MIT Technology Review

Some AI chatbots rely on flawed research from retracted scientific papers to answer questions, according to recent studies. The findings, confirmed by MIT Technology Review, raise questions about how reliable AI tools are at evaluating scientific research and could complicate efforts by countries and industries seeking to invest in AI tools for scientists. AI search...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. This medical startup uses LLMs to run appointments and make diagnoses Patients at a small number of clinics in Southern California run by the medical startup Akido Labs are spending relatively little time,...

Eni, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, just agreed to buy $1 billion in electricity from a power plant being built by Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The deal is the latest to illustrate just how much investment Commonwealth and other fusion companies are courting as they attempt to take fusion power from the...

Imagine this: You've been feeling unwell, so you call up your doctor's office to make an appointment. To your surprise, they schedule you in for the next day. At the appointment, you aren't rushed through describing your health concerns; instead, you have a full half hour to share your symptoms and worries and the exhaustive...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. A pivotal meeting on vaccine guidance is underway-and former CDC leaders are alarmed This week has been an eventful one for America's public health agency. Two former leaders of the US Centers for...

Update Friday 6am ET: The advisory CDC panel recommended that children under the age of 4 do not receive the combined MMRV vaccine (for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella) but instead receive two separate shots. This week has been an eventful one for America's public health agency. Two former leaders of the US Centers for...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. AI-designed viruses are here and already killing bacteria Artificial intelligence can draw cat pictures and write emails. Now the same technology can compose a working genome. A research team in California says it...

Hydrogen is sometimes held up as a master key for the energy transition. It can be made using several low-emissions methods and could play a role in cleaning up industries ranging from agriculture and chemicals to aviation and long-distance shipping. This moment is a complicated one for the green fuel, though, as a new report...

Artificial intelligence can draw cat pictures and write emails. Now the same technology can compose a working genome. A research team in California says it used AI to propose new genetic codes for viruses-and managed to get several of these viruses to replicate and kill bacteria. The scientists, based at Stanford University and the nonprofit...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How to measure the returns on R&D spending Given the draconian cuts to US federal funding for science, it's worth asking some hard-nosed money questions: How much should we be spending on R&D?...

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what's coming next. You can read more from the series here. Given the draconian cuts to US federal funding for science, including the administration's proposal to reduce the 2026 budgets of the National Institutes of Health by...

Automation has become a defining force in the customer experience. Between the chatbots that answer our questions and the recommendation systems that shape our choices, AI-driven tools are now embedded in nearly every interaction. But the latest wave of so-called agentic AI"-systems that can plan, act, and adapt toward a defined goal-promises to push automation...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The looming crackdown on AI companionship As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin....

As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin from data center sprawl. But this week showed that another threat entirely-that of kids forming unhealthy bonds with AI-is the one pulling AI safety out of the academic...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Meet tomorrow's rising stars of computing Each year, MIT Technology Review honors 35 outstanding people under the age of 35 who are driving scientific progress and solving tough problems in their fields. Today...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. We can't make American children healthy again" without tackling the gun crisis This week, the Trump administration released a strategy for improving the health and well-being of American children. The report was titled-you...

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what's coming next. You can read more from the series here. It's been a big year for video generation. In the last nine months OpenAI made Sora public, Google DeepMind launched Veo 3, the video startup Runway...

Note for readers: This newsletter discusses gun violence, a raw and tragic issue in America. It was already in progress on Wednesday when a school shooting occurred at Evergreen High School in Colorado and Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University. Earlier this week, the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again movement...

Generative AI has the potential to transform the finance function. By taking on some of the more mundane tasks that can occupy a lot of time, generative AI tools can help free up capacity for more high-value strategic work. For chief financial officers, this could mean spending more time and energy on proactively advising the...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How Trump's policies are affecting early-career scientists-in their own words Every year MIT Technology Review celebrates accomplished young scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors from around the world in our Innovators Under 35 list. We've...

Last week, a legal battle over lab-grown meat kicked off in Texas. On September 1, a two-year ban on the technology went into effect across the state; the following day, two companies filed a lawsuit against state officials. The two companies, Wildtype Foods and Upside Foods, are part of a growing industry that aims to...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Video: AI and our energy future In May, MIT Technology Review published an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses-down to a single query. Our reporters and editors...

In July 2024, a botched update to the software defenses managed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused more than 8 million Windows systems to fail. From hospitals to manufacturers, stock markets to retail stores, the outage caused parts of the global economy to grind to a halt. Payment systems were disrupted, broadcasters went off the air,...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Meet the AI honorees on our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2025 Each year, we select 35 outstanding individuals under the age of 35 who are using technology to tackle tough problems...

In Silicon Valley's imagined future, AI models are so empathetic that we'll use them as therapists. They'll provide mental-health care for millions, unimpeded by the pesky requirements for human counselors, like the need for graduate degrees, malpractice insurance, and sleep. Down here on Earth, something very different has been happening. Last week, we published a...

The rising popularity of AI is driving an increase in electricity demand so significant it has the potential to reshape our grid. Energy consumption by data centers has gone up by 80% from 2020 to 2025 and is likely to keep growing. Electricity prices are already rising, especially in places where data centers are most...

Earlier this year, when my colleague Casey Crownhart and I spent six months researching the climate and energy burden of AI, we came to see one number in particular as our white whale: how much energy the leading AI models, like ChatGPT or Gemini, use up when generating a single response. This fundamental number remained...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Introducing: our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2025 The world is full of extraordinary young people brimming with ideas for how to crack tough problems. Every year, we recognize 35 such individuals...

This story is part of MIT Technology Review's America Undone" series, examining how the foundations of US success in science and innovation are currently under threat.You can read the rest here. Every year MIT Technology Review celebrates accomplished young scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors from around the world in our Innovators Under 35 list. We've just...

In December 1947, three physicists at Bell Telephone Laboratories-John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain-built a compact electronic device using thin gold wires and a piece of germanium, a material known as a semiconductor. Their invention, later named the transistor (for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956), could amplify and switch electrical...

Sneha Goenka is one of MIT Technology Review's 2025 Innovators Under 35.Meet the rest of this year's honorees. Up to a quarter of children entering intensive care have undiagnosed genetic conditions. To be treated properly, they must first get diagnoses-which means having their genomes sequenced. This process typically takes up to seven weeks. Sadly, that's...

Iwnetim Abate is one of MIT Technology Review's 2025 Innovators Under 35.Meet the rest of this year's honorees. I'm the only one who wears glasses and has eye problems in the family," Iwnetim Abate says with a smile as sun streams in through the windows of his MIT office. I think it's because of the...

Yichao Peak" Ji is one of MIT Technology Review's 2025 Innovators Under 35.Meet the rest of this year's honorees. When Yichao Ji-also known as Peak"-appeared in a launch video for Manus in March, he didn't expect it to go viral. Speaking in fluent English, the 32-year-old introduced the AI agent built by Chinese startup Butterfly...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite. -Jessica Hamzelou Earlier this week, my editor forwarded me a video of the leaders of Russia and China talking about immortality. These days at...

This week I'm writing from Manchester, where I've been attendinga conference on aging. Wednesday was full of talks and presentations by scientists who are trying to understand the nitty-gritty of aging-all the way down to the molecular level. Once we can understand the complex biology of aging, we should be able to slow or prevent...

Agentic AI is coming of age. And with it comes new opportunities in the financial services sector. Banks are increasingly employing agentic AI to optimize processes, navigate complex systems, and sift through vast quantities of unstructured data to make decisions and take actions-with or without human involvement. With the maturing of agentic AI, it is...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Synthesia's AI clones are more expressive than ever. Soon they'll be able to talk back. -Rhiannon Williams Earlier this summer, I visited the AI company Synthesia to give it what it needed to...

During Black Friday in 2024, Stripe processed more than $31 billion in transactions, with processing rates peaking at 137,000 transactions per minute, the highest in the company's history. The financial-services firmhad to analyze every transaction in real time to prevent nearly 21 million fraud attempts that could have siphoned more than $910 million from its...

Earlier this summer, I walked through the glassy lobby of a fancy office in London, into an elevator, and then along a corridor into a clean, carpeted room. Natural light flooded in through its windows, and a large pair of umbrella-like lighting rigs made the room even brighter. I tried not to squint as I...

On a spring day in 1954, Bell Labs researchers showed off the first practical solar panels at a press conference in Murray Hill, New Jersey, using sunlight to spin a toy Ferris wheel before a stunned crowd. The solar future looked bright. But in the race to commercialize the technology it invented, the US would...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Material Cultures looks to the past to build the future Despite decades of green certifications, better material sourcing, and the use of more sustainable materials, the built environment is still responsible for a...

As brands compete for increasingly price conscious consumers, customer experience (CX) has become a decisive differentiator. Yet many struggle to deliver, constrained by outdated systems, fragmented data, and organizational silos that limit both agility and consistency. The current wave of artificial intelligence, particularly agentic AI that can reason and act across workflows, offers a powerful...

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how the world operates. With its potential to automate repetitive tasks, analyze vast datasets, and augment human capabilities, the use of AI technologies is already driving changes across industries. In health care and pharmaceuticals, machine learning and AI-powered tools are advancing disease diagnosis, reducing drug discovery timelines by as much...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered. Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one...

In a market flooded with AI promises, health care decision-makers are no longer dazzled by flashy demos or abstract potential. Today, they want pragmatic and pressure-tested products.They want solutions that work for their clinicians, staff, patients, and their bottom line. To gain traction in 2025 and beyond, health care providers are looking for real-world solutions...

As healthcare faces mounting pressures, from rising costs and an aging population to widening disparities, forward thinking innovations are more essential than ever. Accelerator programs have proven to be powerful launchpads for health tech companies, often combining resources, mentorship, and technology that startups otherwise would not have access to. By joining these fast-moving platforms, startups...

Everywhere I look, I see AI clones. On X and LinkedIn, thought leaders" and influencers offer their followers a chance to ask questions of their digital replicas. OnlyFans creators are having AI models of themselves chat, for a price, with followers. Virtual human" salespeople in China are reportedly outselling real humans. Digital clones-AI models that...

Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one of their online sessions, so Declan suggested they turn off their video feeds. Instead, his therapist began inadvertently sharing his screen. Suddenly, I was watching him use ChatGPT," says Declan,...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Can an AI doppelganger help me do my job? -James O'Donnell Digital clones-AI models that replicate a specific person-package together a few technologies that have been around for a while now: hyperrealistic video...

Next week, we'll publish our 2025 list of Innovators Under 35, highlighting smart and talented people who are working in many areas of emerging technology. This new class features 35 accomplished founders, hardware engineers, roboticists, materials scientists, and others who are already tackling tough problems and making big moves in their careers. All are under...