As IEEE Spectrum editors, we satisfaction ourselves on recognizing promising applied sciences and following them from the analysis section by improvement and finally deployment. In each January concern, we deal with the applied sciences that at the moment are poised to attain vital milestones within the new 12 months.

This concern was curated by Senior Editor Samuel Ok. Moore, our in-house professional on semiconductors. So it’s no shock that he included a narrative on Intel’s plan to roll out two momentous chip applied sciences within the subsequent few months.

For “Intel Hopes to Leapfrog Its Rivals,” Moore directed our editorial intern, Gwendolyn Rak, to report on the danger the chip large is taking by introducing two applied sciences directly. We started monitoring the primary know-how, nanosheet transistors, in 2017. By the point we gave all the main points in a 2019 characteristic article, it was clear that this machine was destined to be the successor to the FinFET. Moore first noticed the second know-how, back-side energy supply, on the IEEE Worldwide Electron Units Assembly in 2019. Lower than two years later, Intel publicly dedicated to incorporating the tech in 2024.

Talking of dedication, the U.S. navy’s Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company has performed an unlimited half in bankrolling a number of the elementary advances that seem in these pages. Lots of our readers shall be accustomed to the robots that Senior Editor Evan Ackerman coated throughout DARPA’s humanoid problem virtually 10 years in the past. These robots have been primarily analysis tasks, however as Ackerman stories in “12 months of the Humanoid,” a couple of corporations will begin up pilot tasks in 2024 to see if this technology of humanoids is able to roll up its metaphorical sleeves and get all the way down to enterprise.

Extra not too long ago, totally homomorphic encryption (FHE) has burst onto the scene. Moore, who’s been masking the Cambrian explosion in chip architectures for AI and different different computing modalities for the reason that mid-teens, notes that, just like the robotics problem, DARPA was the preliminary driver.

“You’d count on the three corporations DARPA funded to provide you with a chip, although there was no assure they’d commercialize it,” says Moore, who wrote “Chips to Compute With Encrypted Knowledge Are Coming.” “However what you wouldn’t count on is three extra startups, independently of DARPA, to come back out with their very own FHE chips on the identical time.”

Senior Editor Tekla S. Perry’s story about phosphorescent OLEDs, “A Behind-the-Screens Change for OLED,” is definitely a deep reduce for us. One of many first characteristic articles Moore edited at Spectrum method again in 2000 was Stephen Forrest’s article on natural electronics. His lab developed the primary phosphorescent OLED supplies, that are vastly extra environment friendly than the fluorescent ones. Forrest’s analysis led to the founding of Common Show Corp., which, after greater than 20 years, is lastly about to commercialize the final of its trio of phosphorescent colours—blue.

Then there’s our cowl story about deepfakes and their potential impression on dozens of nationwide elections later this 12 months. We’ve been monitoring the rise of deepfakes since mid-2018, after we ran a narrative about AI researchers betting on whether or not or not a deepfake video about a politician would obtain greater than 2 million views in the course of the U.S. midterm elections that 12 months. As Senior Editor Eliza Strickland stories in “This Election 12 months, Search for Content material Credentials,” a number of corporations and business teams are working exhausting to make sure that deepfakes don’t take down democracy.

Finest needs for a wholesome and affluent new 12 months, and luxuriate in this 12 months’s know-how forecast. It’s been years within the making.

This text seems within the January 2024 print concern.

This publish was corrected on 2 January. Stephen Forrest was concerned within the creation of Common Show, however he was not a cofounder.