ABSTRACT The wind energy sector has increased its technological complexity for the last 20 years, with new technological and convergent domains like advanced materials, complex simulation, and artificial intelligence. In this context, mergers, and acquisitions (M&A) have become a key channel for companies in the sector to absorb new knowledge and develop complementary capabilities. The aim of this article is to trace the recent trajectory of the sector’s knowledge base and to analyze the role of M&A, specially of New Technology Based Firms in the generation of new capabilities through knowledge recombination. Using co-occurrence networks on a unique database of 1,299 companies in the wind sector and their acquired companies, we developed a methodological approach to investigate the trajectory of the wind sector at a global level. The empirical analysis verifies that acquisitions belonging to ‘unrelated’ sectors contribute significantly to the diversification and complexification of the sector’s knowledge base over time.