What happened
Analysis and impact
根据《麻省理工科技评论》的说明，评选过程并非简单依赖单一指标，而是综合考量候选人的原创性、技术深度以及其工作对现实世界的潜在影响。编辑部强调，入选者往往处于职业生涯早期，但已经展现出足以改变所在领域走向的能力。原文未提供具体的评审人数、提名总量或各轮淘汰比例等细节数据。
这一榜单的历史背景值得注意。「35 位 35 岁以下创新者」是《麻省理工科技评论》的年度传统项目，过往入选者中不乏日后成为领域领军人物的科学家与工程师。榜单覆盖范围不限于单一学科，而是横跨生物技术、人工智能、材料科学、能源、计算等多个方向。从同日发布的《The Download》通讯来看，编辑部将本次评选与「censorship-industrial complex」话题并列呈现，但两者之间并无直接关联，仅作为当日新闻组合出现。
值得注意的是，本次预告发布的时间点恰逢《麻省理工科技评论》集中推出多篇科技报道。同一天发布的小鼠性别逆转研究展示了 CRISPR 技术在生殖生物学中的前沿应用，而关于 AI 智能体数据可信度的分析则聚焦企业级人工智能落地的现实挑战。这些同期内容从侧面反映出该媒体对「早期创新」的关注视角：既包括基础科学突破，也涵盖工程实践中的关键问题。
目前，关于 2026 年度入选者的具体名单、所属机构及研究领域，原文均未披露，需待 9 月 8 日正式发布。编辑部在预告中仅确认了评选范围覆盖全球，并强调入选者正在「从事开创性科学工作」与「构建巧妙技术」。后续报道将揭示这些青年创新者如何从各自领域脱颖而出。
References
Original source text
Next month, on September 8, MIT Technology Review will reveal its 2026 list of Innovators Under 35, recognizing 35 young people from around the world who are doing groundbreaking scientific work and building clever technical fixes for sticky problems.
By finding the top young innovators globally and learning what they’re focused on in their work, we aim to give readers a sense of what advances to expect in the years to come. As a newsroom, we also use this exercise to help us spot rising talent and get to know some of the best early-career researchers in the fields that we cover.
The editors of MIT Technology Review published the first Innovators Under 35 list in 1999, and it’s become a beloved annual tradition alongside our lists of 10 Breakthrough Technologies, 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, and (new this year) 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now.
The people we’ve featured through the years have gone on to shape the tech industry and our broader culture, from Lisa Su (featured in 2002), whose stunning turnaround of AMD has built it into one of the top chipmakers worldwide, to Daniel Ek (featured in 2012), who cofounded Spotify (which we described at the time as “a jukebox in the cloud”). Subscribers can browse all the past honorees in this database.
Selecting the 2026 Innovators was a monthslong endeavor. This year, we received 550 nominations, both from staff and via our public nomination process. From those entries, our editors selected 110 semifinalists. We looked for candidates who were setting out to solve big problems or answer pressing scientific questions in their work, and who had already made clear progress toward their goals.
All semifinalists then completed an application to help us learn more about them. They collected reference letters, uploaded videos, and submitted résumés. Forty-four expert judges then helped us evaluate these applications. Some of these judges are former Innovators themselves. Many have returned year after year to volunteer their time, energy, and expertise to the judging process. We’re grateful for their efforts.
In the end, our editors reviewed all of the judges’ scores and comments and selected the 35 winners. Each works in one of four categories: biotechnology, artificial intelligence, computing and robotics, and climate and energy.
“These Innovators represent some of the best aspects of science and technology research—pushing forward bold ideas to improve the future for everyone,” says Costa Samaras, a 2026 judge who is also the director of Carnegie Mellon’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.
The 2026 list of Innovators will be available to MIT Technology Review subscribers on our site on September 8. To access the package when it comes out online, you can subscribe now via this link. It will also be published in the September/October issue, which will be available on newsstands worldwide on August 31.
Do you know someone who deserves a spot on next year’s list? Nominations for the 2027 competition will open by early December. Check back then or sign up for our daily newsletter The Download to stay in the loop.