CONVERGENCE ATLAS / THE BIGGER CONNECTION
Not one revolution.
All of them, together.
The future becomes remarkable when one breakthrough changes the possibilities of another. AI helps find materials. Materials can improve batteries. Batteries can support computing. Here are the connected stories that bring that process to life.
Each story distinguishes connections already demonstrated from reinforcing cycles that remain plausible future possibilities.
12 DOORWAYS INTO A CONNECTED FUTURE
What If the Next AI Breakthrough Was a Chip That Calculates With Light?
The extraordinary possibility is a new division of labour: electronics handle some jobs, while light handles calculations that suit its physics.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What If the Skills That Found Oil Helped Build Power Plants That Do Not Burn It?
The surprising industrial consequence is that some expertise from the fossil-fuel economy could help build another kind of energy infrastructure.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What If the Next Rare-Earth Processing Breakthrough Came From a Bacterium?
The extraordinary possibility is a new biological tool inside a mineral supply chain, rather than a claim that microbes make mining unnecessary.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What If a New Drug Met Living Human Tissue Before It Met a Patient?
The extraordinary possibility is better evidence earlier in development, while recognizing that a model remains a selective representation of a human body.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What If a Protein Factory Needed Electricity and Gases Instead of a Field?
The bigger possibility is a new connection between food security and clean electricity—if production becomes affordable and dependable.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What If a Computing Job Could Choose Its Time and Place to Use Cleaner Electricity?
The opportunity is to make useful flexibility part of computing design, while measuring the actual effect on energy and emissions.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if AI could invent the batteries that power its own future?
Battery costs are falling, electricity demand is growing, and artificial intelligence could help discover better materials. The surprising story is how these revolutions could begin reinforcing one another.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if we could design medicines for diseases we can't treat today?
We are beginning to move from searching for useful molecules to designing biological tools for particular targets. That could change how the search for new treatments begins.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if a farm could think, see and work around the clock?
Machines are beginning to distinguish crops from weeds, respond to conditions and handle specific jobs with much greater precision. The next question is what happens when they start working as connected teams.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if AI could help discover materials that have never existed before?
The materials inside tomorrow’s batteries, buildings and computers may begin as patterns suggested by a machine—and proven, or disproven, in a laboratory.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if a laboratory could keep discovering while its researchers slept?
Some experiments can now be planned, carried out and evaluated by connected computers and robotic equipment—turning scientific investigation into a more continuous process.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if millions of small energy devices became one giant power plant?
Your home battery, an electric car and a smart thermostat might one day contribute to the electricity system as a coordinated team—even though they sit in different places.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if your phone still worked when the cell towers disappeared?
Satellites are beginning to connect with ordinary mobile phones in places beyond terrestrial coverage, opening a potentially important new layer of communication for remote communities and emergencies.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if AI could help scientists control the energy of the stars?
Artificial intelligence has controlled intricate patterns of superheated plasma inside experimental fusion machines, offering scientists new ways to test what a future energy source might require.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if a fleet of robots learned to work as one team?
The most important improvement in a warehouse may not be a smarter robot. It may be software that helps hundreds of machines avoid getting in one another’s way.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if a construction site could understand what was happening across it?
As equipment, schedules, designs and sensors become connected, construction teams could catch conflicts earlier and coordinate dangerous work more safely—if the information is useful and trusted.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if parked electric cars could help keep a neighborhood powered?
An electric car is already a large rechargeable battery on wheels. With the right equipment, rules and incentives, some of that stored electricity could become useful beyond the vehicle itself.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗What if scientists could map the human body one cell at a time?
Our bodies contain extraordinary varieties of cells, and researchers are beginning to discover how their locations, states and relationships change during health and disease.
READ THE COMPLETE STORY ↗