4th: Anti-aging drugs

Why it matters
A number of different diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and dementia, could potentially be
treated by slowing aging.
Key players
Unity Biotechnology, Alkahest, Mayo Clinic, Oisín Biotechnologies, Siwa Therapeutics
Availability
Less than 5 years
Drugs that try to treat ailments by targeting a natural aging process in the body have shown
promise.

The first wave of a new class of anti-aging drugs have begun human testing. These drugs won’t let you live
longer (yet) but aim to treat specific ailments by slowing or reversing a fundamental process of aging.

The drugs are called senolytics—they work by removing certain cells that accumulate as we age. Known as
“senescent” cells, they can create low-level inflammation that suppresses normal mechanisms of cellular
repair and creates a toxic environment for neighboring cells.

In June, San Francisco–based Unity Biotechnology reported initial results in patients with mild to severe
osteoarthritis of the knee. Results from a larger clinical trial are expected in the second half of 2020. The
company is also developing similar drugs to treat age-related diseases of the eyes and lungs, among other
conditions.

Senolytics are now in human tests, along with a number of other promising approaches targeting the
biological processes that lie at the root of aging and various diseases.

A company called Alkahest injects patients with components found in young people’s blood and says it
hopes to halt cognitive and functional decline in patients suffering from mild to moderate Alzheimer’s
disease. The company also has drugs for Parkinson’s and dementia in human testing. 

And in December, researchers at Drexel University College of Medicine even tried to see if a cream
including the immune-suppressing drug rapamycin could slow aging   in human skin.

The tests reflect researchers’ expanding efforts to learn if the many diseases associated with getting older—
such as heart diseases, arthritis, cancer, and dementia—can be hacked to delay their onset.

5th: AI-discovered molecules

Why it matters
 Commercializing a new drug costs around $2.5 billion on average. One reason is the difficulty of finding
promising molecules.
Key players
Insilico Medicine, Kebotix, Atomwise, University of Toronto, BenevolentAI, Vector Institute
Availability
3-5 years

The universe of molecules that could be turned into potentially life-saving drugs is mind-boggling in size:
researchers estimate the number at around 1060. That’s more than all the atoms in the solar system, offering
virtually unlimited chemical possibilities—if only chemists could find the worthwhile ones.

Now machine-learning tools can explore large databases of existing molecules and their properties, using the
information to generate new possibilities. This could make it faster and cheaper to discover new drug
candidates.

In September, a team of researchers at Hong Kong–based Insilico Medicine and the University of Toronto
took a convincing step toward showing that the strategy works by synthesizing several drug candidates
found by AI algorithms.

Using techniques like deep learning and generative models similar to the ones that allowed a computer to
beat the world champion at the ancient game of Go, the researchers identified some 30,000 novel molecules
with desirable properties. They selected six to synthesize and test. One was particularly active and proved
promising in animal tests.

Chemists in drug discovery often dream up new molecules—an art honed by years of experience and,
among the best drug hunters, by a keen intuition. Now these scientists have a new tool to expand their
imaginations.

6th: Quantum supremacy

Why it matters
Eventually, quantum computers will be able to solve problems no classical machine can manage.
Key players
Google, IBM, Microsoft, Rigetti, D-Wave, IonQ, Zapata Computing, Quantum Circuits
Availability
5-10+ years
Google has provided the first clear proof of a quantum computer outperforming a classical one.

Quantum computers store and process data in a way completely differently from the ones we’re all used to.
In theory, they could tackle certain classes of problems that even the most powerful classical supercomputer
imaginable would take millennia to solve, like breaking today’s cryptographic codes or simulating the
precise behavior of molecules to help discover new drugs and materials.

There have been working quantum computers for several years, but it’s only under certain conditions that
they outperform classical ones, and in October Google claimed the first such demonstration of “quantum
supremacy.” A computer with 53 qubits—the basic unit of quantum computation—did a calculation in a
little over three minutes that, by Google’s reckoning, would have taken the world’s biggest supercomputer
10,000 years, or 1.5 billion times as long. IBM challenged Google’s claim, saying the speedup would be a
thousandfold at best; even so, it was a milestone, and each additional qubit will make the computer twice as
fast.

However, Google’s demo was strictly a proof of concept—the equivalent of doing random sums on a
calculator and showing that the answers are right. The goal now is to build machines with enough qubits to
solve useful problems. This is a formidable challenge: the more qubits you have, the harder it is to maintain
their delicate quantum state. Google’s engineers believe the approach they’re using can get them to
somewhere between 100 and 1,000 qubits, which may be enough to do something useful—but nobody is
quite sure what.

And beyond that? Machines that can crack today’s cryptography will require millions of qubits; it will
probably take decades to get there. But one that can model molecules should be easier to build.

Carbon dioxide catcher

 Why it matters
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere might be one of the last viable ways to stop catastrophic climate
change

 Key players
Carbon Engineering, Climeworks, Global Thermostat

 Availability
5-10 years

Practical and affordable ways to capture carbon dioxide from the air can soak up excess greenhouse-gas
emissions.

Even if we slow carbon dioxide emissions, the warming effect of the greenhouse gas can persist for
thousands of years. To prevent a dangerous rise in temperatures, the UN’s climate panel now concludes, the
world will need to remove as much as 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere this century.
In a surprise finding last summer, Harvard climate scientist David Keith calculated that machines could, in
theory, pull this off for less than $100 a ton, through an approach known as direct air capture. That’s an
order of magnitude cheaper than earlier estimates that led many scientists to dismiss the technology as far
too expensive—though it will still take years for costs to fall to anywhere near that level.

But once you capture the carbon, you still need to figure out what to do with it.

Carbon Engineering, the Canadian startup Keith cofounded in 2009, plans to expand its pilot plant to ramp
up production of its synthetic fuels, using the captured carbon dioxide as a key ingredient. (Bill Gates is an
investor in Carbon Engineering.)

Zurich-based Climeworks’s direct air capture plant in Italy will produce methane from captured carbon
dioxide and hydrogen, while a second plant in Switzerland will sell carbon dioxide to the soft-drinks
industry. So will Global Thermostat of New York, which finished constructing its first commercial plant in
Alabama last year.

Still, if it’s used in synthetic fuels or sodas, the carbon dioxide will mostly end up back in the atmosphere.
The ultimate goal is to lock greenhouse gases away forever. Some could be nested within products like
carbon fiber, polymers, or concrete, but far more will simply need to be buried underground, a costly job
that no business model seems likely to support.

In fact, pulling CO2 out of the air is, from an engineering perspective, one of the most difficult and
expensive ways of dealing with climate change. But given how slowly we’re reducing emissions, there are
no good options left.

New-wave nuclear power

Advanced fusion and fission reactors are edging closer to reality. 

New nuclear designs that have gained momentum in the past year are promising to make this
power source safer and cheaper. Among them are generation IV fission reactors, an evolution of
traditional designs; small modular reactors; and fusion reactors, a technology that has seemed
eternally just out of reach. Developers of generation IV fission designs, such as Canada’s
Terrestrial Energy and Washington-based TerraPower, have entered into R&D partnerships with
utilities, aiming for grid supply (somewhat optimistically, maybe) by the 2020s.

Small modular reactors typically produce in the tens of megawatts of power (for comparison, a
traditional nuclear reactor produces around 1,000 MW). Companies like Oregon’s NuScale say
the miniaturized reactors can save money and reduce environmental and financial risks.

There has even been progress on fusion. Though no one expects delivery before 2030,
companies like General Fusion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinout, are
making some headway. Many consider fusion a pipe dream, but because the reactors can’t melt
down and don’t create long-lived, high-level waste, it should face much less public resistance
than conventional nuclear. (Bill Gates is an investor in TerraPower and Commonwealth Fusion
Systems.)
3-D Metal Printing
 Breakthrough
Now printers can make metal objects quickly and cheaply.

 Why it matters
The ability to make large and complex metal objects on demand could transform manufacturing.

 Key players
Markforged, Desktop Metal, GE

 Availability
Now
While 3-D printing has been around for decades, it has remained largely in the domain of hobbyists and
designers producing one-off prototypes. And printing objects with anything other than plastics—in
particular, metal—has been expensive and painfully slow.

Now, however, it’s becoming cheap and easy enough to be a potentially practical way of manufacturing
parts. If widely adopted, it could change the way we mass-produce many products.

In the short term, manufacturers wouldn’t need to maintain large inventories—they could simply print an
object, such as a replacement part for an aging car, whenever someone needs it.

In the longer term, large factories that mass-produce a limited range of parts might be replaced by smaller
ones that make a wider variety, adapting to customers’ changing needs.

The technology can create lighter, stronger parts, and complex shapes that aren’t possible with conventional
metal fabrication methods. It can also provide more precise control of the microstructure of metals. In 2017,
researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced they had developed a 3-D-
printing method for creating stainless-steel parts twice as strong as traditionally made ones. 

Also in 2017, 3-D-printing company Markforged, a small startup based outside Boston, released the first 3-
D metal printer for under $100,000.
Another Boston-area startup, Desktop Metal, began to ship its first metal prototyping machines in December
2017. It plans to begin selling larger machines, designed for manufacturing, that are 100 times faster than
older metal printing methods.

The printing of metal parts is also getting easier. Desktop Metal now offers software that generates designs
ready for 3-D printing. Users tell the program the specs of the object they want to print, and the software
produces a computer model suitable for printing.   

GE, which has long been a proponent of using 3-D printing in its aviation products (see “10 Breakthrough
Technologies of 2013: Additive Manufacturing”), has a test version of its new metal printer that is fast
enough to make large parts. The company plans to begin selling the printer in 2018.

Zero-Carbon Natural Gas
 Breakthrough
A power plant efficiently and cheaply captures carbon released by burning natural gas, avoiding
greenhouse-gas emissions.

 Why it matters
Around 32 percent of US electricity is produced with natural gas, accounting for around 30 percent of the
power sector’s carbon emissions.

 Key players
8 Rivers Capital; Exelon Generation; CB&I

 Availability
3 to 5 years
The world is probably stuck with natural gas as one of our primary sources of electricity for the foreseeable
future. Cheap and readily available, it now accounts for more than 30 percent of US electricity and 22
percent of world electricity. And although it’s cleaner than coal, it’s still a massive source of carbon
emissions.

A pilot power plant just outside Houston, in the heart of the US petroleum and refining industry, is testing a
technology that could make clean energy from natural gas a reality. The company behind the 50-megawatt
project, Net Power, believes it can generate power at least as cheaply as standard natural-gas plants and
capture essentially all the carbon dioxide released in the process.

If so, it would mean the world has a way to produce carbon-free energy from a fossil fuel at a reasonable
cost. Such natural-gas plants could be cranked up and down on demand, avoiding the high capital costs of
nuclear power and sidestepping the unsteady supply that renewables generally provide.

Net Power is a collaboration between technology development firm 8 Rivers Capital, Exelon Generation,
and energy construction firm CB&I. The company is in the process of commissioning the plant and has
begun initial testing. It intends to release results from early evaluations in the months ahead.

The plant puts the carbon dioxide released from burning natural gas under high pressure and heat, using the
resulting supercritical CO2 as the “working fluid” that drives a specially built turbine. Much of the carbon
dioxide can be continuously recycled; the rest can be captured cheaply.
A key part of pushing down the costs depends on selling that carbon dioxide. Today the main use is in
helping to extract oil from petroleum wells. That’s a limited market, and not a particularly green one.
Eventually, however, Net Power hopes to see growing demand for carbon dioxide in cement manufacturing
and in making plastics and other carbon-based materials.

Net Power’s technology won’t solve all the problems with natural gas, particularly on the extraction side.
But as long as we’re using natural gas, we might as well use it as cleanly as possible. Of all the clean-energy
technologies in development, Net Power’s is one of the furthest along to promise more than a marginal
advance in cutting carbon emissions.