The world that awaits us

When futurists talk about transformative technologies, nuclear fusion, hydrogen fuel cells, quantum computing, and AI are always on the agenda. The first two promise clean, limitless energy, while the third and fourth taken together could solve many currently intractable problems.

AI has seen extraordinary progress and is already transformative technology. More and more tasks are being taken over by algorithms that outperform humans. But the other three technologies may be years away from commercial viability. Big technical problems need to be solved before nuclear fusion, fuels cells at scale, and quantum computing under normal conditions, get off the ground.

Untold billions have