The Download: unlocking lithium and controlling Ebola
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. How a new extraction process could unlock the world’s lithium A new method for extracting lithium could cut c…
The deadly Ebola outbreak is proving difficult to control
The alert was raised on May 5. Four health-care workers in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had died from an unknown illness within four days. Rapid response teams were sent to investigate, and tests at a research center in Kinshasa …
How the Pope’s Magnifica Humanitas offers a template for individuals to meet the AI moment
Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on artificial intelligence includes a statement that warrants serious attention from technologists and policymakers: “Technology is never neutral.” Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”) is a clarion call to all people to a…
The Download: climate tech goes public and the AI Hype Index returns
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. Climate tech companies are going public. What’s next? Solar and battery company Solv Energy went public in Fe…
Climate tech companies are going public. What’s next?
This year, there’s been a wave of notable energy companies going public via IPO in the US. The solar and battery company Solv Energy went public in February, to the tune of $6 billion. X-energy, which is building small modular nuclear reactors, did the same i…
The AI Hype Index: AI gets booed in graduation season
It is one thing to say AI will change the world. It is another to expect the class of 2026 to applaud it. In fact, when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told University of Arizona graduates that their task is to help shape AI, he was met with a resounding choru…
The Download: keeping up with AI, and the future of IVF
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. Stay on top of what’s going on in AI this summer Here at MIT Technology Review, we understand exactly how rel…
Rethinking organizational design in the age of agentic AI
Amid rapidly growing adoption of enterprise-level AI agents, there’s a disconnect emerging between ambition and execution.  Although 85% of organizations say they want to be agentic within the next three years, 76% say their current operations and infras…
The Download: puncturing the AI jobs panic
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. A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria Despite the growing hysteria over AI’s threat to white-collar jobs, t…
It’s time to address the looming crisis in entry-level work.
Artificial intelligence has not so far produced a clean story of mass unemployment. Aggregate employment in developed countries remains broadly stable, and recent assessments have found limited evidence that AI has shifted the headline numbers. But a troublin…
A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria
Haven’t you heard? White-collar jobs are going away, decimated by AI. Waves of layoffs in the tech sector (most recently at Coinbase and Meta and Cisco) are said to presage what will soon come for all of us knowledge workers. But before you quit your job as a…
The Download: coding’s future, the ‘Steroid Olympics,’ and AI-driven science
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. Anthropic’s Code with Claude showed off coding’s future—whether you like it or not At Anthropic’s developer e…
Google I/O showed how the path for AI-driven science is shifting
During Tuesday’s Google I/O keynote, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, proclaimed that we are currently “standing in the foothills of the singularity.” It was a striking statement—the singularity is the theoretical future moment when AI rapidly exce…
The Enhanced Games fit right in with the rest of 2026’s longevity vibes
This Sunday, a group of 42 athletes will gather in Las Vegas to compete in a somewhat unusual sporting competition. Participants in the inaugural Enhanced Games are being encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs. The goal is to “push the boundaries of h…
Roundtables: Can AI Learn to Understand the World?
Listen to the session or watch below AI companies want to build systems that understand the external world and overcome the limitations of LLMs. Recent developments have brought world models to the forefront of the AI discussion. Watch a conversation with edi…
Scaling creativity in the age of AI
Storytelling is core to humanity’s DNA, stemming from our impulse to express ideals, warnings, hopes, and experiences. Technology has always been woven through the medium and the distribution: from early humans’ innovation of natural pigments and …
The Download: online safety’s future and climate tech’s big pivot
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. Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety For months, the Trump ad…
Tech researchers are suing the Trump administration over the future of online safety
Since its earliest days back in office, the Trump administration has been going after researchers who study and try to counter hate speech, harassment, propaganda, and disinformation online.  Now, some of those researchers are fighting back. Last week th…
Green steel startup Boston Metal is doubling down on critical metals
The startup Boston Metal has raised a $75 million funding round to produce critical metals, MIT Technology Review can exclusively report.   The company has been known largely for its efforts to clean up steel production, an industry that’s res…
The Download: fully artificial chicken eggs and why Musk lost
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. Colossal Biosciences is growing chickens in a 3D-printed artificial eggshell The baby chicks were shifting an…
Roundtables: Inside the Musk v. Altman Trial
Listen to the session or watch below Elon Musk lost his suit against OpenAI, in which he alleged CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman had deceived him over the company’s non-profit status. Watch as AI reporter and attorney Michelle Kim, who covered the …
Understanding the modern cybercrime landscape
Throughout 2025, HPE observed significant changes in how cybercriminals operate. Analyzing real-world threats, our HPE Threat Labs highlighted an industrialization of the cyber criminals’ methods in its new In the Wild Report, enabling greater scale, speed an…
The Download: Musk v. Altman, smart glasses for warfare, and Google I/O
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. Here’s why Elon Musk lost his suit against OpenAI Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against OpenAI, which center…
Colossal Biosciences is growing chickens in a 3D-printed artificial eggshell
The baby chicks were shifting and starting to pip—or trying to hatch. But not from an egg.  Instead, these chickens were growing inside transparent 3D-printed plastic cups at the Dallas headquarters of Colossal Biosciences. The biotech company today clai…
Here’s why Elon Musk lost his suit against OpenAI
On Monday, the jury in Musk v. Altman dealt Elon Musk a major blow—reaching a unanimous advisory verdict that he had sued OpenAI too late and, as a result, his claims are barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Roge…
What to expect from Google this week
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. When Google opens its doors tomorrow for its annual developer conference, I/O, it will do so as a clear third place in th…
Inside Anduril and Meta’s quest to make smart glasses for warfare
The defense-tech company Anduril has shared new details about the augmented-reality headset for the military it’s prototyping with Meta, including a vision for ordering drone strikes via eye-tracking and voice commands. Quay Barnett, who leads the efforts as …
The Download: Musk v. Altman week 3, and Trump’s tech trading
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. Musk v. Altman week 3: Musk and Altman traded blows over each other’s credibility. Now the jury will pick a s…
Musk v. Altman week 3: Elon Musk and Sam Altman traded blows over each other’s credibility. Now the jury will pick a side.
In the final week of the Musk v. Altman trial, lawyers traded blows over Elon Musk’s and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s credibility. Altman was grilled on his alleged history of lying and self-dealing involving companies that do business with OpenAI. But he fired ba…
The Download: China’s AI drama factory and the WHO’s missing health targets
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. How Chinese short dramas became AI content machines China’s short drama industry is fueled by bite-sized, mel…
How Chinese short dramas became AI content machines
In a dimly lit bedroom, a frightened young woman is thrown onto a bed by a tall, muscular man. He grabs her hand, and flame-like vines crawl across her body, fusing with her flesh. She levitates, then drops. A dragon-shaped tattoo appears across her chest. “T…
Establishing AI and data sovereignty in the age of autonomous systems
When generative AI first moved from research labs into real-world business applications, enterprises made a tacit bargain: “Capability now, control later.” Feed your proprietary data into third-party AI models, and you will get powerful results. But your data…
Data readiness for agentic AI in financial services
Financial services companies have unique needs when it comes to business AI. They operate in one of the most highly regulated sectors while responding to external events that are updated by the second. As a result, the success of agentic AI in financial servi…
The Download: deepfake porn’s stolen bodies and AI sharing private numbers
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. The shock of seeing your body used in deepfake porn When Jennifer got a research job in 2023, she ran her new…
AI chatbots are giving out people’s real phone numbers
A Redditor recently wrote that he was “desperate for help”: for about a month, he said, his phone had been inundated by calls from “strangers” who were “looking for a lawyer, a product designer, a locksmith.” Callers were apparently misdirected by Google’s ge…
The Download: making drugs in orbit and NASA’s nuclear-powered spacecraft
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. A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial A startup called Varda Space Industries is betting that the…
A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial
Varda Space Industries, a startup that’s been pitching its ability to perform drug experiments in space, says it has signed up the pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics in what may be remembered as a notable step toward in-orbit manufacturing. The idea o…
World Models: 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now
World models recently made our list of 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now. Watch executive editor Niall Firth explain why this emerging area of AI is gaining so much attention. Join MIT Technology Review editors and reporters for a subscriber-only Roundtab…
The Download: a Nobel winner on AI, and the case for fixing everything
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. Three things in AI to watch, according to a Nobel-winning economist A few months before he won the Nobel Priz…
Three things in AI to watch, according to a Nobel-winning economist
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. A few months before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu published a paper that earned him…
Fostering breakthrough AI innovation through customer-back engineering
Despite years of digitization, organizations capture less than one-third of the value expected from digital investments, according to McKinsey research. That’s because most big companies begin with technological capabilities and bolt applications onto them, r…
Implementing advanced AI technologies in finance
In finance departments that have long been defined by precision and control, AI has arrived less as a neatly managed upgrade than as a quiet insurgency. Employees are already using it while leadership races to impose structure, governance, and strategy after …
The Download: the hantavirus outbreak and Musk v. Altman week 2
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. Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak Last week, eight passengers aboard a D…
Musk v. Altman week 2: OpenAI fires back, and Shivon Zilis reveals that Musk tried to poach Sam Altman
In the second week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk’s motivations for bringing the suit were under scrutiny. Last week, Musk took the stand, alleging that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into donating…
Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. Eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship have contracted a type of ha…
The Download: AI malaise and babymaking tech
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. We’ve entered the era of AI malaise AI is spreading everywhere, and it is not going away. But what will it do…
The Download: the tech reshaping IVF and the rise of balcony solar
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. What’s next for IVF IVF has brought millions of babies into the world over the last four decades. But the pro…
The Download: seafloor science and military chatbots
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. Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science—and mining Last week, two oblong neon …
The Download: inside the Musk v. Altman trial, and AI for democracy
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. Week one of the Musk v. Altman trial: what it was like in the room Two of the most powerful figures in AI—Sam…
A blueprint for using AI to strengthen democracy
Every few centuries, changes in how information moves reshape how societies govern themselves. The printing press spread vernacular literacy, helping give rise to the Reformation and, eventually, representative government. The telegraph made it possible to ad…