5 tech tendencies we’ll be watching in 2026 | Know-how

Hi there, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a cheerful New Yr’s Eve crammed with cheer, champagne and Mariah Carey’s comically terrible rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

Right now, we’re trying ahead to the subsequent yr in expertise information. I’m watching 5 tendencies I feel will outline the yr: datacenters will see fast proliferation past the US and China; billionaires will reap billions extra; self-driving vehicles will park themselves in a slew of brand-new locales; AI will discover its area of interest at work; and shopper tech will take unusual new shapes.

Datacenters blanket the globe

Datacenters unfold thick and quick throughout the US and UK in 2025. In 2026, the multitrillion-dollar mission of constructing the infrastructure behind synthetic intelligence is poised to broaden throughout the globe.

Look no additional than a narrative printed in the New York Instances the day after Christmas, which catalogues the massive investments tech giants have begun pouring into India for a build-out anticipated to happen over the subsequent 5 years. Microsoft dedicated $17.5bn to setting up new datacenters in India at an occasion earlier this month. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, didn’t even have time to depart the stage throughout that announcement earlier than rival Amazon declared it will spend $35bn by itself datacenters within the nation, in line with the Instances. Google inked a $15bn partnership for a similar factor with two Indian mega-conglomerates a month prior, and Meta, to not be outdone, is constructing a datacenter close to Google’s deliberate website.

South-east Asia is following India’s lead, with analysts predicting double-digit development within the variety of datacenters and computing capability in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Singapore already has numerous datacenters relative to its measurement. Australia can be a rising regional hub. What to look at on this area: it’s slightly scorching there for the temperature-sensitive computing amenitieswhich suggests they are going to eat a larger quantity of electrical energy than elsewhere – they already eat an unlimited quantity – for cooling.

Brazil is making a play to be Latin America’s datacenter vacation spot. Thus far, it’s working. Like India, although, the ability grid has not modernized to fulfill the big power starvation of digital infrastructure. Demand from datacenters has led to blackouts this yr. Latin America as a complete is seeing a rising resistance from environmental activists to the fast development of datacenters, which are sometimes shrouded in authorized secrecy that forestalls native communities from figuring out how a lot electrical energy and water they are going to eat.

Learn extra: Energy wrestle: will Brazil’s booming datacenter business depart abnormal individuals at midnight?

Learn extra: Datacenters meet resistance over environmental considerations as AI growth spreads in Latin America

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, eager on changing into the dominant gamers in AI within the Center East and diversifying away from oil, struck about $600bn in AI offers with the US throughout Trump’s tour in Could, together with one for the largest AI campus outdoors the US. The offers are mutual, with the US and its tech titans pledging to take a position tens of billions in AI infrastructure in each petrol states.

Europe’s datacenter market is rising. The continent boasts a sturdy and mature datacenter market, nevertheless it has not fostered the identical quantity of development or attracted equal funding as has the US and China in relation to AI. Europe’s computing capability is more likely to develop subsequent yr, however maybe not as quick as different areas talked about right here.

Learn extra: ‘It’s hell for us right here’: Mumbai households undergo as datacenters hold the town hooked on coal

A cautionary lesson from China, although, is that simply because a datacenter will get constructed doesn’t imply it will get used. The nation spent a lot of 2023 and 2024 speeding to construct a brand new armada of datacenters. About 150 new datacenters completed development and started operations in 2024, in line with the state-affiliated China Communications Trade Affiliation Information Heart Committee. Now a good portion of them are sitting unused, struggling to safe clients and new funding, in line with each Reuters and the MIT Know-how Evaluate. Native Chinese language shops cited by the MIT Tech Evaluate report that as much as 80% of China’s new computing capability can’t discover patrons. What’s going to the remainder of the world do if it likewise turns into saturated?

The worldwide arrival of self-driving vehicles

In November, I wrote in regards to the race between the US and China within the autonomous car businesswhich can see self-driving vehicles seem in main metropolises all through the world in 2026:

We’re on the verge of the worldwide arrival of self-driving vehicles. Subsequent yr, main companies from each the US and China will deploy their robotaxis to metropolises world wide, in main expansions of their present operations. These firms are posturing within the press like male birds combating for a similar mate; the dance units the stage for the worldwide competitors to come back.

On the US aspect, there’s Waymo, Google’s driverless enterprise. The corporate has invested billions of {dollars} in Waymo previously 15 years. The corporate opened its robotaxi service to the general public in June 2024 in San Francisco after years of testing and has been rolling it out steadily since. Now autos are very seen in most of Los Angeles, and they are going to be in Washington DCNew York Metropolis and London subsequent yr.

Baidu’s Apollo Go let its taxis unfastened in Dubai and Abu Dhabi this yr. The wheels of WeRide, one other Chinese language autonomous car firm, have likewise touched down within the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. The entire important gamers within the Chinese language market are increasing in Europe. Vehicles made by the agency Momenta and deployed by Uber are slated to start out driving in Germany in 2026. WeRide, Baidu and Pony AI even have plans to start robotaxi service in varied European locales within the close to future. Many extra persons are about to see self-driving vehicles in the midst of their every day lives.

Learn extra: The race begins to make the world’s greatest self-driving vehicles

Billionaires are most likely going to get richer

Ten of tech’s most well-fixed executives added an eye-popping $550bn to their fortunes in 2025, in line with the Monetary Instances. That astronomical development exhibits no indicators of stopping subsequent yr, notably with two looming preliminary public choices: OpenAI and SpaceX, valued at $830bn and $800bn, respectively, although each these figures might rise to $1tn.

SpaceX’s buying and selling launch will add tens of billions to the web price of its CEO and co-founder, Elon Musk, who already instructions a fortune of about $600bn, in line with Forbes. OpenAI’s debut on the inventory market is a bit murkier: Sam Altman has stated he doesn’t personal a stake within the newly for-profit model of the ChatGPT maker, so its IPO might make its backers like Microsoft and its personal workers, who personal a big chunk of the inventory, fairly wealthy whereas Altman reaps a modest revenue.

Musk can be positioned to reap an unlimited wage from his work at Tesla. He’s now the beneficiary of two pay packages, one, price $56bn, reinstated by a company courtroom in Delaware, and the opposite, price a whopping $1tn, voted on by Tesla shareholders.

The exception to my prediction of billionaires’ ballooning fortunes could also be Larry Ellison. The super-wealthy Trump backer briefly dethroned Musk because the richest man on this planet in September as hopes of the success of his enterprise software program agency, Oracle, ran greater than they ever had. His coziness with Trump and Oracle’s involvement within the AI growth appeared like twin rocket boosters that might ship his fortune to the moon.

Only a few months later, although, Oracle is bearing the brunt of buyers’ fears of an AI bubble. Wall Road scrutinizes the corporate’s future commitments and the mammoth quantity of danger it has taken on to finance them. Oracle’s earnings knocked $80bn off its market capitalization.

AI does – and doesn’t – rework work

AI has remodeled productiveness in some niches. Coding, for instanceseems extraordinarily completely different than it did simply 5 years in the past. Customer support representatives are being changed by hated chatbots left and proper. AI has not changed worker-level productiveness in most industries, although. An MIT examine that discovered 95% of firms’ AI pilot applications failed to offer a return on funding nonetheless looms massive. Though AI just isn’t prepared for worker-replacement prime time, companies are refraining from hiring, ready for the expertise’s potential to reach, which signifies that as we speak’s jobs are being affected by bosses’ conception of the longer term. For instance, Hollywood, in a dire monetary droop already, is popping to AI as a strategy to full productions extra cheaply. Newspaper readers have rejected AI-generated writing, seeing it as inaccurate and unreliable. Authorized professionals have but to work out the place generative AI ought to determine into their area: chatbots cite fictitious circumstances, however summarizing prolonged and dense paperwork is an utility that does save an excessive amount of time. Subsequent yr might even see generative AI discover extra niches the place it’s genuinely helpful.

Keep tuned for extra on the topic: the Guardian will start publishing a year-long collection on AI and the way forward for work in early 2026.

Can I curiosity you in a brand new system? Shopper {hardware} will get bizarre new kind components

For years now, the smartphone has been the piece of expertise that mattered most to most individuals, maybe the one one in all any significance in any respect. That system has appeared largely the identical for the higher a part of a decade, an enormous black display with some buttons on the aspect. The previous few years have seen the debut of a number of completely different kind components, nevertheless – principally folding units, alongside a couple of new units meant to offer AI a bodily kind. In 2026, these tendencies will most likely speed up, fueled by Apple’s attainable launch of a folding cellphone and the hunt for a tool that may channel AI’s capabilities.

Apple’s folding cellphone has been rumored for half a yr not less than with out eliciting a denial from Cupertino. A brand new kind issue for the smartphone will come to a big and devoted viewers. Prime Androids have sported folding screens for years now, together with a brand new Samsung that folds twice, however Apple’s viewers is a captive one, locked into its software program ecosystem.

Tech firms are feverishly engaged on a brand new AI system, determined to be the primary to unlock the attraction of ChatGPT IRL. OpenAI spent about $6.5bn in 2025 on iPhone architect Jony Ive’s startup, which had few, if any, merchandise to talk of; the approaching yr might even see its first product. The Humane pin with its shiny founders and the Buddy necklace with its stunty subway advertising and marketing each made splashes however by no means caught on. Humane has already shuttered. Sensible glasses current a promising avenue for bringing generative and responsive AI into individuals’s on a regular basis lives, and these units are already widespread. In 2026, sensible glasses appear more likely to proliferate and advance, dominated by Meta. Generative or responsive AI will most likely additionally come to extra locations you don’t want it. Samsung already added its Bixby assistant to its fridges method again in 2024, in any case. Chances are you’ll end up with a sensible cover in a lodge in 2026.