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  • NEWS FEATURE

Science in 2050: the future breakthroughs that will shape our world — and beyond

Nuclear fusion. People on Mars. Artificial general intelligence. These are just some of the advances that could come by the mid-century mark.
By
  1. David Adam

    1. David Adam is a science journalist based near London.

A conceptual illustration of a retro-futuristic city on another planet, with planets in the background, fusion power and a flying vehicle.

Illustration: Chiara Vercesi

The Roman sage Marcus Aurelius said we should never let the future disturb us. But then he never had a conversation with the futurologist Nick Bostrom about the state of the world in 2050.

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Nature 649, 18-20 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-04100-6

References

  1. Brasseur, G. et al. Front. Clim. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2025.1554685 (2025).

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  2. Esat, T. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 19, 1466–1471 (2024).

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  3. Hiltunen, E. J. Future Stud. (in the press).

  4. Heller, R. & Kiss, L. L. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1911.12114 (2019).

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