MIT 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2022

Fans of MIT Technology Review will know that their annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list is now available. It was announced in the February 23, 2022 issue of MIT’s The Download. Brief descriptions of each of the Breakthrough Technologies appeared in successive postings of The Download. Some of these descriptions are reproduced below.

TIP: Subscribe to The Download (https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/). The newsletter is free, and may inspire you to subscribe to MIT Technology Review (https://forms.technologyreview.com/subscriptions/the-download/?utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tr_subscription.unpaid.acquisition&utm_content=newsletterCTA&mc_cid=7882477d24&mc_eid=76363cef0a)

///////
From MIT’s The Download

Introducing this year’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies

Every year, the reporters and editors at MIT Technology Review go through the painstaking process of compiling our list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. These represent the technological advances that we think will have the biggest impact on the world in the years to come. They span everything from medicine to energy to digital technologies, but they’re unified by one thing: we think they will affect our lives in meaningful ways.

Previous picks have included mRNA vaccines, GPT-3, and TikTok’s recommendation algorithms. Come and see what we chose for 2022—there will be some familiar names, and some surprises.

This is the 21st year we’ve published this list, and we will be showcasing a different technology from the TR10 in The Download every day for the next 10 days. A deep dive into the first technology on the list will appear in tomorrow’s newsletter. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into the future.

In the meantime, we’ve got a fun bonus exercise we’d like you to get involved with: picking an 11th technology. Go ahead and vote in our poll now! You can choose from the metaverse, NFTs, aging clocks, and AI-powered robots.
///////
Carbon removal factories could be a crucial weapon in the fight against climate change

In September, Climeworks flipped the switch on Orca, the largest plant to date that is designed to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

The facility, outside Reykjavik, Iceland, can capture 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. Large fans suck air through a filter, where materials bind with CO2 molecules. The company’s partner, Carbfix, then mixes the carbon dioxide with water and pumps it underground, where it reacts with basalt rock and eventually turns into stone. The facility runs entirely on carbon-free electricity, mainly from a nearby geothermal power plant.

Sure, 4,000 tons isn’t that much. It’s less than the annual emissions of 900 cars. And it’s a tiny fraction of the billions of tons of carbon dioxide the world will likely need to pull out of the atmosphere to prevent global warming from soaring past 2 °C over preindustrial levels. But it’s a start.

Read more about the facility, and learn about why carbon removal factories were selected as the 10th Breakthrough Technology on our annual list this year. If you’re curious, check out the 10 technologies, and vote for the technology you think deserves to be added to the list.
///////
Could this powerful new magnet finally make fusion power a reality?

Last September, researchers at Commonwealth Fusion Systems slowly charged a 10-ton D-shaped magnet, pushing up the field strength until it surpassed 20 tesla—a record for a magnet of its kind. The company’s founders say the feat addressed the major engineering challenge required to develop a compact, inexpensive fusion reactor.

By some point in 2025, the researchers expect, their machine will produce more energy from fusing together atoms, the same phenomenon that powers the sun, than it takes to achieve and sustain those reactions. If it works, it’ll generate 10 times more energy than it consumes.

This is the dream of fusion power. It’s a dream physicists have been chasing for decades. At temperatures well above 100 million degrees, as in the sun, atomic nuclei mash together, releasing a massive amount of energy in the process. If researchers can bring about these reactions in a controlled and sustained way here on Earth, it could provide a crucial source of cheap, always-on, carbon-free electricity, using nearly limitless fuel sources.

Despite decades of research and billions of dollars’ investment in the past, nobody has yet built a fusion plant that can produce more energy than it consumes. The sheer technical complexity and massive cost of achieving fusion have repeatedly dashed the hopes of scientists and hardened the stance of skeptics.

But Commonwealth and its backers believe there’s reason to believe its approach will work, especially thanks to the novel magnet it has developed. Other fusion startups and research efforts have reported recent progress as well.

Read more about the current state of the field in this feature by our senior energy editor, James Temple, and read his explanation of why practical fusion reactors are one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year.
///////
TR10: Proof of stake could end crypto’s energy consumption woes

Blockchain-based projects have been attracting a whole new level of interest, money, and hype recently. But there’s an issue fans would rather not talk about: they guzzle huge amounts of energy, and thus contribute to climate change.

Luckily for them, there might be a solution: proof of stake. It offers a way to set up such a network without requiring so much energy, and it’s finally set to get a major real-world test later this year when Ethereum, which runs all sorts of applications in addition to being the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, transitions to using it. The shift will be a dramatic event, dubbed “The Merge”, and it has been projected to cut energy use by 99.95%.

To get a better sense of the context of the move, how it will work, and the risks involved, read this feature by Amy Castor.
And don’t forget you can peruse the rest of the list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for yourself, and vote on which technology you think might deserve the coveted 11th slot.
///////
TR10: a pill for covid

From the start of the pandemic, the dream has been a pill you could swallow to make the virus go away. Now the real thing is here: pills designed from the ground up to block the covid-19 virus. And they work. Given to people within a few days of infection, an antiviral from Pfizer slashes the chance of hospitalization by 89%.
The pill will prevent many people from dying of covid-19. And if a new variant turns up that defeats vaccines, antivirals could be our last resort. That’s why we chose covid pills as one of the 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2022. Read our biotech editor Antonio Regalado’s in-depth feature on how they were created. You can also browse through the full list to see what else we picked, and even vote for the candidate you think merits the 11th slot.
///////
The vast promise of the world’s first malaria vaccine

Malaria kills more than 600,000 people a year, most of them children younger than five years old. 95% of the cases are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, last October, the World Health Organization approved the world’s first vaccine for the deadly mosquito-borne disease.

GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine is not a particularly effective one, with an efficacy of just 50% in trials, a figure which dropped dramatically over time. It requires three or four doses.

Even so, public health officials are hailing the vaccine as a “game changer” in Africa. When combined with other malaria control measures it is expected to reduce malaria deaths by as much as 70%.

The vaccine also has a broader significance: it is the first vaccine approved for a parasitic disease. Public health officials say the approval is likely to encourage innovation. Second-generation malaria vaccines—as well as vaccines for other parasitic diseases—are already in the pipeline.

That huge promise is why we’ve selected the malaria vaccine to be one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. If you’re interested in learning more, you can read about the long history of the vaccine’s development, stretching all the way back to the 1980s, in this feature by Adam Piore. You can also comb through the rest of the 10 Breakthrough Technologies on our list in 2022, and vote for the candidate you think merits the 11th slot.
///////
TR10: AI for protein folding

DeepMind has racked up many impressive achievements in AI. Still, when the group’s program for predicting protein folding was released in November 2020, biologists were shocked by how well it worked.

Nearly everything your body does, it does with proteins. Understanding what individual proteins do is therefore crucial for most drug development and for understanding many diseases. And what a protein does is determined by its three-dimensional shape.

A protein is made up of a ribbon of amino acids, which folds up into a knot of complex twists and twirls. Determining that shape—and thus the protein’s function—can take months in a lab. For years, scientists have tried computerized prediction methods to make the process easier. But no technique ever came close to matching the accuracy achieved by humans.

That changed with DeepMind’s AlphaFold2. The software, which uses an AI technique called deep learning, can predict the shape of proteins to the nearest atom, the first time a computer has matched the slow but accurate techniques used in the lab.

Scientific teams around the world have already started using it for research on cancer, antibiotic resistance, and covid-19, but the true impact of AlphaFold2 may take a year or two to be clear.

That’s why AI for protein folding is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. If you’re curious, you can look through the rest of the list yourself, and vote on what you think the 11th technology should be.

GO DEEPER: And if you want to learn more about AlphaFold, and why DeepMind CEO and cofounder Demis Hassabis sees it as the company’s crowning achievement, read this new profile by our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven.

It explains why AlphaGo, the company’s AI system which beat a top human player at the complex game Go, was in many ways a test run for the company’s protein-folding ambitions. And it also sets out why AlphaFold may ultimately transform the world of biology.
///////
TR10: how long-lasting grid batteries could help expand the use of clean power

For a few seconds on a sunny afternoon last April, renewables broke a record for California’s main electric grid, providing enough power to supply 94.5% of demand. The moment was hailed as a milestone on the path to decarbonization. But what happens when the sun sets and the breeze stops?

Handling the fluctuating power production of renewables will require cheap storage for hours or even days at a time. New types of iron-based batteries might be up to the task, and they’re getting their first real-world tests in major projects from startups.

Read more about long-lasting grid batteries, one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Have a look through the full list of technologies, and tell us what you think the 11th technology should be by voting in our poll!

And if you’re interested in learning more about this topic, read this feature below.
///////
Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide