EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH IN 2022
Les nouvelles technologies à suivre en 2022
Les technologies ont déjà une place prépondérante dans nos vies. Pourtant, il semblerait que l’année à venir en voit émerger de nouvelles. Taxis volants, poissons et viandes artificiels ou encore tourisme spatial… que nous réserve 2022 ?
As the saying goes in the technology industry, it takes years to create an overnight success. So what might be about to burst into prominence? Here are 12 emerging technologies worth watching in 2022.
DIRECT AIR CAPTURE
2. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes global warming. So why not suck it out using machines? Several startups are pursuing direct air capture (dac), a technology that does just that. In 2022 Carbon Engineering, a Canadian firm, will start building the world’s biggest dac facility in Texas, capable of capturing 1m tonnes of CO2 per year. ClimeWorks, a Swiss firm, opened a dac plant in Iceland in 2021. Global Thermostat, an American firm, has two pilot plants. dac could be vital in the fight against climate change. The race is on to get costs down and scale the technology up.
VR WORKOUTS
3. Most people do not do enough exercise. Many would like to, but lack motivation. Virtual reality (vr) headsets let people play games and burn calories in the process. VR workouts became more popular during the pandemic as lockdowns closed gyms. Improved model and new fitness features are coming in 2022.
VACCINES FOR HIV AND MALARIA
4. The impressive success of coronavirus vaccines based on messenger rna (mrna) heralds a golden era of vaccine development. Moderna is developing an hiv vaccine based on the same mrna technology used in its highly effective coronavirus vaccine. It entered early-stage clinical trials in 2021 and preliminary results are expected in 2022.
FLYING ELECTRIC TAXIS
5. Long seen as something of a fantasy, flying taxis, or electric vertical take-off and landing (evtol) aircraft, as the fledgling industry calls them, are getting serious. Several firms around the world will step up test flights in 2022 with the aim of getting their aircraft certified for commercial use in the following year or two. Joby Aviation, based in California, plans to build more than a dozen of its five-seater vehicles, which have a 150-mile range. Volocopter of Germany aims to provide an air-taxi service at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Other contenders include eHang, Lilium and Vertical Aerospace. Keep an eye on the skies.
SPACE TOURISM
6. After a stand-out year for space tourism in 2021, as a succession of billionaire-backed efforts shot civilians into the skies, hopes are high for 2022. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic just beat Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to the edge of space in July, with both billionaires riding in their own spacecraft on suborbital trips. In September Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, sent four passengers on a multi-day orbital cruise around the Earth. All three firms hope to fly more tourists in