MIT’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2021

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been compiling an annual list of breakthrough technologies for the last two decades. This year’s list is topped by a breakthrough in vaccination technology that will lead to profound changes in battling many diseases. Other breakthroughs are often subjects of postings that appear on this site, so I hope you can take the time to read some of them provided in the embedded links.

But enough of this introduction. Let’s get right down to it.

1. mRNA Vaccines – A year ago we had no idea that we could develop potential vaccines to fight COVID-19 in less than five years or more. But mRNA has changed the picture. Today there are two COVID-19 vaccines with efficacies better than 90% and I suspect we will see other mRNA vaccines soon emerge from other biopharmaceutical companies. mRNA technology is infinitely flexible. Vaccines can be adjusted in near real-time to address changing variants of COVID-19, but also to tackle other diseases such as malaria, sickle cell anemia, HIV, Zika, West Nile Virus, Lyme, and more.
2. OpenAI GPT-3 – This technology employs a combination of both artificial intelligence and natural language processing to create literate machines that mimic the way we write. I’m not sure I would have picked this technology as my number two. If you ever want to check OpenAI GPT-3 watch this Youtube video.
3. TikTok Recommendation Algorithms – This Chinese-developed social network application is changing the way people get recognized online through the videos they upload to it. Not being a big fan of social networks as of late (misinformation, hate speech, and more), I wouldn’t have made this my number three. But what the TikTok algorithm does is apply machine learning to evaluate uploaded video content and measure how an initial sampling of users reacts. If the sample users watch the videos the algorithm measures how long they stay connected to it and whether they then like it. Within a very short window of time, an uploaded video can go viral as views and likes cause the algorithm to find larger and larger audiences to send it to. With more than one billion users, TikTok can create near-instant online fame. To see what grabs people’s attention, take a look at this compiled list of top 50 TikTok uploads.
4. Lithium-metal batteries (LMB) – I think this one would have been my number two. LMB technology may prove to be the biggest advance in electric vehicles (EV) in the past decade. It solves range anxiety and recharge time issues that surveys show are the biggest impediment to EV adoption. QuantumScape, a Silicon Valley startup spun out of Stanford University, has been developing a solid electrolyte battery that could boost EV range by 80%. Combined with a much faster recharge cycle, the company has attracted Volkswagen which is already onboard to incorporate these batteries into its line of EVs by 2025.
5. Data Trusts – In a world where hackers have tried to influence elections, steal personal information from e-mail servers and distribute misinformation targeted at specific audiences, our trust in digital information is being challenged. Privacy on digital platforms is very much under attack. Hence the development of data trusts a concept that goes back to legal fiduciary trusts which have been around for a millennia. A data trust would be a legal governing structure for managing the stewardship of personal data: who has access, and how data is used. Globally, the European Union (EU) seems to have taken the lead in the development of personal data trusts. Through the Trusts Project, the EU has developed a number of projects that are creating technical standards around privacy and security of both personal as well as institutional online data.
6. Green Hydrogen – I might have considered this breakthrough higher up on the list than MIT. Hydrogen has enormous advantages as an energy source. It is non-polluting and, therefore, is an alternative to the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, and power generation. But our current way of harvesting hydrogen, classified as gray, comes from natural gas producing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Green hydrogen comes from zapping water (H2O) with electricity to capture the H. The problem to date has been the energy cost to do this. But with wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro sources for the electricity used in the process of harvesting hydrogen, costs are coming down rapidly enough to make green hydrogen practical. For more on this subject, I refer you to a previous posting on this site.
7. Digital Contact Tracing – The pandemic made smartphone application developers look at ways to help with determining the source of outbreaks of the coronavirus. By combining GPS (see Point 8 below) and Bluetooth communications technology, a person who tested positive for COVID-19 could enter the information into his or her smartphone app which would then broadcast this to alert others with the app. But the voluntary system has failed to work. I know because I have a COVID alert app on my phone and it never has picked up any exposure notifications. But the potential remains to use smartphones as ways to manage future outbreaks if we can get buy-in from the public or subject to patient privacy issues, a way to automate notification without painting a scarlet letter on the person who is infected.
8. Hyper-Accurate Positioning – Global positioning satellites (GPS) have changed the way we go from Point A to Point B. Current GPS technology is accurate to within 10 meters (33 feet). New GPS is giving us accuracies within millimeters. China is leading the way with its BeiDou navigation system which was completed mid-2020.  Combining satellites and ground-based augmentation, BeiDou is accurate to the millimeter. The American-built GPS system of satellites is being upgraded to achieve similar levels of accuracy. GPS III was launched in November 2020 and will by 2023 provide unparalleled accuracy. For me, who has relied on city and highway maps for many road trips, GPS has made my navigation skills redundant. Now hyper-accurate GPS will make maps an historical artifact.
9. Remote Everything – The global pandemic this year has caused a profound shift in how we learn, how we deliver healthcare, how we interact, and how we work. We’ve seen the spread of telemedicine throughout both the Developed and Developing Worlds. Online learning, once a novelty, has become a global phenomenon. And businesses have moved online, first to survive, and now moving forward for competitive advantage. Once the pandemic is over, will we return to the way things were before? Highly unlikely.
10. Multi-Skilled Artificial Intelligence – What we are talking about is AI that goes beyond vision or voice and audio recognition, that learns how the world works in the same way we do and then applies the knowledge it gains to solving problems. We are talking about AI that sees, feels, hears, and communicates. Key to this is the science of neural networks which emulate how our brains process information. For more on the current state of generalized AI read this.

So what did MIT miss?

Personalized medical apps would have been on my list.

I’m talking about the proliferation of small digital devices that accompany smartphone apps and are replacing what used to only be available in doctor’s offices, hospitals or medical testing laboratories.

In the last six months, my wife and I can now do our own electrocardiogram using KardiaMobile, a smartphone app that can detect arrhythmias. My cardiologist describes the app as a major advance in preventing sudden cardiac events allowing patients to become frontline healthcare workers for their own medical wellbeing.

In addition, I have a smartwatch that sends readings for blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation levels to my smartphone.

And for diabetics, new devices and apps no longer require them to prick their skin for blood sugar level sampling. Now a wearable device provides readouts to their smartphones to let them know when their blood sugar levels have changed.