AI news from MIT Technology Review

Tweets by techreview

Mitigating emissions from air freight: Unlocking the potential of SAF with book and claim

Emissions from air freight have increased by 25% since 2019, according to a 2024 analysis by environmental advocacy organization Stand.Earth. The researchers found that the expansion of cargo-only fleets to transport goods during the pandemic — as air travel halted, slower freight modes faced disruption, but demand for rapid delivery soared — has led to…
The Download: introducing this year’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies

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. Introducing this year’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies It’s easy to be cynical about technology these days. Many of the “disruptions” of the last 15 years were more about coddling a certain set of young,…
Securing digital assets as crypto crime surges

In February 2025, cyberattackers thought to be linked to North Korea executed a sophisticated supply chain attack on cryptocurrency exchange Bybit. By targeting its infrastructure and multi-signature security process, hackers managed to steal more than $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum in the largest known digital-asset theft to date. The ripple effects were felt across the…
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026
Why some “breakthrough” technologies don’t work out

Every year, MIT Technology Review publishes a list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. In fact, the 2026 version is out today. This marks the 25th year the newsroom has compiled this annual list, which means its journalists and editors have now identified 250 technologies as breakthroughs. A few years ago, editor at large David Rotman revisited…
The astronaut training tourists to fly in the world’s first commercial space station

For decades, space stations have been largely staffed by professional astronauts and operated by a handful of nations. But that’s about to change in the coming years, as companies including Axiom Space and Sierra Space launch commercial space stations that will host tourists and provide research facilities for nations and other firms. The first of…
Good technology should change the world

The billionaire investor Peter Thiel (or maybe his ghostwriter) once said, “We were promised flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” That quip originally appeared in a manifesto for Thiel’s venture fund in 2011. All good investment firms have a manifesto, right? This one argued for making bold bets on risky, world-changing technologies rather than…
Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens

How large is a large language model? Think about it this way. In the center of San Francisco there’s a hill called Twin Peaks from which you can view nearly the entire city. Picture all of it—every block and intersection, every neighborhood and park, as far as you can see—covered in sheets of paper. Now…
How next-generation nuclear reactors break out of the 20th-century blueprint

Commercial nuclear reactors all work pretty much the same way. Atoms of a radioactive material split, emitting neutrons. Those bump into other atoms, splitting them and causing them to emit more neutrons, which bump into other atoms, continuing the chain reaction. That reaction gives off heat, which can be used directly or help turn water…
Hyperscale AI data centers: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2026

In sprawling stretches of farmland and industrial parks, supersized buildings packed with racks of computers are springing up to fuel the AI race. These engineering marvels are a new species of infrastructure: supercomputers designed to train and run large language models at mind-bending scale, complete with their own specialized chips, cooling systems, and even energy…