Predicting the future is considered a fool’s game. Yet we can't help but wonder what ideas we’ll be talking about in the decades to come… presumably while sitting in a bar on the Moon, sipping anti-ageing, dark matter martinis.
Hundreds of scientific papers cross the BBC Science Focus news desk every week, so there are plenty of ‘tea leaves’ for us to read in the hopes of discerning the direction that tomorrow’s winds may be blowing.
And so, here’s our pick of the 10 technologies we think will be defining our daily lives in 2050.
Nano-medics will rebuild us
Nanotechnology works on the minuscule size of nanometres – billionths of a metre. To get a feel for this scale, a human hair is 80,000–100,000 nanometres across.
While the concept of such technology conjures up images of miniature surgical machines, travelling through the bloodstream to operate directly on affected body parts, it’s more about making use of the distinctive physical and biological properties that occur at this very small scale.
It becomes possible, for example, to deploy medication directly to the area where it’s needed, reducing the chances of it damaging the body’s mechanisms along its way. This would also reduce the chance of the body’s defences stopping the medication before it reaches its goal.
Much modern conventional medicine depends on designer molecules, which is a form of nanotechnology, particularly with the development of mRNA vaccines such as those used against COVID-19.
But the term is more dramatically applied to indirect mechanisms that don’t exist yet. One example likely to be commonplace by 2050 is using nanotechnology to access the brain.
This is protected by the blood-brain barrier, a structure that recognises and rejects most pharmaceuticals. But by placing them in specially engineered nanoparticles, there’s the potential to transport a drug through to the brain to take direct action on conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
Similarly, using nanotechnology for chemotherapy drugs could ensure they only act at a desired site instead of wreaking havoc on the whole body.
The technology could even improve imaging. By deploying special iron-oxide nanoparticles to concentrated areas, doctors could improve the contrast achieved in MRI scans.
Although we’re unlikely to see nano-surgeons converging on tumour sites anytime soon, it’s certain that the use of nanotechnology, possibly combined with advancements in metamaterials will enable more complex procedures at the nano-level.
Space exploration becomes big business
The golden age of science fiction featured stories of asteroid or lunar miners, transferring the American Wild West mentality into space. It’s already technically feasible to mine materials from the Moon or the asteroid belt, and it has the potential to be extremely profitable.
For example, there could be 10 times as much of the isotope helium-3 on the Moon than there is on Earth, and much of it is near the Moon’s surface. This may be a valuable resource for nuclear fusion reactors.
Although the asteroids are much further away, cutting off parts of them, or moving all of an asteroid by attaching a rocket, would be a relatively easy way to haul them back to Earth.
The most likely resources would be rare metals, particularly those used in electronics, though there’s a danger that a single asteroid could contain so much material that the market would collapse. Those who believe we’ll colonise Mars also see asteroids as a potential source of water.
According to Dr Andrew May, author of The Space Business, “Something like asteroid mining looks feasible enough on paper – in engineering terms, at least. But from a business perspective it’s iffy, because a company might need to invest a decade or two developing the technology before seeing tangible returns.”
However, he points out that as “governments are generally less averse to long-term projects”, they could put the brunt of their efforts into a more readily abundant space resource: solar energy.
Solar panels on Earth only receive a fraction of the sunlight that’s accessible from space. If this energy could be beamed down to Earth using microwaves, we would have a sustainable surplus of solar energy on tap.
This has already been tested on a small scale in 2023, but China plans to have a space solar power station active by 2050.
A replacement for chemical batteries
Climate change makes ditching fossil fuels a priority. In transport, the single biggest barrier to this is battery technology. Current lithium-ion batteries are great for small devices, but have serious limitations for vehicles, in terms of capacity, charge time, durability and safety.
By 2050, we’ll likely see a completely new take on battery technology, with a host of new components. Electrodes, and the electrochemically active material between the electrodes, will be replaced altogether.
Dr John-Joseph Marie, a principal analyst at the Faraday Institution, notes that, “Many new battery chemistries are under development that may be in widespread use by 2050. Portable electronics, where energy density is so important, will increasingly rely on silicon anodes to reduce the size of batteries while maintaining the same power output.
“New battery chemistries, such as flow batteries or metal-air batteries, may also be used for ultra-long duration energy storage.”
It’s also quite likely that supercapacitors will revolutionise electric vehicles. Unlike a battery, which stores energy in an electrochemical reaction, capacitors build up electrical charge on their electrodes – common components used in practically all electronic devices.
Supercapacitors add a structure to these electrodes that enables them to hold a double layer of charge. This engages a battery-like phenomenon called ‘pseudocapacitance’, allowing it to store incredible amounts of energy.
All this to say, supercapacitors charge up in seconds. And where a lithium battery degrades after a few thousand charges, supercapacitors survive for around half a million cycles.
We'll all use computers like Iron Man
One of many sci-fi promises yet to materialise is the transformation of flat, 2D computer interfaces into free-floating dazzling pixelated visions that dance in front of our eyes and react to the wave of our hands.
Currently, spatial computing is available – think technology like Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro – to bridge the gap between our world and the digital realm. It can track eye movements and recognise voice commands, but seems pretty stilted next to what Tony Stark used in the Iron Man movies (not to mention pricey and niche).
However, the development of the technology is now well on its way. While eye tracking is currently used to see what the user is looking at, developers are working towards versions able to respond to facial expressions in the way a human can.
We can also expect better hand tracking, so that a user can appear to directly interact with the superimposed digital world.
Currently, the biggest obstacle facing spatial computing is persuading people that it’s worth having a 650g (1.5lb) headset strapped to their face at all times. Not only does this quickly get uncomfortable, but it looks very odd from the outside.
A bulky 2025 headset might be fine for gaming at home, but would likely turn a few heads if you wore it walking down the street. It’s likely that spatial computing will only take off, if it can be built into hardware no more obtrusive than a pair of glasses.
Still, look how far mobile phones have come since the turn of the century. We’ve raced from their basic inception to make them smarter, smaller and more sophisticated than previously thought possible. The average weight of a phone was just 148g (about 5oz) in 2019, and think how far we’ve come since then.
Who knows, by 2050, we might all have upgraded from iPhones to hologram-based eye phones.
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The doctor will see your digital twin
It may sound like a new type of deepfake, but digital twins are a concept that’s ready to rock the medical world.
Where regular computer simulations replicate the behaviour of objects or situations, a digital twin adds a layer of realism. The simulation is fed real-time data from the original object, enabling it to more accurately match what’s really going on.
The concept originated with NASA, but has rapidly developed to support a range of tasks. For example, a digital twin can both monitor the state of a nuclear power station and use up-to-the-minute data to predict its behaviour.
As you might imagine, this could be particularly useful in preventing potential meltdowns.
By 2050, though, the most familiar digital twins might be our own. We already have smartwatches and other devices that monitor things like our heart rates and blood pressure. Our digital twins could use this data to assess our health, waltzing off to the doctor’s surgery to get help before we’re even aware there’s a problem.
Dr Roger Highfield, co-author of Virtual You, writes that, “Simulations are already in regular use in drug development and they’ll become more common, providing truly personalised and predictive medicine.
“Hundreds of digital twins of a single patient could explore their virtual futures and the long-term effects of treatments, diets and lifestyle changes. While the most sophisticated twins might be limited to researchers or the rich, simpler versions will allow everyone to benefit from this greater emphasis on prevention.”
CRISPR starts editing our genome
For decades now, we’ve been promised that gene editing (making direct changes to human genes) will transform healthcare with tailored solutions to medical problems. But the next 25 years could see it come to fruition.
Tools that make precise changes to genes are available now, notably CRISPR.
It was used on human embryos for the first time by Chinese scientists in 2015 in an attempt to correct a gene defect responsible for the disease beta-thalassaemia. Though these were non-viable embryos, it highlighted controversies facing CRISPR’s medical use and in most of the 86 embryos, the procedure was unsuccessful.
CRISPR has also been studied for treating both viral and bacterial infectious diseases, as well as a range of cancers. Since 2019, when the technology was first injected into a human body, a number of clinical trials have been established, but there are obstacles facing its regular use, both from a safety and ethical standpoint.
Dr Nessa Carey, author of Hacking the Code of Life predicts that, “by 2050, we’ll see a relatively routine use of gene editing in the treatment of people with inherited disorders, and with some other conditions such as cancer.”
“I think by then we’ll also see the editing of embryos from families with inherited conditions for which there may be no other effective options. Though technical challenges will be resolved before the ethical ones, by mid-century I doubt we’ll be able to justify withholding this option from desperate families.”
Invisibility here we come!
Material science often lacks the glamour of other technologies – and yet it could be an exciting field to watch over the next 25 years. Perhaps one of the simplest yet most promising new materials is self-repairing concrete.
Self-repairing is a ‘biomimetic’ process – one where technology is developed inspired by the capabilities of the natural world – as it echoes the abilities of living tissue to repair damage.
We can expect most concrete of the future to heal itself, using, for example, dormant bacteria that produce calcium carbonate when water gets into the material. Or even filler-like healing agents that are released when microcapsules are broken as the material shifts.
In sci-fi, we often see exotic material that can reshape itself when needed (think Terminator 2’s T-1000 melting through prison bars and taking the forms of its various victims). Programmable substances might have more positive uses in the real world.
For example, stadiums could be programmed to provide new seating on demand so that no one has to miss Taylor Swift’s next Eras tour.
Current attempts often make use of ‘solid-liquid phase change pumping’, where a material shifts between solid and liquid states, reshaping before solidifying. To date, this has only been possible on a small scale, but over the next 25 years, we could see the approach expand to a practical level.
Perhaps the most exciting new materials, though, are metamaterials. Designed with unusual structures made to hijack quantum phenomena, they can gain unexpected super-abilities.
At the simpler end, these metamaterials might improve safety helmets by changing how much pressure they can resist. On the more spectacular end, scientists are working on honest-to-goodness invisibility cloaks. The metamaterial in these cloaks can bend the light around them, preventing objects underneath from being seen.
Currently, the cloaks have only worked on small items, illuminated with non-visible, infrared light, but by 2050 we can expect materials capable of making small items disappear in visible light.
Quantum computing powers the next generation of AI
Quantum computers are well on the way to performing calculations that would take conventional machines the lifetime of the Universe to complete. Though currently very limited and error-prone, algorithms are already being developed so that they can, for example, gain the ability to search exponentially faster than their conventional counterparts.
By the time we reach 2050, we can expect quantum computers to be stable enough to be used as everyday remote servers, particularly where complex searching is required.
At the moment, most quantum computing is limited by its need for laboratory conditions – for example, to bring materials to ultra-low temperatures. But with the amount of research effort going into improving them, it’s likely that this won’t be an issue in 25 years.
Quantum computers will also likely be capable of completing multiple calculations simultaneously, transforming the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
While we might not see artificial general intelligence – computers capable of human-like thinking and feeling – in the next 25 years, quantum AI might be able to better explain the reasoning behind its decision-making processes.
This would make it more trustworthy when handling tasks that could greatly impact human lives – think healthcare and finance.
Orbital clean up
Our skies are a mess. For decades we’ve been sending artificial satellites into Earth’s orbit, and recently the launch of SpaceX’s Starlink has hugely accelerated how much is floating around up there.
At the same time, smaller orbiting debris is accumulating, ranging from flecks of paint to parts of exploded rocket stages. This stuff is moving fast.
According to NASA, the average impact speed of debris is 36,000km/h (22,369mph). Being hit by just a 1cm (0.3in) piece at this speed is like being hit by a bowling ball at nearly 500km/h (310mph).
There are more than 25,000 known objects bigger than 10cm (4in) in diameter currently orbiting us, and tens of millions of pieces overall. The International Space Station regularly receives small dents from tiny debris and has to steer to avoid larger pieces about once a year. By 2050, the situation will be far worse.
Some debris is self-disposing as many objects fall back to Earth. The higher the orbit, the longer this takes: debris in low Earth orbits will usually be gone within a few years, but 1,000km (620 miles) up it can take a century.
Typically, larger objects re-enter at a rate of between one every three days and three a day. Geostationary satellites, flying at an altitude of 35,786km (22,236 miles) to orbit at the same rate as Earth rotates, are usually moved to higher ‘graveyard orbits’ to clear space, while lower flying satellites are now often intentionally brought down.
By 2050, a range of techniques will likely be used to dispose of debris, including capture vehicles, nets and lasers to vaporise the debris or slow it down so that its orbit decays. Unfortunately, a lack of cooperation between states, commercial operators and space agencies may limit effective debris clearance.
And finally, fusion
For decades we’ve been promised that nuclear fusion would provide clean, green energy and finally – finally – by 2050 the promise might deliver.
The concept is simple: harness the power source of the stars. Where current nuclear energy depends on fission (splitting atoms), fusion makes use of the energy released when atomic nuclei merge to form new elements, converting a small amount of matter to energy in the process.
This has many advantages over fission. It produces far less radioactive waste, uses more easily obtained fuel and has no potential for a meltdown.
Stars rely on immense pressure from their gravitation, as well as high temperatures. Without that, a fusion generator on Earth typically runs at far higher temperatures. Reactors either work by heating plasma to intense temperatures and high pressure, or by using powerful lasers to blast small fuel pellets inwards, producing intense pressure and heat.
Fusion experiments started in the 1950s, with an expectation that they would join the power grid within about 30 years. With the pressure of climate change driving a move away from fossil fuels, it seems likely that fusion will be generating significant amounts of power by 2050.
But Dr Sharon Ann Holgate, author of Nuclear Fusion, provides a note of caution: “It’s hard to predict when – or even if – we’ll be boiling our kettles via fusion-generated power, but I’m hoping it might start feeding electricity into grids worldwide within the next 25 years.”
She also points towards the increasing diversity of the technology as a promising sign. “We might see a range of fusion technologies being used depending on the size and location of the reactor: microreactors for instance could use a different technological approach to larger scale power plants.”
About our experts
Dr Andrew May is a science, sci-fi and history writer with a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics from Manchester University. He has several books published, including Cosmic Impact: Understanding the Threat to Earth from Asteroids and Comets, The Space Business and Eyes in the Sky: Space Telescopes from Hubble to Webb.
Dr John-Joseph Marie is a principal energy storage analyst at the Faraday Institution. His work has been published in Nature Energy, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Nature Communications.
Dr Roger Highfield was previously Science Editor at The Daily Telegraph and the editor of New Scientist and now is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. He has several books published, including Stephen Hawking: Genius at Work, Virtual You and The Dance of Life: Symmetry, Cells and How we Become Human.
Dr Nessa Carey has a PhD in virology from the University of Edinburgh and is the author of Hacking the Code of Life. She has other books published, too, including The Epigenetics Revolution and Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome.
Dr Sharon Ann Holgate is Chartered Scientist, a freelance science writer, broadcaster and guest educator at King's College London. She has authored five books, including Nuclear Fusion, The Way Science Works and Understanding Solid State Physics.
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