Technology

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…

The future of finance and technology depends on collaboration, not isolation.

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 published the 2025 edition. This year, though, the context is pointedly different: The US scientific community finds itself in an unprecedented position, with the very foundation of its work under attack. …

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 published the 2025 edition. This year, though, the context is pointedly different: The US scientific community finds itself in an unprecedented position, with the very foundation of its work under attack. …

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…