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The World Economic Forum’s 2026 selection highlights ten emerging technologies that could affect energy, materials, health and computing—from buildings that help balance the power grid to new approaches to cancer vaccines and AI. The list is a curated survey, not a ranking or a prediction that these technologies will transform society this year. Their impact depends on whether they can scale responsibly and deliver benefits in real-world use.
What the 2026 list is—and what it is not
The World Economic Forum (WEF), working with Frontiers, published Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026 on 23 June 2026. Its editors selected technologies for their novelty, development progress and potential impact. The ten span energy, materials, health and computing, but the report does not claim that they are equally mature, comparable in performance or ready for widespread adoption.
The WEF’s framing identifies three recurring tendencies: technology becoming more personal, more distributed and able to do more with less. These are patterns across the selection, not qualities shared by every item. A vaccine designed around an individual patient illustrates personalization; producing some materials or energy closer to where they are used can make systems more distributed; and reducing resource use or waste is one route to doing more with less. The report’s examples indicate possibilities, not proof of broad adoption.
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The 10 technologies to watch
1. Everything-to-grid energy
Buildings, vehicles and devices can be coordinated as active grid resources: they may store electricity and return it when the system needs it. That could make energy assets already distributed across homes and businesses part of grid balancing, rather than leaving the grid to rely only on large power plants and infrastructure. The WEF identifies coordination, battery chemistry and fair compensation for participants as important scaling challenges. The concept’s promise therefore depends not just on hardware, but also on reliable control systems and arrangements that reward people or organizations for contributing.
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2. Direct lithium extraction
Direct lithium extraction (DLE) processes brines to recover lithium in hours rather than the months associated with conventional evaporation ponds, according to the WEF. The report describes the approach as requiring less land and water than evaporation ponds and points to early industrial operations in Argentina and California. Faster extraction does not by itself settle the question of total environmental performance: the report highlights the challenge of integrating extraction with refining hubs. The practical impact will depend on how projects work as complete supply chains, not only on the speed of the extraction step.
3. Passive radiative cooling materials
These materials emit heat through the atmosphere’s “window” to space, cooling a surface without using electricity for that cooling. The WEF identifies possible forms including paints, films, roof tiles and fabrics. If they perform reliably in buildings and other applications, they could reduce heat loads without adding to electricity demand. But potential is not the same as measured savings: the report points to standardized testing and integration with building systems as conditions for wider adoption.
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4. PFAS destruction
Methods such as supercritical water treatment, electrochemical treatment and UV photocatalysis aim to break the carbon–fluorine bond in PFAS. The WEF says commercial-scale operations are running on municipal groundwater and industrial waste streams. Broader deployment, however, depends on more than whether a treatment process works: mandates, liability rules and suitable treatment infrastructure all affect whether contaminated material is handled and destroyed at scale.
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5. Precision fermentation
Programmed microbes can produce proteins, fats and other molecules without relying on conventional livestock production or growing conditions. The WEF reports that companies are supplying fermentation-derived dairy and egg proteins to major brands. That shows commercial activity, not that these products have displaced conventional ingredients broadly. Scaling depends on access to capital, alignment among regulators and the effects of changing production on agricultural livelihoods.
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6. Exosome drug delivery
The WEF includes exosome drug delivery among its ten technologies, but its summary does not provide enough detail to establish a technical account, clinical status or evidence of efficacy. The inclusion signals an area the report considers worth watching; it does not establish that a particular treatment is proven or available to patients.
7. Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines
The report describes a future-facing approach in which a cancer vaccine can be synthesized from an individual patient’s tumour, with the aim of teaching the immune system to recognize cancer cells it previously missed. This is a striking example of personalization, but the WEF’s summary does not establish approved availability, cure rates or general clinical effectiveness. The technology’s potential should not be confused with a treatment claim for any patient.
8. Quantum simulation for drug discovery
Quantum simulation for drug discovery is on the WEF list, but the reviewed summary does not establish commercial readiness or demonstrate drug-discovery outcomes. Its place on the list marks a possible area of development, not evidence that quantum simulation is already producing better medicines or shortening discovery timelines.
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9. World models
World models learn patterns in physical-environment dynamics from multimodal data so AI systems can reason about unfamiliar situations. The WEF names NVIDIA Cosmos and Stanford climate-simulation research as early examples. As these systems are considered for consequential settings, the report stresses accountability, auditing and testing their assumptions. A model that can represent aspects of the physical world still needs careful scrutiny before people rely on its outputs in high-stakes decisions.
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10. Lattice-based cryptography
Lattice-based cryptography is also included in the selection, but the WEF summary does not establish adoption status or implementation details. It is therefore not enough to infer that a particular product, service or institution has transitioned to this approach. Any claim about real-world deployment needs evidence specific to the system in question.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read the progress claims
Energy offers a useful reality check, but the figures should not be generalized to health, computing or materials. The International Energy Agency’s State of Energy Innovation 2026 reports substantial activity alongside signs that development and deployment do not move in lockstep:
- The IEA counted more than 150 significant energy innovation highlights in 2025 and tracked 50 upgrades in technology readiness levels for emerging energy technologies.
- It reported more than 80 new energy innovation policies in 2025, plus over 60 new initiatives under existing policies across 32 countries and jurisdictions.
- More than 320 energy start-ups raised first funding in 2025, while energy-technology start-up venture investment totalled USD 27 billion that year, down for a third straight year.
- The IEA estimated global public energy R&D spending at USD 55 billion in 2025 and said its 2030 renewables deployment forecast was downgraded by 5% in 2025.
These are indicators of research, policy and financing activity, not a count of technologies in everyday use. Read together, the figures show why an innovation can be progressing while its route to broad deployment remains uncertain. The WEF likewise presents its technologies as unfinished stories whose outcomes depend on decisions by governments, companies and research institutions.
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A useful comparison starts with the kind of evidence available, rather than treating all ten as equivalent breakthroughs. For each technology, ask:
- What has been demonstrated? Distinguish a report’s description of a potential application from early industrial operation, current supply to customers or established clinical benefit.
- What must scale? Look for the concrete constraints identified for that field, such as grid coordination, integration with refining, standardized testing, treatment infrastructure, investment or regulatory alignment.
- What benefit is being claimed? Check whether a resource or performance benefit is measured under stated conditions or described as a possibility. The WEF’s summary does not provide a common set of performance measures across all ten.
- Who bears the consequences? Consider issues such as agricultural livelihoods, liability for contamination, accountability in high-stakes AI and how people are compensated for grid services.
The WEF preface puts the selection’s ambition in context: “The technologies we bring forward are chosen for their novelty, development progress and potential impact.” That is a reason to watch them—not a guarantee of commercial success, near-term adoption or social benefit.
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