EmTech Future 2026: When AI Meets Everything
MIT Technology Review MIT Technology Review
MIT’s EmTech Future 2026 is now on demand. The big theme: AI matters most when it meets biology, energy, quantum, and robotics.
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MIT Technology Review has put the full EmTech Future 2026 program on demand, opening up three days of talks that all circle one idea: the next wave of tech won’t arrive as separate buckets. It’ll show up where AI, quantum, energy systems, robotics, infrastructure, and science start bumping into each other.
That frame ran through the sessions highlighted in the release. Yossi Matias, Google Research’s vice president and head, talked about AI reshaping biology, infrastructure, manufacturing, and science, but the sharper point was that its biggest effects may come at the seams between fields. Hartmut Neven of Google Quantum AI made a similar case for quantum: its value may be less about standing alone and more about how it interacts with other systems.
The energy talk pushed the same logic further. Evelyn Wang of MIT focused on how energy, computing, infrastructure, and climate technologies are becoming more intertwined, and what that could mean for industry and society. That’s a cleaner story than the usual parade of isolated breakthroughs. It also sounds a lot closer to how real change happens.
The program also includes Cory Doctorow on how AI is changing the way people work and think. And for subscribers, MIT Technology Review says the full EmTech Future 2026 package comes with a 20% discount, bringing access to $596.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the right way to talk about AI: not as a lonely miracle, but as plumbing that leaks into everything else. The industry loves neat demos; the real shifts happen when AI gets tangled up with energy, manufacturing, and science, where the boring details live. Convergence is less glamorous than hype, which is exactly why it matters.
Read more about this at: MIT Technology Review