Flexible batteries, designer phages among top-10 emerging technologies of 2023: WEF

tech.hindustantimes.com:

New Delhi, Jun 26 (PTI) A new type of AI capable of generating new and original content, designer phages, flexible batteries and sustainable aviation fuel are among the technologies poised to have the most positive impact on the world in the next 3-5 years, the WEF said on Monday.

Listing the top ten such emerging technologies, the WEF said the list also includes wearable plant sensors, metaverse for mental health, spatial omics, flexible neural electronics, sustainable computing and AI-facilitated healthcare.

The WEF's 'Top ten emerging technologies report 2023' assessed how each technology will impact people, the planet, prosperity, industry and equity and was produced in collaboration with Frontiers, a publisher of peer-reviewed, open-access, scientific journals.

The technologies analysed for the annual list were those promising major benefits to societies and economies, as also those considered to be disruptive, attractive to investors and researchers, and expected to have achieved considerable scale within five years.

Since the first edition in 2011, the report has identified little-known technologies that went on to have a global impact. These include genomic vaccines, featured in the 2016 report and later became the technology underpinning most COVID-19 vaccines, and AI-led molecular design, featured on the 2018 list, two years before the first AI-discovered drugs entered clinical trials.

Talking about the selected top ten, the WEF said standard rigid batteries may soon be a thing of the past as thin, flexible batteries –- made of lightweight materials that can be twisted, bent and stretched -– reach the market.

This new generation of battery technology – expected to hit a market value of USD 240 million by 2027 – has