What happened
The World Economic Forum, in its 14th annual edition produced in collaboration with scientific publisher Frontiers, released its Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2026 report on 23 June at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian. The report used an AI-based nomination workflow that systematically screened more than 1,200 candidate technologies across academic publications and industry sources, with cross-model validation, before expert and Advisory Council review. The 10 selected technologies — spanning energy (everything-to-grid, direct lithium extraction, passive radiative cooling, PFAS destruction), biology (precision fermentation, exosome drug delivery, personalised mRNA cancer vaccines), computing (quantum simulation for drug discovery, world models, lattice-based cryptography) — share a structural theme: 'Eight of the ten technologies act directly on physical systems,' marking a decisive shift from software-first AI to physical systems. Of direct AI relevance, 'World Models' (#9) enable AI systems to build a shared understanding of physical environments using multimodal data for prediction and planning, while lattice-based cryptography (#10) addresses the post-quantum security of digital infrastructure. The report's Strategic Outlook sections — co-developed with the Dubai Future Foundation — map the governance decisions, investments, and policy conditions needed to bring each technology to scale.
Why it matters
Boards and executive teams setting 3–5-year technology investment and AI infrastructure roadmaps need to track where the frontier is moving — this WEF flagship provides the annually-benchmarked, expert-validated signal on which bets to watch, with quantum-resistant cryptography and physical-AI world models directly bearing on enterprise security and autonomous systems planning.
Action needed
Add 'World Models' and 'Lattice-based cryptography' to the next enterprise AI and cybersecurity roadmap review; brief the CTO and CISO on post-quantum security timelines implied by the lattice cryptography entry.