new energy, AI and Twitter killers

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has released its annual list of ten breakthrough technologies for 2024. The list this time includes many technologies related to green energy and emissions reduction, as well as medicine. In general, there are both strictly technological phenomena, for example, especially powerful supercomputers, and social ones – the transition of many users from Twitter to other platforms.

In his list MIT’s breakthrough technology analysts focus not on this year’s discoveries, but rather on technologies that are already available or will become available in the near future – and which could soon significantly change the world. From the 2024 list, eight out of ten technologies are available (or will be available within a month).

AI for everyone (available)

The first technology that MIT noted is very broad – we are talking about artificial intelligence and the fact that it is increasingly becoming available to everyone. Hundreds of millions of people have already interacted with generative AI models like ChatGPT, using them to create text, images and videos.

MIT notes that OpenAI launched the first user-accessible ChatGPT application only in November 2022 – and since then the changes caused by it have already significant. Many companies, including Google, Microsoft, Baidu and others, have begun to develop their own similar tools and have already invested billions of dollars in this area.

“Never before has such a radical new technology gone from experimental prototype to consumer product so quickly and on such a scale. What is clear is that we haven’t even begun to understand all of this yet, let alone assess the impact,” according to MIT analysts.

Super efficient solar cells (available within three to five years)

Solar panels, like other sources of green energy, have been used for many years. However, it is now that this direction can become truly effective.

MIT associates this with new cells that combine silicon, which is common in such batteries, with the mineral perovskite.

The fact is that silicon and perovskite absorb different types of light waves, so combining these two substances in one solar panel allows you to store energy more efficiently. In this way, a significant part of the solar radiation spectrum can be converted into electricity, and at lower costs.

The main obstacle to the active implementation of solar panels using these two substances is the great vulnerability of perovskite to water, heat, and others. However, researchers are working to improve the stability of this mineral. The British company Oxford PV is going to start delivering the first such panels this year, and other companies will begin producing them in the coming years.

Improved Geothermal Systems (Available within three to five years)

Another breakthrough technology is also related to green energy – improving systems that allow obtaining electricity from underground geothermal sources. So far, this type of energy accounts for less than 1% of total energy consumption, which is due to its complexity.

The latest developments will simplify this method and make it more widespread. Thus, the American company Fervo Energy is testing technologies similar to fracking used in oil and gas production. Last year, the company test-drilled a well 2.4 km deep, created a reservoir and pumped water into it. The water is heated by the high temperature of the earth’s crust at such a depth that it allows the generation of electricity.

True, as with fracking, there are concerns that such developments could increase seismic activity.

Other companies also have projects related to geothermal energy, including AltaRock Energy and Utah FORGE. Many projects are still at the stage of experiments and pilot projects, however, experts consider geothermal energy to be a promising area for the coming years.

Heat pumps (available)

It cannot be said about heat pumps that they are some kind of new product. But, according to MIT analysts, humanity is entering the “age of heat pumps,” which can help significantly save energy and reduce emissions into the atmosphere.

Heat pumps allow you to heat and cool rooms using electricity. They are much more energy efficient than heating with fossil fuels. In 2022, heat pump sales grew by 11% globally and by 40% in Europe.

If by 2030, 600 thousand heat pumps are installed in the world (which corresponds to about 20% of all home heating), harmful emissions will be reduced by 500 million tons. This corresponds to the emissions of all cars in Europe. This expansion of this heating method requires increasing the production of heat pumps themselves and improving the reliability of electrical networks, but this is not something unattainable.

Apple Vision Pro mixed reality glasses (available this year)

Virtual, augmented and mixed reality glasses and helmets have also been in the news for years, but have never become a popular consumer gadget. According to MIT, there is a chance that Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality glasses will become a breakthrough in this direction. It introduced them in June last year, and their delivery to users will begin in February.

The Apple Vision Pro display is significantly superior to all previous designs. The micro-OLED technology used in them provides higher resolution, brightness, and so on.

Analysts don’t know whether Apple Vision Pro will be able to gain popularity among consumers.

Among the questions that have no answers yet are: will people wear such a gadget en masse, what can they use it for, and will they be willing to shell out a significant amount of $3.5 thousand.

Chiplets (available)

MIT analysts note that the race of manufacturers for increasingly functional and miniature chips will be replaced by the production of chiplets. Demand for complex chips remains, but reducing them further while maintaining the required complexity is too expensive.

A growing number of companies, including AMD and Intel, are producing chiplets—very small chips with less functionality that are initially designed to be used in combination with each other. From chiplets you can assemble a set that is suitable for specific tasks.

This is cheaper than more complex chips, and simpler chiplets are less likely to have defects.

The proliferation of chiplets depends on how effectively manufacturers manage to “package” chiplets into sets that can be used in various devices. Steps are being taken in this direction – for example, the open source Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express standard has been adopted, which can be used by different manufacturers.

Supercomputers with exascale performance (available)

Supercomputers are becoming more and more powerful. In 2022, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States introduced the Frontier computer with exascale performance. It can perform 1018 operations per second. This corresponds to the performance of approximately 100 thousand laptops.

Now work is underway on several supercomputers of similar power. Thus, in the USA, supercomputers El Capitan and Aurora are being prepared for launch; they are approximately twice as powerful as Frontier. The first such supercomputer in Europe, Jupiter, will be launched by the end of the year. It is also reported that a similar supercomputer is being developed in China. Engineers at the same Oak Ridge laboratory are designing a new supercomputer that will be four to five times more powerful than Frontier and should be unveiled within the next ten years.

Supercomputers with exascale performance will allow scientists to solve a variety of problems more efficiently.

Among them are modeling of motion on a galactic scale, building complex climate models, the decay of the atomic nucleus, and so on. A problem that scientists have yet to solve is energy conservation. Frontier currently consumes as much electricity as several thousand homes.

First genome editing drug (available)

Last year’s list MIT included the use of CRISPR genome editing technologies to treat common diseases. In 2023, CRISPR-based drugs will be used for the first time received approval regulators: the drugs Casgevy and Lyfgenia for the treatment of sickle cell anemia were approved for use in the US and UK.

So far this example remains the only one. But many companies are developing and testing such drugs and treatments. One of the obstacles to their widespread use is price. Currently, such treatment costs between $2 million and $3 million.

Weight loss drugs (available)

In 2023, weight loss drugs released or developed by several companies, including Eli Lilly, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Viking Therapeutics, gained popularity. The drugs most often in the news were Ozempic and Wegovy from Novo Nordisk, whose shares grew by more than one and a half times over the year. It is expected that new similar drugs will enter the market in the coming years.

At the same time, these drugs cause a lot of controversy. Their side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It is also reported that they can call a rare stomach disorder – its complete paralysis, as well as depressed state up to self-harm and suicidal thoughts. The long-term effects of taking them have not yet been studied. In addition, most of these drugs are very expensive.

“Killers” Twitter (available)

The last item on MIT’s list is less technological and more social. After the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, which changed a lot in the service, millions of users left this platform. According to Apptopia, the number of daily active users of the service, which is now called X, fell from 141 million to 120 million, a decrease of 15%.

Many users have switched to decentralized social networks, which are located not on one, but on different servers. In this case, users are less dependent on corporations and censorship; they can independently control their profile and move from one server to another. Among such platforms are Mastodon, Bluesky, and some services based on the Nostr protocol.

Also benefiting from the problems was X, which was launched in July last year by the Meta corporation (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation.— “Kommersant”) microblogging service Threads. As of September, the number of its users reached 100 million.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya