Within the framework of an innovation and technology analysis, the opportunities and risks of self-organising adaptive systems are examined with the focus on organic computing. One of the main driving factors behind such technical developments is the fact that, for example, traditional software development is becoming increasingly expensive and complex and thus also more prone to malfunction. Research is thus being conducted in this area into ways of reducing the programme costs on the one hand and the susceptibility to error on the other. This is to be achieved with the aid of self-organising adaptive systems. Systems are to be given so-called “self-x” characteristics (such as self-healing, self-organising up to self-aware). The briefly mentioned complexity problems are thus to be overcome with complexity (self-x characteristics). The opportunities and risks of corresponding approaches are analysed.