Why Commodity Scarcity Is Becoming the Biggest Bottleneck for Clean-Tech Entrepreneurs
Clean-tech startups are hitting a scaling wall because material supply, not technology or capital, is now the real constraint.
This scientist is helping build a missing map of childhood
In 2017, Deanne Taylor attended a presentation at the University of Pennsylvania, just a short walk from her office. A researcher was there to unveil the Human Cell Atlas, an ambitious project that aimed to map every cell in the human body. Taylor was floored, and then concerned. As details emerged, she discovered that the…
Technology
“Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?
For the past two decades, there’s been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online. The practice was so common that it gained the pejorative moniker “Dr. Google.” But times are changing, and many medical-information seekers are now using LLMs. According to OpenAI, 230 million people ask…
Dispatch from Davos: hot air, big egos and cold flexes
This story first appeared in The Debrief, our subscriber-only newsletter about the biggest news in tech by Mat Honan, Editor in Chief. Subscribe to read the next edition as soon as it lands. It’s supposed to be frigid in Davos this time of year. Part of the charm is seeing the world’s elite tromp through the…
The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in…
Why 2026 is a hot year for lithium
In 2026, I’m going to be closely watching the price of lithium. If you’re not in the habit of obsessively tracking commodity markets, I certainly don’t blame you. (Though the news lately definitely makes the case that minerals can have major implications for global politics and the economy.) But lithium is worthy of a close…
Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models
Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in the tech world. He believes that the industry’s current obsession with large language models is wrong-headed and will ultimately fail to solve many pressing problems. Instead, he thinks we should be betting on world…
Rethinking AI’s future in an augmented workplace
There are many paths AI evolution could take. On one end of the spectrum, AI is dismissed as a marginal fad, another bubble fueled by notoriety and misallocated capital. On the other end, it’s cast as a dystopian force, destined to eliminate jobs on a large scale and destabilize economies. Markets oscillate between skepticism and…
Everyone wants AI sovereignty. No one can truly have it.
Governments plan to pour $1.3 trillion into AI infrastructure by 2030 to invest in “sovereign AI,” with the premise being that countries should be in control of their own AI capabilities. The funds include financing for domestic data centers, locally trained models, independent supply chains, and national talent pipelines. This is a response to real…
The Download: Trump at Davos, and AI scientists
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. All anyone wants to talk about at Davos is AI and Donald Trump —Mat Honan, MIT Technology Review’s editor in chief At Davos this year Trump is dominating all the side conversations. There…
All anyone wants to talk about at Davos is AI and Donald Trump
This story first appeared in The Debrief, our subscriber-only newsletter about the biggest news in tech by Mat Honan, Editor in Chief. Subscribe to read the next edition as soon as it lands. Hello from the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. I’ve been here for two days now, attending meetings, speaking on panels,…