British Columbia’s technology story is often told through software companies, research talent and consumer products.
Another technology market is already operating around us.
It is inside sawmills, food processors, ports, warehouses, mines, fabrication shops, utilities and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. These organizations manage physical assets, safety requirements, supply chains and narrow operating margins. Many still depend on disconnected systems, manual handoffs and knowledge held by a small number of experienced people.
The industrial opportunity is not to make the real economy look digital. It is to make the real economy work better.
The customer base already exists
The Province of British Columbia reported in 2026 that the manufacturing sector included nearly 20,000 businesses, contributed about $18 billion to provincial GDP and supported roughly 170,000 jobs. Manufactured goods represented approximately half of BC’s exports.
Those numbers do not automatically create a market for startups. They show the scale of activity in which specific problems can be found.
A manufacturer may need to reduce scrap, coordinate production, document quality or understand downtime. A port operator may need better visibility into equipment and cargo movement. A resource business may need safer remote inspection. A small supplier may need to meet the security and reporting standards of a much larger customer.
Each is a concrete use case with an identifiable buyer and an economic result.
Modernization happens one constraint at a time
Industrial transformation is rarely a clean replacement of the old system.
Equipment may be expected to run for decades. Production cannot stop for a software experiment. Data comes from machines built by different vendors. Operators have developed workarounds because the existing process, however imperfect, keeps orders moving.
The strongest products respect that reality. They integrate with what exists, begin at a painful point and demonstrate value before asking the customer to reorganize the operation.
This is why adoption matters as much as invention. A technically elegant product that interrupts production or adds administrative work will struggle against a less impressive tool that fits the shift.
AI makes the interface more powerful—and the basics more important
AI can help interpret maintenance records, identify anomalies, assist technical work and make complex systems easier to use.
It can also produce confident errors, expose sensitive information and encourage organizations to automate decisions they do not yet understand.
In industrial settings, reliability, data governance and human accountability are part of the product. The opportunity belongs to companies that combine new capability with the controls required in the environment where it will operate.
Cybersecurity is becoming a condition of trade
As operations become connected, the boundary between information systems and physical systems becomes more important.
Small suppliers may face security questionnaires and contractual requirements from large customers. Manufacturers connect equipment that was never designed for the public internet. A cyber incident can interrupt production, compromise commercial information or create safety risk.
Tools that make security and compliance practical for these organizations can become infrastructure. They must translate requirements into work a real team can sustain, not simply produce more alerts.
Small improvements can produce large economic value
Industrial technology does not always require a dramatic invention.
A modest reduction in downtime can matter when equipment is expensive and orders are waiting. Better scheduling can reduce overtime and late delivery. Clearer traceability can make a supplier eligible for a larger customer. Remote monitoring can reduce travel and help scarce specialists cover more sites.
These improvements become investable when the company can measure them, repeat the result and sell through a process that supports attractive economics.
That measurement is the bridge between a demonstration and adoption. As we argue in A Pilot Is Not the Same as Adoption, the test must end with a decision.
Local access can become an unfair learning advantage
BC founders can build near the customer.
They can visit the production floor, observe the workaround and understand why a procurement or safety requirement exists. They can see whether the product survives a shift change and whether the claimed saving appears in the customer’s operation.
That access is more valuable than a broad statement about industrial digitization. It allows the company to learn something specific faster than a distant competitor.
The same principle applies in the Okanagan, where agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and technology meet, and along the coast, where trade infrastructure connects BC to customers and suppliers beyond the province.
Build on the economy we already have
British Columbia does not need to move beyond natural resources and industry by leaving them behind.
It can build technology, equipment, intellectual property and specialized services that make those sectors more productive, resilient and valuable. The knowledge developed here can then serve similar industries elsewhere.
That is how the province can own more of the outcome: use proximity to real economic activity to create companies and capabilities that remain valuable after any single project or commodity cycle.
The opportunity is hiding in plain sight because it looks like ordinary work. That is precisely where useful technology begins.
