Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, transforming all areas of our lives and leaving barely any aspect of it unimpacted.
This is not a new phenomenon by any degree. Many centuries ago, the invention of the printing press, steam engine, the telephone, the light bulb, and airplane, and then that of computers, the Internet, and mobile phones a decade ago completely changed the world.
Over the last many years, the pace of technological advancement, however, has increased significantly. While it took hundreds of thousands of years for humans to learn to control fire, it didn’t take even a century for us to land on the moon. And now, technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, blockchain, 3D printing, 5G, quantum computing, and biotechnology are taking the world by storm.
With so much innovation and development happening, the question is just which technologies will define the next era. MIT Technology Review has released its list of the top ten technology breakthroughs that will be revolutionizing the entire planet in the coming years.
Founded at MIT in 1899, MIT Technology Review is the world’s leading independent media company that analyzes complex innovations and their impact on society to empower the global audience to navigate the emerging technologies shaping our future.
The annual innovation issue has been published for over two decades now with “a great track record of flagging things that are poised to hit a tipping point.”
In its last year’s publication, their list contained AI for everything: gene-editing treatment, Twitter killers, weight-loss drugs, super-efficient solar cells, and exascale computers. Now, this time around, the highly anticipated annual innovation issue comes with an even more inspiring and thought-provoking list of technologies that are having the most impact.
“What stands out to me this year is that progress definitely isn’t linear. Several of these technologies have had major setbacks or gone through long periods where it wasn’t at all clear that they would pan out. It’s neat to see them start to have a real impact.”
– Amy Nordrum, an executive editor at MIT Technology Review.
So, with that, let’s take a look at the newest major developments that, according to the experts, will shape our future and affect our world for decades to come.
1. Small Language Models
Large language models (LLM) may have been ruling the world for the past couple of years, but it’s now time for smaller models to take over. The first technological breakthrough on this list is small language models, which MIT tech review experts believe can now perform just as well, if not better than, the larger ones. Smaller models are trained on more focused data sets and, as such, can offer domain-specific precision, cost efficiency, and enhanced data security compared to their larger counterparts.
While size matters in the AI world, as the review points out, it’s just time to do more with less. Large language models have already unleashed the power of AI, with OpenAi’s GPT-3 being the largest one to be ever built, which kicked off a technology boom sustained by bigger models.
However, as the marginal gains for new high-end models trail off, the focus is on smaller models that can enable businesses to deploy AI in a specific manner. Already, tech giants are offering their smaller versions, such as tiny Haiku from Anthropic’s Claude 3, GPT-4o mini from OpenAI, Gemini Nano from Google DeepMind, and Phi from Microsoft (MSFT -1.54%).
Estimated to have a market size of $8.69 billion in 2024, the global small language model market size is projected to grow at a CAGR of 15.6% over the next five years and have a revenue of $20.7 bln by 2030.
“Small is the next big thing,” writes Will Douglas Heaven, who points to the better efficiency, more affordability, and less resource-intensiveness of smaller models for their expected success.
2. Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Galileo transformed astronomy when he used a telescope to study extraterrestrial bodies back in the 17th century. Since then, we have come a long way. Just late in Dec. 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched, the largest telescope in space equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments that cost $10 billion.
The brand-new discoveries made with this exceptionally detailed telescope are just the beginning. Now, a massive new telescope is being erected in Chile that will help us find the answers to many cosmic unknowns.
Source: AURA Astronomy
Named after the astronomer Vera Rubin, who worked on the rate of galaxy rotation and made a strong case for the existence of dark matter, the observatory will explore it in higher definition using its massive digital camera built to take a lot of photos and for a very long time.
Previously known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), it is equipped with the largest digital 3.2-gigapixel camera that’s ever made for astronomy. Its first mission is the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which involves capturing images of the Southern Hemisphere repeatedly for a decade. The first images, however, won’t come until a few months from now. If all goes well, that is fine.
By the time the exploration is done, 20 billion galaxies will be categorized, and 60 petabytes of data will be collected by it, all of which will be compiled together with the help of specialized algorithms and a supercomputer. The plan is also to build an elaborate and detailed 3D map of our galaxy. The facility is run by the US National Science Foundation and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
3. Long-acting HIV Prevention Meds
Medications that can prevent HIV have been in development since 2012. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a pretty well-known and effective drug in this sphere. However, these need to be taken daily or in advance, besides facing the issues of cost, lack of accessibility, and stigma attached to them.
A new HIV prevention drug is here, though, and that’s Lenacapavir, a treatment approved by the FDA and injected only once every six months. The drug produced by Gilead (GILD +0.75%) has been 100% effective in protecting over 5,000 girls and women in Uganda and South Africa from getting HIV. The lenacapavir trial has shown that injections of the new drug were more effective than a daily PrEP pill. Last year, US clinical trials for the drug also began.
Lenacapavir is also called the “breakthrough of the year” by Science Magazine. With over 1 million people infected by HIV every year, this drug can really help bring down new HIV infections significantly as PrEP uptake, while rising steadily, is still far from the level required to contain the HIV epidemic. However, the reason behind this title was due to getting a new understanding of the structure and function of HIV’s capsid protein, which many other viruses have their very own too, and as such, “raises the exciting prospect that similar capsid inhibitors could fight other viral diseases.”
Meanwhile, MIT Technology Review has also mentioned cabotegravir, another long-acting injectable drug manufactured by ViiV Healthcare that was approved by the FDA in 2021. Injected every two months, the drug has huge demand, but its rollout has been rather slow.
This is expected to change with lenacapavir, with Gilead having signed licensing agreements with manufacturers to produce generic versions in 120 low-income countries.
Click here for a list of top biotech stocks.
4. Generative AI Search
Ever since ChatGPT’s launch in Nov. 2022, which boasts about 100 million weekly active users, people have been using the chatbot to ask all kinds of questions, essentially using it as their very own personal search engine. This, of course, affected Google’s dominance, which holds over 90% of global search engine share.
So, Google naturally launched AI Overviews, which is powered by its Gemini language model and aims to “take the legwork out of searching.” Instead of scrolling through multiple links to find the right one that can answer your queries, the AI Overview simply provides you with concise answers, changing the way billions of people have been searching the internet.
This could just be the beginning, though, as Microsoft (MSFT -1.54%) and OpenAI have also rolled out their versions. Meanwhile, in our computers, phones, and other gadgets, AI-assisted searches analyze images, audio, and video to return custom answers. Other players in this space are Apple (AAPL -2.26%), Meta (META +0.98%), and Perplexity.
According to MIT Technology Review:
“This new application of AI has serious implications” for media and online advertising, with generative search to be “another battleground between media and Big Tech.”
5. Cattle Burping Remedies
Climate change is one of the biggest threats humanity is currently facing, and its impacts can already be seen in rising temperatures, drought, flooding, sea level rise, and more. Some of the biggest contributors to climate change are deforestation, burning fossil fuels, and livestock farming.
Cattle are actually a major source of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that has 84 times more warming power than CO2 and is responsible for about a third of global warming. As for how they contribute to methane emission, it’s through belching, which is caused by a digestive process called enteric fermentation, where sugar is broken down for easy absorption but also produces methane as a by-product. A small percentage of methane is also produced and released in the cattle’s large intestine, while a significant amount of it is produced in lagoons and settling ponds used to process cattle manure.
Given how critical the problem is, companies are developing solutions and making real progress. This includes the cattle burping supplement called Bovaer from DSM-Firmenich, which can cut CH4 emissions by 30% in dairy cattle and even more in beef cattle. The FDA has already given the supplement, which inhibits an enzyme in animals’ guts that converts gases into methane, a green light for use in the US.
Other products, such as a type of red seaweed from the likes of Blue Ocean Barns, Rumin8, and Symbrosia, are being developed, which, according to the publication, “look like a promising way to solve a big chunk of a very big problem.”
6. Cleaner Jet Fuel
The growing focus on tackling the problem of climate change has companies also exploring ways to cut down emissions from aviation by creating alternative fuels that are made from industrial waste, CO2 captured from the air, used cooking oils, or crop residue.
The global aviation industry is a rapidly expanding sector, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects the request for air connectivity to continue to grow. This translates to increasing demand for jet fuel. Currently, about 80 billion gallons of aviation fuel are produced annually worldwide, the vast majority of which are fossil fuels, generating notable amounts of greenhouse gases.
With the aviation industry committed to achieving a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, they are turning to materials like industrial waste and allowing new fuels — which can be used in existing planes — to cut down their emission by half or almost entirely.
An increasing number of governments are also passing legislation requiring airlines to begin using alternative fuels or sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Today, almost all commercially available SAFs are made with waste fats, oils, and greases, which are in limited supply. So, companies like Lanzatech’s (LNZA -4.79%) LanzaJet are using other inputs and technologies to scale up. However, moving forward, a crucial factor for these fuels, as per the report, will be cost, as currently, they are three times more expensive than traditional options.
7. Fast-learning Robots
Robots are gradually rising in number, with the global industrial robot shipments expected to amount to 718,000, up from 553,000 in 2022. Overall, about 3.4 million industrial robots are estimated to be in use worldwide in 2023.
With advances in AI making it quicker than ever to train robots to do new tasks, we may soon be able to build robots that can do things like care for patients or tidy our homes without being given specialized instructions. However, robots have yet to gain the ability to truly sense their surroundings, “think” their next moves and then carry out those decisions.
This is because while massive amounts of text can be fed into LLMs and fine-tuned to generate text based on prompts, the same is “incredibly complicated” to achieve in robots. However, progress is being made with the use of sensors, images, and videos from the Internet.
By combining all these data sources properly into a new AI model, a robot can be trained better than using manual methods. “It’s a breakthrough that’s set to redefine how robots learn,” notes the report, with industrial robots already using such advanced training methods that can be used as the groundwork to create smart robots for homes. The publication mentioned Agility, Amazon, Covariant, Robust, and Toyota Research Institute as companies leading this robotics progress.
Click here for a list of the ten best robotics companies.
8. Stem-cell Therapies
Stem cell therapy or regenerative medicine makes use of stem cells or their derivatives to repair injured, dysfunctional, or diseased tissues. They can be thought of as “replacement parts for whatever ails you.”
Stem cell scientists promised a medical revolution when stem cells were isolated from embryos many years ago and could theoretically transform into any tissue in the human body. While a promising start, the journey was anything but as making these tissues functional proved to be really hard.
Over the past few years, stem cell therapy has been making significant progress, with over 100 clinical trials now exploring their potential to replace tissues in life-threatening diseases, including epilepsy, diabetes, heart failure, and cancer.
The focus of trials is on safety, with current challenges emerging around finding the most suitable cells for specific purposes and ways to avoid using immunosuppressant drugs that prevent cell rejection by the body but increase infection risks.
The annual review states that “stem cells are finally on the brink of delivering,” but for those that actually work to materialize, it expects a timeline of five years. Researchers are also expecting some stem-cell therapies to enter the clinic soon, though it could take them another decade for them to become part of general medicine.
Click here for a list of top stem cell companies to invest in.
9. Robotaxis
Robotaxis is all the rage right now, and it is already in certain cities in China and the US. A few years ago, they were learning the rules of the road; today, driverless cars, accessible via an app, are expanding into a growing number of cities.
Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA -0.73%) is among the biggest proponents of robotaxis and has unveiled its very own self-driving robotaxis. Meanwhile, Google’s parent company Alphabet‘s (GOOGL -0.37%) Waymo, which is the biggest player in the US, already operates in several cities and has exceeded 100,000 paid rides a week as of August last year. Amazon-owned (AMZN -1.53%) Zoox has also tested rides for employees and is ready to have them go live in Las Vegas soon.
In China, Baidu, AutoX, WeRide, and Pony AI are prominent providers of commercial robotaxi services with plans to expand into Singapore, the Middle East, and the US.
Public trust, however, is yet to be won, with nearly two-thirds of Americans saying they wouldn’t want to ride in a driverless passenger vehicle if given the opportunity. As the report noted, another potential roadblock comes in the form of backlash from cab drivers, as seen in China.
Despite these challenges, the industry is pressing forward with more people experiencing robotaxis for the first time and becoming more comfortable with the technology. Moving forward, the biggest players will continue to enter new markets and start competing on price, the review states.
10. Green Steel
Yet another technological breakthrough on this list is a step towards moving away from fossil fuels and contributing to the better health of the planet through green steel. This fossil fuel-free steel is produced using renewable energy sources like hydropower, solar, and wind, using hydrogen instead of coal, and using scrap steel, among other ways. The likes of Boston Metal, LKAB, and Midrex are helping advance this movement forward.
The green steel market was valued at $200 million in 2022 and is forecasted to reach $364.5 billion by 2032, driven by producer and consumer motivation for sustainable products and increasing government initiatives worldwide.
The world’s first industrial-scale steel plant from Stegra that will emit almost no CO2 is currently under construction in Sweden. For such a big endeavor, the startup has raised almost $7 billion and is on track to begin production in 2026. While the planet will produce a mere 4.5 million metric tons of steel each year once up and running, it’s a promising start which the report believes can see eager consumers pay a premium for a green product.
Conclusion
So, these were MIT Technology Review’s top picks for technological inventions that are paving the way for a better planet. Make sure to keep an eye on these developments to be better prepared for the future.
