Magazine

The Power issue

July/August 2025

The world is increasingly powered by both tangible electricity and intangible intelligence. Plus billionaires. This issue explores those intersections.

Read the issue

Letter from the editor

The Debrief: Power and energy

Tavis Coburn

Features

Categorized in Artificial intelligence
Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?
We’re starting to give AI agents real autonomy, and we’re not prepared for what could happen next.
Categorized in Business
Is this the electric grid of the future?
In Nebraska, a publicly owned utility deftly tackles the challenges of delivering on reliability, affordability, and sustainability.
Categorized in Climate change and energy
Namibia wants to build the world’s first hydrogen economy
Can the vast and sparsely populated African country translate its renewable power potential into national development?
Categorized in Culture
Puerto Rico’s power struggles
The island is staring down a dirtier, and potentially darker, future — with little say over what happens.

Also in this issue
- 3 things Rhiannon Williams is into right now
  MIT Technology Review’s news reporter and author of our daily newsletter The Download shares what she’s thinking about lately.
  
  Categorized in Culture
- Job titles of the future: Pandemic oracle
  Biological risk consultants forecast the impacts and opportunities of epidemics.
  
  Categorized in Business
- How AI can help make cities work better for residents
  New technologies can help close the gaps between the government and the public. But they’re not without risks.
  
  Categorized in Profile
- OpenAI: The power and the pride
  Two new books attempt to tell the story of Sam Altman’s OpenAI, its ambitions, and its growing empire.
  
  Categorized in Culture
- Rethinking privacy in an age of surveillance capitalism
  Three books examine the rise of the American surveillance state, its infiltration of higher education, and why we need a new framework for thinking about privacy.
  
  Categorized in Computing
- Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future
  Altman, Bezos, and Musk say they want to save humanity by creating superintelligent AI. Journalist and astrophysicist Adam Becker reveals how these fantastical visions conceal a darker agenda.
  
  Categorized in Q&A
- How a 30-year-old techno-thriller predicted our digital isolation
  In Irwin Winkler’s proto–cyber thriller, a woman’s most reliable companion is the screen in front of her.
  
  Categorized in Culture
- Why it’s so hard to stop tech-facilitated abuse
  From remotely-controlled smart cars to menacing Netflix messages, tech-facilitated abuse is keeping up with the times.
  
  Categorized in Culture
- The Anthropocene illusion
  Zed Nelson’s photographs capture how nature has become a curated experience.
  
  Categorized in Field Notes
- The AI Hype Index: College students are hooked on ChatGPT
  MIT Technology Review’s highly subjective take on the latest buzz about AI, including Meta’s AI friends and how generative AI is helping a Neuralink patient communicate faster.
  
  Categorized in Artificial intelligence

Updated

Magazine

The Power issue

Letter from the editor

Features

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?

Is this the electric grid of the future?

Namibia wants to build the world’s first hydrogen economy

Puerto Rico’s power struggles

3 things Rhiannon Williams is into right now

Job titles of the future: Pandemic oracle

How AI can help make cities work better for residents

OpenAI: The power and the pride

Rethinking privacy in an age of surveillance capitalism

Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future

How a 30-year-old techno-thriller predicted our digital isolation

Why it’s so hard to stop tech-facilitated abuse

The Anthropocene illusion

The AI Hype Index: College students are hooked on ChatGPT

Past issues

The latest iteration of a legacy

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