As 2025 headlines arrived without positive luster, technological progress continued. The apparent question emerging is whether technology will be harnessed more for sustainability or to pursue an AI singularity rumored to be fast approaching. (Optimists proclaim it can be both.) Let’s take a look with our year-end review of engineering progress around the globe.
- TRANSPORTATION: THE FRIENDLY GHOST Firefly Aerospace completed the first fully successful commercial moon landing enabling 14 days of productivity for Blue Ghost Mission 1, including deployment of its full commercial payload of sensors and tools.
- ENERGY: GLIDE PATH There are several paths to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) including from startups like Twelve and AirCo that continue to see investment and important progress
- CAPABILITY: THE WaiTING Announcements of progress on AI, particularly for generative AI tools/platforms, emerge with increasing speed. And Big Tech is sprinting to integrate “Active Intelligence” throughout their products. Yet, it was the fact that a generative AI tool (Claude) got manipulated by an external agent to become a ‘hacking machine’ which may have been the most notable milestone of the year.
- COMPUTING: QuB or not QuB Beyond its scientific novelty and obvious role for national security, Quantum Computing 2025 progress can still be portrayed as an future tonic to slake the AI thirst for processing power. And preparation for robust future value in applications has begun.
- HEALTH: BUTTERFLY TOUCH Navigating the lung’s bronchial tubes, to secure difficult biopsy samples, just got a major boost with J&J MedTech’s Monarch QuestTM guidance system. AI interpretation of CT data helps find a bronchoscopy path of least resistance and risk.
- MANUFACTURING: WASTE NOT, WANT NOT Offering the petrochemical industry a means to harvest value from its waste streams with add-on, back-end chemical conversion sounds like a good pitch. Especially when it has the benefit of being carbon-neutral. Turnover Labs is trying to do just that.
- GEOENGINEERING: SKY SURFING To protect the function and vitality (and beauty!) of the Great Barrier Reef’s role in CO2 sequestration and the marine lifecycle, Southern Cross University is taking the lead in studying feasibility of enriching clouds with seawater to increase reflectivity.
- FOOD: A HEALTHY SIDE Identifying a type of rice that reduces 70% of methane emissions over its lifecycle while increasing output can put a tasty dent in the 12% of global methane emissions which come from rice farming
- CLIMATE: SKIPPING STONES Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) demonstrates that basalt rock strewn across farm fields can sponge atmospheric CO2 and fertilize crop growth. Can we make the mining effort to support it more green to secure economic and sustainability incentives? And can we keep attention on successful carbon sequestration efforts rather than being diverted to potential charlatans?
- ENVIRONMENT: LORAX REDUX The conscientious planting of new trees to make up for deforestation, or to compensate for your green credits, may have unintended consequences on water availability and local climate, as China is learning.
As 2026 begins, let’s push for positive Engineering impacts on local, regional, and global challenges to “pay it forward” for our species. And we’ll continue to look for those noteworthy advances.
