DALIAN, June 23 (Xinhua) -- After years of software-first artificial intelligence (AI) development, the technologies with huge impact are moving off screens and into the physical systems that underpin modern economies -- energy, medicine, food and materials, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report, titled "Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026," was unveiled during the 2026 Summer Davos forum in northeast China's Dalian City.
Co-published by the World Economic Forum and research publisher Frontiers, the report identifies key technologies most likely to shape industry, policy and society over the next five years.
These technologies range from next-generation clean energy, advanced materials and biotechnology to AI and quantum technologies.
The top ten emerging technologies are:
-- Everything-to-grid energy, enabling electric vehicles and buildings to store electricity and feed it back to the grid on demand.
-- Direct lithium extraction, replacing slow evaporation ponds with engineered systems that pull battery-grade lithium from salt flats in hours.
-- Passive radiative cooling materials, keeping buildings cool without consuming any power.
-- PFAS destruction, breaking down "forever chemicals" into harmless, natural substances for clean drinking water.
-- Precision fermentation, brewing food ingredients and medicines.
-- Exosome drug delivery, using the human body's natural cellular packages to deliver targeted medicines precisely to diseased cells.
-- Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines, training a patient's immune system to find and destroy cancer cells.
-- Quantum simulation for drug discovery.
-- World models, predicting real-world scenarios.
-- Lattice-based cryptography, designed to protect sensitive digital data from being hacked by future quantum computers. ■
