2026-01-16 18:00:00
Earlier this week, MIT Technology Review published its annual list of Ten Breakthrough Technologies. As always, it features technologies that made the news last year, and which—for better or worse—stand to make waves in the coming years. They’re the technologies you should really be paying attention to.
This year’s list includes tech that’s set to transform the energy industry, artificial intelligence, space travel—and of course biotech and health. Our breakthrough biotechnologies for 2026 involve editing a baby’s genes and, separately, resurrecting genes from ancient species. We also included a controversial technology that offers parents the chance to screen their embryos for characteristics like height and intelligence. Here’s the story behind our biotech choices.
In August 2024, KJ Muldoon was born with a rare genetic disorder that allowed toxic ammonia to build up in his blood. The disease can be fatal, and KJ was at risk of developing neurological disorders. At the time, his best bet for survival involved waiting for a liver transplant.
Then he was offered an experimental gene therapy—a personalized “base editing” treatment designed to correct the specific genetic “misspellings” responsible for his disease. It seems to have worked! Three doses later, KJ is doing well. He took his first steps in December, shortly before spending his first Christmas at home.
KJ’s story is hugely encouraging. The team behind his treatment is planning a clinical trial for infants with similar disorders caused by different genetic mutations. The team members hope to win regulatory approval on the back of a small trial—a move that could make the expensive treatment (KJ’s cost around $1 million) more accessible, potentially within a few years.
Others are getting in on the action, too. Fyodor Urnov, a gene-editing scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, assisted the team that developed KJ’s treatment. He recently cofounded Aurora Therapeutics, a startup that hopes to develop gene-editing drugs for another disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU). The goal is to obtain regulatory approval for a single drug that can then be adjusted or personalized for individuals without having to go through more clinical trials.
US regulators seem to be amenable to the idea and have described a potential approval pathway for such “bespoke, personalized therapies.” Watch this space.
It was a big year for Colossal Biosciences, the biotech company hoping to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dodo. In March, the company created what it called “woolly mice”—rodents with furry coats and curly whiskers akin to those of woolly mammoths.
The company made an even more dramatic claim the following month, when it announced it had created three dire wolves. These striking snow-white animals were created by making 20 genetic changes to the DNA of gray wolves based on genetic research on ancient dire wolf bones, the company said at the time.
Whether these animals can really be called dire wolves is debatable, to say the least. But the technology behind their creation is undeniably fascinating. We’re talking about the extraction and analysis of ancient DNA, which can then be introduced into cells from other, modern-day species.
Analysis of ancient DNA can reveal all sorts of fascinating insights into human ancestors and other animals. And cloning, another genetic tool used here, has applications not only in attempts to re-create dead pets but also in wildlife conservation efforts. Read more here.
IVF involves creating embryos in a lab and, typically, “scoring” them on their likelihood of successful growth before they are transferred to a person’s uterus. So far, so uncontroversial.
Recently, embryo scoring has evolved. Labs can pinch off a couple of cells from an embryo, look at its DNA, and screen for some genetic diseases. That list of diseases is increasing. And now some companies are taking things even further, offering prospective parents the opportunity to select embryos for features like height, eye color, and even IQ.
This is controversial for lots of reasons. For a start, there are many, many factors that contribute to complex traits like IQ (a score that doesn’t capture all aspects of intelligence at any rate). We don’t have a perfect understanding of those factors, or how selecting for one trait might influence another.
Some critics warn of eugenics. And others note that whichever embryo you end up choosing, you can’t control exactly how your baby will turn out (and why should you?!). Still, that hasn’t stopped Nucleus, one of the companies offering these services, from inviting potential customers to have their “best baby.” Read more here.
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.
2026-01-16 01:16:58
In this exclusive subscriber-only eBook, you’ll learn about how the idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry.
by Will Douglas Heaven October 30, 2025
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2026-01-15 21:10:39
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
In April 2025, Ronald Deibert left all electronic devices at home in Toronto and boarded a plane. When he landed in Illinois, he bought a new laptop and iPhone. He wanted to reduce the risk of having his personal devices confiscated, because he knew his work made him a prime target for surveillance. “I’m traveling under the assumption that I am being watched, right down to exactly where I am at any moment,” Deibert says.
Deibert directs the Citizen Lab, a research center he founded in 2001 to serve as “counterintelligence for civil society.” Housed at the University of Toronto, it’s one of the few institutions that investigate cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest, and in doing so, it has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses of the past two decades.
For many years, Deibert and his colleagues have held up the US as the standard for liberal democracy. But that’s changing. Read the full story.
—Finian Hazen
This story is from the latest issue of our print magazine. If you subscribe now to receive future copies when they land you’ll benefit from some big discounts, and get a free tote bag!
—Casey Crownhart
Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out.
For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has a bunch of climate and energy picks including sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech.
This story ran in The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the technologies we can use to combat climate change. Sign up to get it in your inbox first every Wednesday.
And, if you’re keen to learn more about why AI companies are betting big on next-gen nuclear, join us for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable event on Wednesday January 28 at 2pm ET.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 AI companies are now deeply entwined with the US military
And it looks like they’re only set to get closer. (Wired $)
+ Three open questions about the Pentagon’s push for generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Grok will comply with local laws, X has said
A global backlash over users creating ‘undressing’ images of real people seems to have forced its hand. (BBC)
+ So far there’s no evidence it’s actually following through on that promise though. (The Verge)
+ Elon Musk could stop it all instantly if he wanted to. (Engadget)
3 The risks of using AI in schools outweigh the benefits
According to a sweeping new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. (NPR)
+ AI’s giants are trying to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Trump is imposing new tariffs on high-end chips
They’re pretty narrow though, and leave plenty of room for exports to China. (WP $)
+ Zhipu AI says it’s trained its first major model entirely on Chinese chips. (South China Morning Post)
5 A UK police force blamed Microsoft Copilot for an intelligence error
After spending weeks denying it was using AI tools at all. (Ars Technica)
+ Worried about police and lawyers using AI? Well, judges are at it too. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Inside the compounds where the fraud industry makes its billions
The details are grim—for example the fact workers struck a gong every time they scammed someone out of $5,000. (NYT $)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Bandcamp has banned purely AI-generated music from its platform
It’s the first online music platform to take this step. (Billboard)
+ Can AI generate new ideas? (NYT $)
8 Remember Havana Syndrome? The US may have found the device that causes it
It was acquired for millions of dollars under the last administration, and it’s still being studied. (CNN)
9 This study failed to prove social media time causes teens’ mental health issues
It’s a common assumption, but there’s still remarkably little evidence to back it up. (The Guardian)
10 The UK is planning to build a record-breaking number of wind farms
Its government is pushing for the vast majority of the country’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2030. (BBC)
Quote of the day
“Women and girls are far more reluctant to use AI. This should be no surprise to any of us. Women don’t see this as exciting new technology, but as simply new ways to harass and abuse us and try and push us offline.”
—Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, tells The Guardian she fears that the use of AI to harm women and girls is only going to grow.
One more thing
As thousands of companies trumpet their plans to cut carbon pollution, a small group of sustainability consultants has emerged as the go-to arbiter of corporate climate action.
The Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, helps businesses develop a timetable for action to shrink their climate footprint through some combination of cutting greenhouse-gas pollution and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After years of small-scale sustainability work, SBTi is growing rapidly, and governments are paying attention.
But while the group has earned praise for reeling the private sector into constructive conversations about climate emissions, its rising influence has also attracted scrutiny and raised questions about why a single organization is setting the standards for many of the world’s largest companies. Read the full story.
—Ian Morse
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ The leaders of Japan and South Korea drummed up a viral moment with a jam session this week.
+ Struggle during the cold, dark winter months? Here’s how to make things easier for yourself.
+ If you like getting lost in the depths of Wikipedia, Freakpages is for you.
+ From Pluribus to Stranger Things, we really can’t get enough of hive mindsin stories lately. ($)
2026-01-15 19:00:00
Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out.
For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has some stars, including gene resurrection (remember all the dire wolf hype last year?) and commercial space stations.
And of course, the world of climate and energy is represented with sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech.
I’ve been covering sodium-ion batteries for years, but this moment feels like a breakout one for the technology.
Today, lithium-ion cells power everything from EVs, phones, and computers to huge stationary storage arrays that help support the grid. But researchers and battery companies have been racing to develop an alternative, driven by the relative scarcity of lithium and the metal’s volatile price in recent years.
Sodium-ion batteries could be that alternative. Sodium is much more abundant than lithium, and it could unlock cheaper batteries that hold a lower fire risk.
There are limitations here: Sodium-ion batteries won’t be able to pack as much energy into cells as their lithium counterparts. But it might not matter, especially for grid storage and smaller EVs.
In recent years, we’ve seen a ton of interest in sodium-based batteries, particularly from major companies in China. Now the new technology is starting to make its way into the world—CATL says it started manufacturing these batteries at scale in 2025.
Nuclear reactors are an important part of grids around the world today—massive workhorse reactors generate reliable, consistent electricity. But the countries with the oldest and most built-out fleets have struggled to add to them in recent years, since reactors are massive and cost billions. Recent high-profile projects have gone way over budget and faced serious delays.
Next-generation reactor designs could help the industry break out of the old blueprint and get more nuclear power online more quickly, and they’re starting to get closer to becoming reality.
There’s a huge variety of proposals when it comes to what’s next for nuclear. Some companies are building smaller reactors, which they say could make it easier to finance new projects, and get them done on time.
Other companies are focusing on tweaking key technical bits of reactors, using alternative fuels or coolants that help ferry heat out of the reactor core. These changes could help reactors generate electricity more efficiently and safely.
Kairos Power was the first US company to receive approval to begin construction on a next-generation reactor to produce electricity. China is emerging as a major center of nuclear development, with the country’s national nuclear company reportedly working on several next-gen reactors.
This one isn’t quite what I would call a climate technology, but I spent most of last year reporting on the climate and environmental impacts of AI, and the AI boom is deeply intertwined with climate and energy.
Data centers aren’t new, but we’re seeing a wave of larger centers being proposed and built to support the rise of AI. Some of these facilities require a gigawatt or more of power—that’s like the output of an entire conventional nuclear power plant, just for one data center.
(This feels like a good time to mention that our Breakthrough Technologies list doesn’t just highlight tech that we think will have a straightforwardly positive influence on the world. I think back to our 2023 list, which included mass-market military drones.)
There’s no denying that new, supersize data centers are an important force driving electricity demand, sparking major public pushback, and emerging as a key bit of our new global infrastructure.
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.
2026-01-14 21:10:00
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
The popularity of commercial nuclear reactors has surged in recent years as worries about climate change and energy independence drowned out concerns about meltdowns and radioactive waste. The problem is, building nuclear power plants is expensive and slow.
A new generation of nuclear power technology could reinvent what a reactor looks like—and how it works. Advocates hope that new tech can refresh the industry and help replace fossil fuels without emitting greenhouse gases. Here’s what that might look like.
—Casey Crownhart
Next-gen nuclear is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. If you want to learn more about why it made the list, sign up to receive The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about energy and climate change, tomorrow. You can also check out the rest of the technologies on the list here.
The hyperscale datacenter is a marvel of our age. A masterstroke of engineering across multiple disciplines. They are nothing short of a technological wonder. People hate them.
People hate them in Virginia, which leads the nation in their construction. They hate them in Nevada, where they slurp up the state’s precious water. They hate them in Michigan, and Arizona, and South Dakota. They hate them all around the world, it’s true. But they really hate them in Georgia. Read our story about why they’re provoking so much fury.
—Mat Honan
This story first featured in The Debrief with Mat Honan, a weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech from our editor in chief. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox on Friday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Iran is systematically crippling Starlink
The satellite internet service is meant to be impossible to jam—but the Iranian authorities are doing just that. (Rest of World)
+ Messages getting around Iran’s internet block suggest that thousands of people have been killed. (NYT $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Studies claiming microplastics harm us are being called into question
Some scientists say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. (The Guardian)
3 Trump is trying to temper the data center backlash
He hopes cajoling tech companies to pay more and thus reduce people’s energy bills will do the trick. (WP $)
+ Microsoft has just become the first tech company to promise it will do just that. (NYT $)
+ We know AI is power hungry. But just how big is the scale of the problem? (MIT Technology Review)
4 US emissions jumped last year
Thanks to a combination of rising electricity demand, and more coal being burned to meet it. (NYT $)
+ But it’s not all bad news: coal power generation in India and China finally started to decline. (The Guardian)
+ Four bright spots in climate news in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Elon Musk needs to face consequences for his actions
If we tolerate him unleashing a flood of harassment of women and children, what will come next? (The Atlantic $)
+ The US Senate has passed a bill that could give non-consensual deepfake victims a new way to fight back. (The Verge $)
6 Why the US is set to lose the race back to the moon 
Cuts to NASA aren’t helping, but they’re not the only problem. (Wired $)
7 Google’s Veo AI model can now turn portrait images into vertical videos
Really slick ones, too. (The Verge $)
+ AI-generated influencers are sharing fake images of them in bed with celebrities on Instagram. (404 Media $)
8 Former NYC mayor Eric Adams has been accused of a crypto ‘pump and dump’
He promoted a token that saw its market cap briefly soar to $580 million before plummeting. (Coindesk)
9 Are you a middle manager? Here’s some good news for you
Your skills are not being replaced by AI any time soon. (Quartz)
10 Even miniscule lifestyle tweaks can extend your lifespan
A study of 60,000 adults found just a little bit more sleep and exercise makes a huge difference. (New Scientist $)
+ Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“What I’m hopeful for in ’26 is for more people speaking up. Speaking truth to power is the point of freedom of speech, is the point of American society.”
—LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman tells Wired he wants more people in Silicon Valley to start pushing back against the Trump administration this year.
One more thing
Africa is still early in the process of adopting AI technologies. But researchers say the continent is uniquely hospitable to it for several reasons, including a relatively young and increasingly well-educated population, a rapidly growing ecosystem of AI startups, and lots of potential consumers.
However, ambitious efforts to develop AI tools that answer the needs of Africans face numerous hurdles. Taken together, researchers worry, they could hold Africa’s AI sector back and hamper its efforts to pave its own pathway in the global AI race. Read the full story.
—Abdullahi Tsanni
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)
2026-01-14 19:17:46
Behold, the hyperscale data center!
Massive structures, with thousands of specialized computer chips running in parallel to perform the complex calculations required by advanced AI models. A single facility can cover millions of square feet, built with millions of pounds of steel, aluminum, and concrete; feature hundreds of miles of wiring, connecting some hundreds of thousands of high-end GPU chips, and chewing through hundreds of megawatt-hours of electricity. These facilities run so hot from all that computing power that their cooling systems are triumphs of engineering complexity in themselves. But the star of the show are those chips with their advanced processors. A single chip in these vast arrays can cost upwards of $30,000. Racked together and working in concert, they process hundreds of thousands of tokens—the basic building blocks of an AI model—per second. Ooooomph.
Given the incredible amounts of capital that the world’s biggest companies have been pouring into building data centers you can make the case (and many people have) that their construction is single-handedly propping up the US stock market and the economy.
So important are they to our way of life that none other than the President of the United States himself, on his very first full day in office, stood side by side with the CEO of OpenAI to announce a $500 billion private investment in data center construction.
Truly, the hyperscale datacenter is a marvel of our age. A masterstroke of engineering across multiple disciplines. They are nothing short of a technological wonder.
People hate them.
People hate them in Virginia, which leads the nation in their construction. They hate them in Nevada, where they slurp up the state’s precious water. They hate them in Michigan, and Arizona, and South Dakota, where the good citizens of Sioux Falls hurled obscenities at their city councilmembers following a vote to permit a data center on the city’s northeastern side. They hate them all around the world, it’s true. But they really hate them in Georgia.
So, let’s go to Georgia. The purplest of purple states. A state with both woke liberal cities and MAGA magnified suburbs and rural areas. The state of Stacey Abrams and Newt Gingrich. If there is one thing just about everyone there seemingly agrees on, it’s that they’ve had it with data centers.
Last year, the state’s Public Service Commission election became unexpectedly tight, and wound up delivering a stunning upset to incumbent Republican commissioners. Although there were likely shades of national politics at play (voters favored Democrats in an election cycle where many things went that party’s way), the central issue was skyrocketing power bills. And that power bill inflation was oft-attributed to a data center building boom rivaled only by Virginia’s.
This boom did not come out of the blue. At one point, Georgia wanted data centers. Or at least, its political leadership did. In 2018 the state’s General Assembly passed legislation that provided data centers with tax breaks for their computer systems and cooling infrastructure, more tax breaks for job creation, and even more tax breaks for property taxes. And then… boom!
But things have not played out the way the Assembly and other elected officials may have expected.
Journey with me now to Bolingbroke, Georgia. Not far outside of Atlanta, in Monroe County (population 27,954), county commissioners were considering rezoning 900 acres of land to make room for a new data center near the town of Bolingbroke (population 492). Data centers have been popping up all across the state, but especially in areas close to Atlanta. Public opinion is, often enough, irrelevant. In nearby Twiggs County, despite strong and organized opposition, officials decided to allow a 300-acre data center to move forward. But at a packed meeting to discuss the Bolingbroke plans, some 900 people showed up to voice near unanimous opposition to the proposed data center, according to Macon, Georgia’s The Telegraph. Seeing which way the wind had blown, the Monroe county commission shot it down in August last year.
The would-be developers of the proposed site had claimed it would bring in millions of dollars for the county. That it would be hidden from view. That it would “uphold the highest environmental standards.” That it would bring jobs and prosperity. Yet still, people came gunning for it.
Why!? Data centers have been around for years. So why does everyone hate them all of the sudden?
What is it about these engineering marvels that will allow us to build AI that will cure all diseases, bring unprecedented prosperity, and even cheat death (if you believe what the AI sellers are selling) that so infuriates their prospective neighbors?
There are some obvious reasons. First is just the speed and scale of their construction, which has had effects on power grids. No one likes to see their power bills go up. The rate hikes that so incensed Georgians come as monthly reminders that the eyesore in your backyard profits California billionaires at your expense, on your grid. In Wyoming, for example, a planned Meta data center will require more electricity than every household in the state, combined. To meet demand for power-hungry data centers, utilities are adding capacity to the grid. But although that added capacity may benefit tech companies, the cost is shared by local consumers.
Similarly, there are environmental concerns. To meet their electricity needs, data centers often turn to dirty forms of energy. xAI, for example, famously threw a bunch of polluting methane-powered generators at its data center in Memphis. While nuclear energy is oft-bandied about as a greener solution, traditional plants can take a decade or more to build; even new and more nimble reactors will take years to come online. In addition, data centers often require massive amounts of water. But the amount can vary widely depending on the facility, and is often shrouded in secrecy. (A number of states are attempting to require facilities to disclose water usage.)
A different type of environmental consequence of data centers is that they are noisy. A low, constant, machine hum. Not just sometimes, but always. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. “A highway that never stops.”
And as to the jobs they bring to communities. Well, I have some bad news there too. Once construction ends, they tend to employ very few people, especially for such resource-intensive facilities.
These are all logical reasons to oppose data centers. But I suspect there is an additional, emotional one. And it echoes one we’ve heard before.
More than a decade ago, the large tech firms of Silicon Valley began operating buses to ferry workers to their campuses from San Francisco and other Bay Area cities. Like data centers, these buses used shared resources such as public roads without, people felt, paying their fair share. Protests erupted. But while the protests were certainly about shared resource use, they were also about something much bigger.
Tech companies, big and small, were transforming San Francisco. The early 2010s were a time of rapid gentrification in the city. And what’s more, the tech industry itself was transforming society. Smartphones were newly ubiquitous. The way we interacted with the world was fundamentally changing, and people were, for the most part, powerless to do anything about it. You couldn’t stop Google.
But you could stop a Google bus.
You could stand in front of it and block its path. You could yell at the people getting on it. You could yell at your elected officials and tell them to do something. And in San Francisco, people did. The buses were eventually regulated.
The data center pushback has a similar vibe. AI, we are told, is transforming society. It is suddenly everywhere. Even if you opt not to use ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini, generative AI is increasingly built into just about every app and service you likely use. People are worried AI will harvest jobs in the coming years. Or even kill us all. And for what? So far, the returns have certainly not lived up to the hype.
You can’t stop Google. But maybe, just maybe, you can stop a Google data center.
Then again, maybe not. The tech buses in San Francisco, though regulated, remain commonplace. And the city is more gentrified than ever. Meanwhile, in Monroe County, life goes on. In October, Google confirmed it had purchased 950 acres of land just off the interstate. It plans to build a data center there.
