Michio Kaku
Boards are being asked to make capital commitments against technologies that will not mature for a decade or more. Quantum computing, AI, biotech and energy are converging on timelines most strategy processes are not built to hold. Leaders need a credible read on what is physically possible, what is hype, and where the next decade of value will actually sit.
Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and futurist who helps senior leaders separate the physically possible from the speculative when planning across long technology horizons.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Michio Kaku
- An active research physicist and co-founder of string field theory, not a commentator translating other people’s science. The substance underneath the foresight is his own.
- A read on AI, quantum computing and biotechnology that is grounded in physical constraints, useful for boards trying to test the credibility of internal technology roadmaps.
- A track record of corporate keynotes for Microsoft, Cisco, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Sony, GE, Siemens and SAP, meaning he has briefed senior leadership in sectors with very different technology assumptions.
- The Henry Semat Chair at CCNY and four New York Times bestsellers give him a level of public authority that travels across investor days, leadership offsites and customer events.
Biography highlights
- Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics, City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center.
- Co-founder of string field theory; PhD, UC Berkeley; AB, Harvard, summa cum laude.
- Author of four New York Times bestsellers including The God Equation and The Future of the Mind. Most recent book: Quantum Supremacy (2023).
- Host of Science Fantastic, a nationally syndicated US science radio show; presenter of science series for BBC and Discovery Channel.
- Contributor to Time, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, Wired, New Scientist and the New York Times.
- Keynote speaker for Microsoft, HP, Cisco, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Sony, GE, Siemens, SAP, L’Oreal, Walt Disney and Barclays, among others.
Biography
Most corporate strategy processes work in three to five year horizons. The technologies most likely to reshape those strategies, including quantum computing, advanced AI, brain-machine interfaces and fusion energy, will mature on much longer timelines and from physical principles most boards never have cause to revisit.
Michio Kaku is one of the few public scientists with the standing to brief senior leadership on that gap. He holds the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics at City College of New York, where he has taught for over four decades, and he is a co-founder of string field theory, a working contribution to the search for a unified description of the fundamental forces.
Alongside his research, Kaku has built a parallel public role. Four of his books, Physics of the Impossible, Physics of the Future, The Future of the Mind and The God Equation, have been New York Times bestsellers, and his most recent, Quantum Supremacy, sets out what quantum computing will and will not do for medicine, materials and AI. He hosts Science Fantastic, a nationally syndicated US science radio programme, and has presented science series for the BBC and Discovery Channel.
For corporate audiences he has keynoted for Microsoft, Cisco, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Sony, GE, Siemens and SAP, among others. The reason buyers keep returning to him is straightforward: they want a physicist’s read on which long-horizon technologies are real, on what timeline, and at what cost.
Key speaking topics
- Quantum computing and its commercial implications
- Artificial intelligence in medicine, finance and pandemic response
- The next two decades of technology and the economy
- The physics of long-horizon innovation
- Brain-machine interfaces and the future of the mind
- The search for a unified theory and what it means for computing
- Science communication for senior audiences
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees making long-horizon technology and capital allocation decisions
- CEO and CTO leadership offsites focused on AI, quantum and biotechnology roadmaps
- Investor days, customer events and flagship conferences in technology, financial services, industrials and pharma
- Strategy and innovation teams testing internal assumptions against external scientific reality
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of which emerging technologies are bounded by physics and which are bounded by engineering effort
- A working sense of what quantum computing will and will not change in finance, materials and drug discovery
- A read on AI’s near-term and long-horizon trajectory from a physicist rather than a vendor
- Reference points for stress-testing internal technology and innovation roadmaps
- A vocabulary for senior leaders to discuss long-range science with their own technical teams
Talks
A practical read on where AI is heading across the sectors that pay for it.
Key takeaways:
- Where AI is moving from pattern recognition into scientific discovery
- The early-warning use cases in medicine and pandemic response
- What this means for capital allocation and workforce design over the next decade
A scientist’s view of which technologies are accelerating, which are not, and why the difference matters for strategy.
Key takeaways:
- The physical limits that shape what is and is not exponential
- Quantum computing, biotech and energy as the next decade’s load-bearing technologies
- How leadership teams should plan against horizons longer than their planning cycle
A long-horizon survey of the science that will define the century, framed for non-specialist senior audiences.
Key takeaways:
- The convergence of AI, quantum computing and biotechnology
- Where the limits of current physics still hold and where they are being tested
- What organisations should be tracking now to be credible in 2035