldwide in 2025.

Ways to get exposure:

8. Aerospace, defense and space

Why it can grow: At the June 2025 Hague summit, NATO allies committed to spend 5% of GDP a year on defense and security by 2035, with at least 3.5% on core defense and up to 1.5% on related areas such as cyber defense and critical infrastructure. That is a decade-long budget commitment, which is exactly the kind of tailwind long-term investors look for. Space is the faster-growing, riskier cousin: the World Economic Forum and McKinsey estimate the global space economy at $630 billion in 2023 and project $1.8 trillion by 2035, driven by satellite communications, navigation and Earth observation.

What could go wrong:

  • Defense budgets are political, and spending pledges are not the same as money spent.
  • Many defense contracts are fixed-price, so cost overruns land on the contractor.
  • Many space companies are still unprofitable, and the most valuable ones may stay private for years, which limits what public investors can buy.

Ways to get exposure:

9. Fintech and digital payments

Why it can grow: Cash keeps losing ground. The Federal Reserve’s 2025 payments study found that US consumers and businesses made 236.6 billion noncash payments in 2024, more than triple the number in 2000, with cards used for over three-quarters of them. Each swipe, tap and app transfer earns somebody a small fee, and embedded finance (payments and loans built into the apps people already use) keeps widening the market.

What could go wrong:

  • Fintech was one of the worst-hit corners of the 2022 growth crash, and many 2021 favorites never recovered.
  • Regulation of fees, buy-now-pay-later and crypto can change the economics quickly.
  • Big banks and card networks copy successful features, so newcomers’ advantages often fade.

Ways to get exposure:

  • Amplify Digital Payments ETF (IPAY), 0.75%, and Global X FinTech ETF (FINX), 0.68%. Both are small (FINX has around $160 million in assets), which raises closure risk.
  • Many investors simply hold the large card networks through broad index funds, since they’re already big S&P 500 holdings.

10. Energy storage and clean power

Why it can grow: Solar and wind only work at scale if power can be stored for the evening peak. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says developers plan to add about 24 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale battery storage in 2026, after a record 15 GW in 2025, and more than 40 GW were added over the past five years. Texas, California and Arizona account for about 80% of the planned 2026 additions.

What could go wrong:

  • Clean energy stocks have been extremely volatile, with deep drawdowns when interest rates rose and subsidies changed.
  • Tax credits and tariffs can shift with each new Congress.
  • Battery chemistry is still evolving, so today’s leader can be leapfrogged.

Ways to get exposure:

The uncomfortable data on investing by theme

Growth industries are easy to spot. Making money from them is harder, for three reasons.

  • Most thematic funds lose to plain index funds. Morningstar’s 2024 thematic fund study found that over the 15 years to June 2024, 60% of thematic funds closed and only 9% both survived and outperformed global stocks. Its late-2025 update, with data to September 30, 2025, still put the long-term odds below 10%. Higher fees and buying in after a theme is already popular both drag returns down.
  • You can be right about the trend and still lose money. The internet did change the world, but the Nasdaq Composite fell about 78% from its March 10, 2000 peak (5,048.62) to its October 2002 low (1,114.11) and didn’t close above that peak again until April 2015, about 15 years later.
  • Hot themes attract money at the top. ARK Innovation’s investors learned this the hard way: the fund’s best years came before most of its money arrived. Our breakdown of Cathie Wood’s track record shows how that gap played out.

None of this means you should avoid growth industries. It means the price you pay and how much you bet matter as much as picking the right trend.

Two balanced stacks of smooth stones on a rocky beach, representing a diversified core with small thematic tilts
Balanced stone stacks on a beach: a diversified core plus small, deliberate tilts lets you own tomorrow’s growth industries without betting everything on one trend.

How to invest in long-term growth industries without betting the farm

A common approach is “core and satellite”: a low-cost, diversified core you’d hold through anything, plus a smaller slice for the themes you believe in most.

  • Start with the core. A total market or S&P 500 index fund already owns large amounts of AI, chips, healthcare and defense. Information Technology alone is the biggest sector in the S&P 500, so you may already have more of these industries than you think. A globally diversified portfolio adds the rest of the world.
  • Keep tilts small. Size any one theme so that a 50% drop wouldn’t change your retirement plans or tempt you to sell everything.
  • Check for overlap before you buy. NVIDIA, for example, shows up in broad tech, semiconductor, AI and robotics funds. Owning four of them can mean owning the same few stocks four times. Our guide to over-diversification explains why more funds isn’t always more diversified.
  • Compare costs. On this list, broad sector funds cost 0.08% to 0.09% a year, while thematic funds run from about 0.33% to 0.95%. On $10,000, that’s the difference between about $8 and $95 a year, every year.
  • Check fund size. Small funds with under a few hundred million dollars in assets are more likely to close, which can force a taxable sale at a bad time in a regular brokerage account.
  • Phase in if a theme has already run hard. Investing on a fixed schedule takes the timing decision out of your hands. See dollar-cost averaging vs lump sum for what the data says about each.
  • Rebalance once a year. Winning themes grow into a bigger share of your portfolio than you intended. Trimming back to your target locks in some gains.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best industry to invest in right now?

There’s no single best industry, and anyone who names one with certainty is guessing. The industries with the strongest measurable demand today are AI-related chips and data centers, the electric power needed to run them, and healthcare for an aging population. For most investors, a broad index fund that already holds all of them is a better starting point than picking one.

What industries will grow the most in the next 10 years?

Based on official projections, healthcare has the clearest path: the BLS expects it to add about 2.0 million jobs from 2024 to 2034, more than any other sector. Data center electricity use is projected to roughly double by 2030, and industrial robot installations are forecast to keep rising through 2029. Growth in revenue doesn’t guarantee growth in stock prices, though, especially when valuations are already high.

Which sector will boom in the next 5 years?

Over five years, semiconductors and data center infrastructure have the biggest near-term momentum, with WSTS forecasting the chip market to grow from about $796 billion in 2025 to roughly $1.9 trillion in 2027. That kind of surge is also why chips are the most likely to see a sharp downturn along the way. Defense spending also has a defined runway, with NATO’s 2035 target.

Is it better to invest in sectors or the whole market?

For most long-term investors, the whole market should come first. It owns every sector on this list automatically, costs very little, and doesn’t require you to be right about which trend wins. Sector and thematic funds make more sense as a small, deliberate addition once your core is in place.

Are thematic ETFs a good investment?

They can be, but the odds are against the average fund. Morningstar found that only 9% of thematic funds survived and beat global stocks over 15 years, while 60% closed. If you use them, favor larger, lower-cost funds, and keep the position small.

What are good industries to invest in for beginners?

Beginners are usually better off with broad funds than narrow themes. Healthcare and utilities sector funds are steadier ways to tilt toward long-term trends, while semiconductors, biotech, space and clean energy are much more volatile. Our growth investing guide covers how to judge individual growth companies if you want to go further.

Why isn’t e-commerce on this list anymore?

E-commerce is still growing, but it has matured into a crowded market dominated by a few giants that are already large holdings in broad index funds. We replaced it with industries where the long-term demand drivers are stronger and less fully priced in, such as electric power and energy storage. Its payment side lives on in the fintech pick.

The bottom line

The next decade’s growth will most likely come from AI and the chips, buildings and electricity behind it, from an aging population’s healthcare needs, and from long-term government commitments to defense and energy. Those are real, measurable tailwinds.

But history is clear that picking the right trend isn’t enough. Own the growth through a diversified core first, keep any single theme small enough to survive a 50% drop, watch fees and fund size, and give your investments the years they need. Use our compound interest calculator to see what steady growth can do over a decade.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or tax advice. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Sector and thematic funds can be more volatile than the overall market. Expense ratios and fund assets were checked in early October 2026 (reconfirmed for this October 12, 2026 refresh) and can change. Consider your own situation or speak with a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.

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