The World Economic Forum (WEF) has identified 10 emerging technologies it believes are nearing commercial maturity and could transform industries, addressing global challenges ranging from clean energy and healthcare to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI).
Released at the forum's recent Summer Davos meeting in Dalian, China, the report said innovation is shifting from laboratory research to practical deployment, with governments, businesses and researchers now facing critical decisions that will determine how these technologies are adopted.
According to the WEF, this year's technologies were selected based on their novelty, development progress and potential economic and social impact.
Three broad trends underpin the list. Technologies are becoming increasingly personalised, delivering solutions tailored to individual patients or specific environments. Innovation is also becoming more decentralised, enabling energy, food and raw materials to be produced closer to where they are consumed.
At the same time, many advances promise to deliver more with fewer resources, lowering costs while improving efficiency.
Energy breakthroughs
The report highlights everything-to-grid systems as a key technology supporting renewable energy. Instead of relying solely on power plants during peak demand, idle assets such as electric vehicles, factory batteries and data centres can feed stored electricity back into the grid, improving resilience while reducing carbon emissions.
Another breakthrough is direct lithium extraction, which can recover lithium from brine within hours rather than years. The technology is expected to diversify battery supply chains while reducing water consumption and dependence on conventional mining methods.
The WEF also points to passive radiative cooling materials, coatings capable of reflecting up to 95% of sunlight without consuming electricity. Such materials can significantly reduce cooling demand for buildings and infrastructure, lowering energy costs in hot climates.
Meanwhile, new technologies capable of destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as "forever chemicals", are emerging to address persistent environmental pollution through advanced thermal, electrical and ultraviolet treatment methods.
Precision medicine
Several technologies reflect the growing shift towards personalised healthcare.
Precision fermentation uses genetically engineered microbes to manufacture proteins, pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals more efficiently than conventional agriculture or fossil fuel-based production.
The report also highlights exosome drug delivery, which uses naturally occurring cellular particles to transport therapies directly to diseased cells, potentially improving treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Another promising development is personalised mRNA cancer vaccines, which tailor treatment to each patient's tumour profile. Early clinical trials have shown significant reductions in cancer recurrence when combined with existing immunotherapies.
AI and quantum computing
AI continues to evolve beyond generative models. The WEF identified world models as the next stage of AI development. Unlike current systems that primarily recognise patterns, world models learn how the physical world behaves, enabling AI to reason, predict and adapt in unfamiliar environments.
The technology is expected to accelerate advances in robotics, autonomous systems and climate simulation.
The report also highlights quantum simulation for drug discovery, allowing researchers to model molecular interactions with far greater accuracy than conventional computing, potentially reducing the high failure rate of pharmaceutical development.
As quantum computing advances, cybersecurity is also entering a new era.
The report identifies lattice-based cryptography as one of the most important technologies for protecting digital communications against future quantum attacks.
The encryption method is already being deployed in commercial platforms and is expected to become a cornerstone of post-quantum cybersecurity.
