Of course. I am looking at things like nuclear fusion that are perpetually underfunded. It would be an incredible technological advancement but it is an enormous undertaking that industry is largely unwilling to participate in because there are no short term profits to be had. So it falls on governments to pick up the slack but most of our energy as a society is in industry.

Think about the old meme that the smartest people are focused on increasing ad click through rates. Imagine a world where they could instead be focused on something useful.