The expansionary strategies of intellectual monopolies: Google and the digitalization of healthcare

As big tech companies are entering new industrial sectors, an open question concerns the drivers of their expansionary strategies. This paper proposes that these currently sectors based on data-driven intellectual monopoly power, thereby complementing preliminary answer provided by political economy research which has argued expansion is driven infrastructural power. approach developed through a historical analysis giants as systematically turn knowledge and data into intangible assets, showing strategies in healthcare sector to be mainly insights obtained from those assets (a monopolized intangibles driver) quest for conquering perpetuate monopolies (an prospecting driver). The further illustrates its arguments case study Google’s strategy prioritized incursion healthcare.