In the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026 report co-published by the World Economic Forum and Frontiers, cutting-edge technologies act directly on power grids, drug pipelines, food production, cooling systems, mining, and robotics – marking a shift from software-first AI to physical systems.
The World Economic Forum and Frontiers today co-published the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026 report . Frontiers brings editorial expertise and data-driven insights to the report, identifying the technologies most likely to shape industry, policy, and society over the next five years. After years of software-first AI development, the technologies with the greatest impact are moving off screens and into the physical systems that underpin modern economies – energy, medicine, food, and materials.
The top ten emerging technologies of 2026 are:
- Everything-to-grid energy – electric vehicles and buildings store and return energy to the grid on demand, enabling two-way flow at scale.
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 by reflecting sunlight directly through the atmosphere, back into space.
PFAS destruction – breaking down "forever chemicals" into harmless, natural substances for clean drinking water.
Precision fermentation – brewing food ingredients and medicines using genetically programmed microbes, electricity, and sugar in fermentation tanks.
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 using vaccines tailored to their tumor.
Quantum simulation for drug discovery – identifying the most promising drug candidates by simulating how they behave, cutting the time and cost of research.
World models – AI systems learn how the physical world behaves from multi-modal data, predicting outcomes of scenarios like superstorms.
Lattice-based cryptography – next-generation math codes that protect sensitive digital data from being hacked by future quantum computers.
Eight of the ten technologies act directly on physical systems. Competitive advantage is moving from software toward the ability to control infrastructure, materials, biological processes, and industrial data. At the same time, several technologies in this year's report are breaking the link between geography and production, allowing critical goods to be made in places where climate or geology previously made it impossible.
Methodology and transformation maps: navigating the future with the help of AI
This year's report was produced using an AI-based nomination workflow developed by Frontiers. The workflow systematically screened more than 1,200 candidate technologies across academic publications and industry sources, with cross-model validation. The list was then refined through expert assessment of each technology's novelty and real-world impact potential, before final Advisory Council review.
To support strategic planning across technology, industry, and policy, Frontiers' chief editors co-developed a series of Transformation Maps, hosted on the World Economic Forum's Strategic Intelligence Platform. These interactive maps offer a live view of how each technology is developing across sectors. The report, complemented by these interactive maps, facilitates decision-making by connecting each technology to global priorities and cross-domain implications.
Stephan Mergenthaler, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, said:
"While each of these technologies has the potential to make a meaningful impact on its own, together they tell a broader story about where innovation is heading. They reveal new patterns across energy, medicine, and manufacturing that could challenge long-held assumptions about how we use technology to address some of the world's most pressing challenges such as food insecurity, climate change, and untreatable diseases."
Frederick Fenter, Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers, said:
"This year's report marks a decisive shift – the technologies with the greatest impact are shifting from software towards the physical realm – even as artificial intelligence continues to support progress on many fronts. As an AI-first research publisher, Frontiers used an AI-based discovery tool to identify and categorize this year's list of emerging technologies. By connecting research insights from the innovation sector to broader society through this annual report, we are providing a shared evidence base for policymakers, industry leaders, and research institutions on how these technologies will unfold to bring us a more resilient world."
