The integration marks a key step in the crypto exchange’s second-phase rollout, bringing Uniswap’s markets directly to its layer-2 network.
Bitcoin failed to hold $97,000 as its funding rate stalled and retail traders watched from the sidelines. Will TradFi reignite the rally to $100,000?
The startup claims its AI platform can help optimize editorial processes and research.
Read more AI labs just can’t get their employees to stay put. Yesterday’s big AI news was the abrupt and seemingly acrimonious departure of three top executives at Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines lab.
Read more The U.S. struck a trade deal with Taiwan as the country looks to help boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
Read more Higgsfield says it’s on a $200 million annual revenue run rate. So it opened its previous Series A round back up and sold another $80 million in shares.
Read more Iran’s government-imposed internet shutdown enters its second week as authorities continue their violent crackdown on protesters.
Read more In this exclusive subscriber-only eBook, you’ll learn about how the idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry.
by Will Douglas Heaven October 30, 2025
Table of Contents:
- How Silicon Valley got AGI-pilled
- The great AGI conspiracy
- How AGI hijacked an industry
- The great AGI conspiracy, concluded
Related Stories:
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This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Meet the man hunting the spies in your smartphone
In April 2025, Ronald Deibert left all electronic devices at home in Toronto and boarded a plane. When he landed in Illinois, he bought a new laptop and iPhone. He wanted to reduce the risk of having his personal devices confiscated, because he knew his work made him a prime target for surveillance. “I’m traveling under the assumption that I am being watched, right down to exactly where I am at any moment,” Deibert says.
Deibert directs the Citizen Lab, a research center he founded in 2001 to serve as “counterintelligence for civil society.” Housed at the University of Toronto, it’s one of the few institutions that investigate cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest, and in doing so, it has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses of the past two decades.
For many years, Deibert and his colleagues have held up the US as the standard for liberal democracy. But that’s changing. Read the full story.
—Finian Hazen
This story is from the latest issue of our print magazine. If you subscribe now to receive future copies when they land you’ll benefit from some big discounts, and get a free tote bag!
Three climate technologies breaking through in 2026
—Casey Crownhart
Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out.
For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has a bunch of climate and energy picks including sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech.
This story ran in The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the technologies we can use to combat climate change. Sign up to get it in your inbox first every Wednesday.
And, if you’re keen to learn more about why AI companies are betting big on next-gen nuclear, join us for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable event on Wednesday January 28 at 2pm ET.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 AI companies are now deeply entwined with the US military
And it looks like they’re only set to get closer. (Wired $)
+ Three open questions about the Pentagon’s push for generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Grok will comply with local laws, X has said
A global backlash over users creating ‘undressing’ images of real people seems to have forced its hand. (BBC)
+ So far there’s no evidence it’s actually following through on that promise though. (The Verge)
+ Elon Musk could stop it all instantly if he wanted to. (Engadget)
3 The risks of using AI in schools outweigh the benefits
According to a sweeping new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. (NPR)
+ AI’s giants are trying to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Trump is imposing new tariffs on high-end chips
They’re pretty narrow though, and leave plenty of room for exports to China. (WP $)
+ Zhipu AI says it’s trained its first major model entirely on Chinese chips. (South China Morning Post)
5 A UK police force blamed Microsoft Copilot for an intelligence error
After spending weeks denying it was using AI tools at all. (Ars Technica)
+ Worried about police and lawyers using AI? Well, judges are at it too. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Inside the compounds where the fraud industry makes its billions
The details are grim—for example the fact workers struck a gong every time they scammed someone out of $5,000. (NYT $)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Bandcamp has banned purely AI-generated music from its platform
It’s the first online music platform to take this step. (Billboard)
+ Can AI generate new ideas? (NYT $)
8 Remember Havana Syndrome? The US may have found the device that causes it
It was acquired for millions of dollars under the last administration, and it’s still being studied. (CNN)
9 This study failed to prove social media time causes teens’ mental health issues
It’s a common assumption, but there’s still remarkably little evidence to back it up. (The Guardian)
10 The UK is planning to build a record-breaking number of wind farms
Its government is pushing for the vast majority of the country’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2030. (BBC)
Quote of the day
“Women and girls are far more reluctant to use AI. This should be no surprise to any of us. Women don’t see this as exciting new technology, but as simply new ways to harass and abuse us and try and push us offline.”
—Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, tells The Guardian she fears that the use of AI to harm women and girls is only going to grow.
One more thing
DANIEL STOLLE
Inside the little-known group setting the corporate climate agenda
As thousands of companies trumpet their plans to cut carbon pollution, a small group of sustainability consultants has emerged as the go-to arbiter of corporate climate action.
The Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, helps businesses develop a timetable for action to shrink their climate footprint through some combination of cutting greenhouse-gas pollution and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After years of small-scale sustainability work, SBTi is growing rapidly, and governments are paying attention.
But while the group has earned praise for reeling the private sector into constructive conversations about climate emissions, its rising influence has also attracted scrutiny and raised questions about why a single organization is setting the standards for many of the world’s largest companies. Read the full story.
—Ian Morse
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ The leaders of Japan and South Korea drummed up a viral moment with a jam session this week.
+ Struggle during the cold, dark winter months? Here’s how to make things easier for yourself.
+ If you like getting lost in the depths of Wikipedia, Freakpages is for you.
+ From Pluribus to Stranger Things, we really can’t get enough of hive mindsin stories lately. ($)
Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out.
For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has some stars, including gene resurrection (remember all the dire wolf hype last year?) and commercial space stations.
And of course, the world of climate and energy is represented with sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech.
Sodium-ion batteries
I’ve been covering sodium-ion batteries for years, but this moment feels like a breakout one for the technology.
Today, lithium-ion cells power everything from EVs, phones, and computers to huge stationary storage arrays that help support the grid. But researchers and battery companies have been racing to develop an alternative, driven by the relative scarcity of lithium and the metal’s volatile price in recent years.
Sodium-ion batteries could be that alternative. Sodium is much more abundant than lithium, and it could unlock cheaper batteries that hold a lower fire risk.
There are limitations here: Sodium-ion batteries won’t be able to pack as much energy into cells as their lithium counterparts. But it might not matter, especially for grid storage and smaller EVs.
In recent years, we’ve seen a ton of interest in sodium-based batteries, particularly from major companies in China. Now the new technology is starting to make its way into the world—CATL says it started manufacturing these batteries at scale in 2025.
Next-generation nuclear
Nuclear reactors are an important part of grids around the world today—massive workhorse reactors generate reliable, consistent electricity. But the countries with the oldest and most built-out fleets have struggled to add to them in recent years, since reactors are massive and cost billions. Recent high-profile projects have gone way over budget and faced serious delays.
Next-generation reactor designs could help the industry break out of the old blueprint and get more nuclear power online more quickly, and they’re starting to get closer to becoming reality.
There’s a huge variety of proposals when it comes to what’s next for nuclear. Some companies are building smaller reactors, which they say could make it easier to finance new projects, and get them done on time.
Other companies are focusing on tweaking key technical bits of reactors, using alternative fuels or coolants that help ferry heat out of the reactor core. These changes could help reactors generate electricity more efficiently and safely.
Kairos Power was the first US company to receive approval to begin construction on a next-generation reactor to produce electricity. China is emerging as a major center of nuclear development, with the country’s national nuclear company reportedly working on several next-gen reactors.
Hyperscale data centers
This one isn’t quite what I would call a climate technology, but I spent most of last year reporting on the climate and environmental impacts of AI, and the AI boom is deeply intertwined with climate and energy.
Data centers aren’t new, but we’re seeing a wave of larger centers being proposed and built to support the rise of AI. Some of these facilities require a gigawatt or more of power—that’s like the output of an entire conventional nuclear power plant, just for one data center.
(This feels like a good time to mention that our Breakthrough Technologies list doesn’t just highlight tech that we think will have a straightforwardly positive influence on the world. I think back to our 2023 list, which included mass-market military drones.)
There’s no denying that new, supersize data centers are an important force driving electricity demand, sparking major public pushback, and emerging as a key bit of our new global infrastructure.
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.