A major technological transformation is disrupting the world more than ever. How can this pressing movement be understood? Through the analysis of the organization of the technological space of society in a given period, which is characterized as a technological system and which designates a conceptual framework that not only allows for the understanding of the technological organization but also of the nature and forms of the innovation flow that it generates.

How then does the contemporary technological system relate to contemporary innovation dynamics? Two major historical phases help establish this relationship. The first phase corresponds to a considerable technological change noticeable around 1975, accompanied by an economic and energy crisis which has been generally designated as the “third industrial revolution”. The second movement is a very powerful current of innovation that has existed since the mid-1990s, commonly known as the “digital revolution”, sometimes combined with the notion of environmental transition which now appears to be a major factor for technological recomposition.

The period of emergence of this system, characterized as the third technological revolution, inaugurated a new technological system which is also called the third technological system. It is characterized by the dominance of new generic technologies, such as information technology whose nature had changed with the development of the microprocessor in 1975 and with the emergence of new transformation principles of biotechnologies, based on a whole series of discoveries in the field of genetics. The third field of generic technologies is in the field of materials, with the development of composite problems. Finally, in the face of the energy crisis, the diversification of energy technologies and the emergence of renewable energies reshape this generic technology, that is, energy.

Since then, this technological system has continued to deploy itself, undergoing a large number of mutations at the turn of the century, more precisely new combinations within information technologies, because of the double movement generated by digitalization and generalized connection. This era of “convergence” has provided new products such as the smart phone, networks and in particular the Internet, driven by progress in knowledge of genetics and new materials. How can we apprehend and understand the powerful current of innovation of the past 20 years, which resulted thereof, if not in terms of a global evolution of the technological system which we were confronted with? It is therefore by facing the challenge of the intensity of the technological mutation in particular, which we are observing at the moment, that we begin the task of presenting and analyzing this contemporary technological system.

In order to achieve this task, we will outline its conceptual framework, which is the approach of technological systems [GIL 78], and which we have contributed to formalize [AÏT 89, AÏT 02, AÏT 14, AÏT 15] and whose principles of construction and analysis in addition to the explanatory efficiency for the current period are presented in the first chapter.

The current technological system is the culmination of a historical evolution, marked by ruptures, technological revolutions and by a historical succession of these systems. This historical perspective, from the middle ages, includes the great pre-industrial technological system followed by the first industrial technological system, known as the English Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th Century. It will constitute the second chapter.

It is important to present this second industrial technological system, because it is therefrom that the contemporary technological system has emerged through a technological crisis, which has enabled its deployment. We will present this original framework and its rupture in the third chapter.

Once this third system is structured by new generic technologies, two organizational processes of the new system in use will be identified, the deployment of the new technological applications and the restructuring of traditional technologies of the old system. This double movement has often been characterized as the “microelectronic revolution”, because of its major transformation operator, the “chip”. This background technological movement will produce transformative interactions with productive and corporate structures and even forms of knowledge production. The fourth chapter will be dedicated to describing and analyzing this initial phase of the third technological system.

The second wave of innovation, which is a genuine qualitative leap of technological development, will be the subject of the fifth chapter which will aim to highlight its components, performance jumps in generic technology, the generation of new processes, systems and new products creating new functions.

This powerful innovation movement has significant effects on the economic and social organization and its dynamics. The challenges in these different areas, as well as organizational reforms and emerging social forms, will be analyzed in the sixth and final chapter.

In order to understand and forecast, it is important to answer the ultimate question that this analysis raises, that of the nature of the last technological transformation. Is the latter only a new development, be it exceptionally powerful and transformative, within the continuity of the third technological system? Or are we in the presence of a new technological revolution, which would lead society into a new technological system [SCH 17]? These are questions that we will deal with in the conclusion.