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A new space telescope set to launch at the end of this month could not only help us understand the universe, but also defend us from dangerous asteroids.
NASA’s new dark-energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch at the end of August, is uniquely well placed to help us spot any dangerous rocks heading our way.
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NASA's Roman telescope carries the first space-bound "active" coronagraph, which doesn't just block starlight—it measures and suppresses glare, improving sensitivity to exoplanets by up to 1,000 times over current instruments.
Shape-shifting mirrors on NASA’s new space telescope could unveil Jupiters like our own
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be the first space telescope to use an “active coronagraph” to block out unwanted starlight.
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Quantifying our lives is easier than it’s ever been. But a philosopher of games warns that external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important.
The inevitable weakness of metrics
Quantifying our lives is easier than it’s ever been. But a philosopher of games warns that external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important.
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OpenAI created GPT-Red, an LLM trained specifically to hack other AI models. It automates "red-teaming"—stress-testing systems for weaknesses—a job that human testers alone can no longer keep pace with as AI grows more complex.
Meet GPT-Red: an LLM super-hacker OpenAI built to make its models safer
Exclusive: The firm says it wants to future-proof its safety procedures and stay ahead of human attackers.
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A coin-size device called NEO, developed by Shanghai startup Neuracle Technology, beat Neuralink and others to become the first invasive BCI approved for use beyond clinical trials, now available to paralysis patients in China.
China has approved the world’s first invasive brain-computer chip—here’s what’s next
The country wants to become a global leader in brain implants. Strong government support is expected to help accelerate that process.
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The Miami-based AI startup Subquadratic came out of stealth mode with a huge claim. It announced that it had solved a mathematical bottleneck that had been holding back large language models for almost a decade.
A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that’s holding back LLMs
Subquadratic has now shared more details about its new model. But some are still skeptical.
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The Mars Sample Return mission got off to a promising start, hunting for potentially humanity-changing space rocks. How did it fall off the rails?
America was winning the race to find Martian life. Then China jumped in.
The Mars Sample Return mission got off to a promising start, hunting for potentially humanity-changing space rocks. How did it fall off the rails?
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Learn how to apply LLMs across industries in 7 weekly editions of our new free newsletter.
Making AI Work, MIT Technology Review’s new AI newsletter, is here
Learn how to apply LLMs across industries in 7 weekly editions of our new free newsletter.
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Our reporters and editors constantly debate which emerging technologies will define the future. Once a year, we take stock and share some educated guesses with our readers. Here are the advances that we think will drive progress or incite the most change—for better or worse—in the years ahead.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026
Here are our picks for the advances to watch in the years ahead—and why we think they matter right now.
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The technology could make commercially available bulk datasets even more of a privacy concern.
How LLMs could supercharge mass surveillance in the US
The technology could make commercially available bulk datasets even more of a privacy concern.
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OpenAI has set a new "North Star" — building an AI system capable of tackling large, complex scientific problems entirely on its own, with a research intern prototype due by September and a full multi-agent system planned for 2028.
OpenAI is throwing everything into building a fully automated researcher
An exclusive conversation with OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, about his firm's new grand challenge and the future of AI.
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A group of hardcore longevity enthusiasts believe that death is bad, and humans have a moral duty to defeat it. More and more influential scientists, funders, and politicians are taking them seriously.
Meet the Vitalists: the hardcore longevity enthusiasts who believe death is “wrong”
They argue we need a revolution—and more and more influential scientists, funders, and politicians are taking them seriously.
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The FTC has banned foreign-made humanoids, making a fragile, nascent sector part of America’s AI industrial policy. On its face, it’s a strategy to align political and industry interests that is much older than the Trump administration, but robotics is now seen as another piece of the AI industry.
Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics
The FTC has banned foreign-made humanoids, making a fragile, nascent sector part of America’s AI industrial policy.
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For decades, physicists have hunted for weakly interacting massive particles, a leading candidate for dark matter. But their search has run into a new problem: neutrinos.
The search for dark matter has been blown wide open
After decades of hunting, physicists still don’t know what makes up most of the universe’s matter. Now they need to cast a wider net.
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When models find shortcuts to high scores or correct answers, those shortcuts get reinforced—meaning AI companies may be accidentally training their models to behave badly without realizing it.
Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals
The misbehavior is called reward hacking. This is what you need to know.
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A gerontologist wanted his preserved brain to be reanimated. Cryopreservation is more likely to be used on organs for transplantation.
This scientist rewarmed and studied pieces of his friend’s cryopreserved brain
A gerontologist wanted his preserved brain to be reanimated. Cryopreservation is more likely to be used on organs for transplantation.
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Placebo and “knowcebo” effects are a problem. But they can also help people feel better.
Mind-altering substances are (still) falling short in clinical trials
Placebo and “knowcebo” effects are a problem. But they can also help people feel better.
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If all goes well, the test could help establish the vehicles as a tool for government agencies, scientists, and companies that hope to probe the vastly understudied deep sea and the resources it holds.
Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science—and mining
A company called Orpheus Ocean wants to go “deep for cheap.”
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After three years of record-breaking heat and another scorcher underway, air-conditioning isn’t going anywhere. Feeling the heat, scientists and startups are hoping to amp up solid-state cooling. The catch is whether it can match the efficiency of traditional AC.
These new solid-state ACs promise a cool future. Scientists aren’t so sure.
A wave of unconventional coolers are making their way to the air-conditioning market—and aiming to dial down its emissions.
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Colossal Biosciences has grown baby chicks inside 3D-printed plastic containers coated with a silicone-based membrane that mimics an eggshell's oxygen exchange — a meaningful step, but scientists say the company is overselling it.
Colossal Biosciences is growing chickens in a 3D-printed artificial eggshell
In an early step towards artificial wombs, a biotech company claims it’s developed a “fully artificial” chicken egg.
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Solar geoengineering, the controversial idea that we could deliberately intervene in the climate system to counteract global warming, is moving beyond computer simulations and into the practical engineering challenges required to make it real.
Hacking the atmosphere: Geoengineering gets a reality check
Researchers are starting to explore the tools and systems we need to develop to cool down the planet.
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Would you take a payment to ramp down your electricity use? Would it change anything if you were doing so to help power a local data center?
How virtual power plants could provide energy for data centers
A new deal between Google and Voltus will take advantage of flexibility on the grid.
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Google DeepMind is calling for the moral behavior of large language models—such as what they do when called on to act as companions, therapists, medical advisors, and so on—to be scrutinized with the same kind of rigor as their ability to code or do math.
Google DeepMind wants to know if chatbots are just virtue signaling
We need to better understand how LLMs address moral questions if we're to trust them with more important tasks.
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Axiom Math is giving away a powerful new AI tool. But it remains to be seen if it speeds up research as much as the company hopes.
This startup wants to change how mathematicians do math
Axiom Math is giving away a powerful new AI tool. But it remains to be seen if it speeds up research as much as the company hopes.
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Generative AI is exposing people’s real phone numbers—and there's not much anyone can do about it.
AI chatbots are giving out people’s real phone numbers
People report that their personal contact info was surfaced by Google AI—and there’s apparently no easy way to prevent it.
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Despite the growing hysteria over AI’s threat to white-collar jobs, there’s still scant evidence that the technology has had a large-scale impact on the labor market.
A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria
What do the numbers really say about the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market? The answer might surprise you.
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A $500 million bet against respiratory infections: Stripe, Anthropic, OpenAI, and other donors are backing a new nonprofit called Intercept, aimed at eliminating respiratory viruses entirely—starting with the cold and flu.
Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI are backing an effort to stop respiratory infections
Intercept, a new nonprofit, will focus on countering the common cold and the flu.
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Researchers are breaking new ground in preserving organs by freezing them, pumping nutrients into them, or supercooling them.
The quest to keep organs alive outside the body
Researchers are breaking new ground in preserving organs by freezing them, pumping nutrients into them, or supercooling them.
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Treating AI as a "coworker" will make you do a worse job.
AI agents are not your “coworkers”
Marketing AI agents as digital employees may make human workers worse at spotting errors and more likely to offload accountability.
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ASML’s new chipmaking machine is powering the future of AI—and unsettling governments along the way.
The $400 million machine powering the future of chipmaking
The AI era needs ever faster chips. ASML has a monopoly on the expensive contraptions needed to pattern them. Can anyone catch up?
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