The present work is framed within tech mining and technology forecasting fields. It proposes an approach which combines a set of quantitative methods to completely describe an emerging technology, based on science, technology & innovation data. These methods are scientometrics, with which a customized and clean database is generated; hierarchical clustering to generate the ontology of the technology; principal component analysis, which is used to identify the main sub-technologies; time series

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... nalysis to quantitatively analyze the evolution of the technology, as well as future development; and technology roadmapping to integrate all the generated information in a single visual element. The results can be regarded as inputs for competitive technical intelligence activities, as they provide information about the past evolution of the technology, as well as potential future fields of application. The practical application of the approach, to BD technology, yields outcomes that allow conclusions to be drawn, such as how competitive intelligence, query processing and internet of things sub-technologies have been dominating the basic technology during the initial evolution, and how competitive intelligence and data communications systems will do so in the short-term future.