The Ten Technologies Reshaping Our World
MIT Technology Review recently unveiled its 25th annual list of breakthrough technologies, identifying ten innovations poised to fundamentally alter how we live and work. The 2026 list includes:
- Sodium-ion Batteries: Abundant, safer alternatives to lithium for grid storage and EVs
- Generative Coding: AI tools revolutionizing software development
- Next-Generation Nuclear Reactors: Smaller, safer designs with alternative fuels
- AI Companions: Chatbots forming personal bonds, with mounting ethical concerns
- Base-Edited Gene Therapy: Personalized CRISPR treatments moving toward clinical approval
- Gene Resurrection: Leveraging extinct species’ DNA for new treatments
- Mechanistic Interpretability: Techniques to understand AI “black boxes”
- Commercial Space Stations: Private orbital outposts for research and tourism
- Embryo Scoring: Genetic screening predicting traits, sparking ethical debates
- Hyperscale AI Data Centers: Massive next-generation computing facilities powering the AI revolution
The Geography of Serious Capital
Early-stage venture capital in 2025-2026 totaled approximately $300 billion globally, with artificial intelligence and clean energy technologies dominating the investment landscape. While general media coverage fixates on massive coastal innovation hubs, global players attracting and deploying large scale investment capital understand a different geography. Meta Platforms doesn’t commit $800 million to Wood County on sentiment. Amazon Web Services (AWS) doesn’t plan a $23 billion Ohio expansion by 2030 based on proximity to beaches. These are calculated decisions driven by power infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, research ecosystems and regulatory environments that enable deployment at scale.
Ohio isn’t overlooked by serious players, instead, it’s simply not well understood by the general public. The federal research presence is substantial: the NASA Glenn Research Center, Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Airforce Base, Battelle Memorial Institute and major NIH-funded medical research at Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and allied academic medical research centers. When measured by research infrastructure, talent pipelines and capital deployed, Ohio’s position in breakthrough technology development becomes clear.
Hyperscale AI Infrastructure: The Biggest Money in Tech
Global early-stage AI infrastructure funding reached approximately $50 billion in 2025, making it the strongest attractor of venture capital by intensity. Nationally, AI/software captured roughly $89 billion in early-stage venture capital.
In Ohio, this translated to substantial deployment. AWS announced plans in December 2024 to invest $23 billion in Ohio data center infrastructure by 2030, one of the largest private investment commitments in state history. The initial wave includes a $5 billion data center campus in Fayette County (breaking ground in 2025), $3.5 billion for five data centers in New Albany, $3 billion in Sidney, $1 billion in Marysville, and a $4 billion proposal in Wilmington currently under planning commission review. AWS already operates data centers across Franklin and Licking counties, with over 1,000 direct employees and supporting more than 4,700 total jobs.
Meta Platforms’ $800 million AI-optimized data center in Middleton Township, Wood County represents the company’s second Ohio facility. The 715,000-square-foot installation employs 100 specialized workers and supported over 1,000 construction jobs during peak build-out. Vultr’s $1.3 billion Springfield facility houses 24,000 AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs in a 50-megawatt cluster – one of the largest concentrations of AI compute power deployed outside traditional coastal markets, with capacity sold out before the facility went operational in early 2026.
The economics favor Ohio. Northwest Ohio’s energy infrastructure includes over three dozen energy producers, suppliers, and transporters, with approximately $3 billion in regional energy industry capital investment in 2024-2025. But infrastructure alone doesn’t explain these deployments.
Cleveland-based Park Place Technologies has partnered with The Lubrizol Corporation – also Cleveland-headquartered – to deploy advanced liquid immersion cooling systems using Lubrizol’s CompuZol™ thermal management fluids. Developed through multi-year collaboration with Intel, these systems enable AI data centers to achieve substantially higher computing densities while reducing energy consumption by 30-40% and dramatically cutting water usage. As AI model training moves toward trillion-parameter scales, thermal management becomes the binding constraint on deployment. Ohio companies are solving the fundamental physics problems that make hyperscale AI economically viable.
Ohio-specific AI infrastructure ventures also raised capital in 2025. Finite State secured a $30 million Series B for AI-powered cybersecurity solutions. Scheduler AI closed a $5 million seed round. Tembo raised $17.7 million for AI assistant technology. Reg D filings show approximately $100 million in additional Ohio AI operations funding in 2025.
Next-Generation Nuclear: Record Capital Deployment
Nuclear reactor startups raised over $2 billion in early-stage venture capital in 2025, ranking second in funding intensity. TerraPower secured $650 million; X-energy raised $700 million. The sector is experiencing a renaissance driven by AI’s insatiable power demands and climate imperatives.
In Piketon, Pike County, Oklo’s planned small modular reactors on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site represent more than aspirational technology. In January 2026, Oklo announced a partnership with Meta Platforms to develop a multi-billion-dollar, 1.2-gigawatt nuclear campus capable of powering Meta’s next generation of AI training facilities. The site selection wasn’t accidental – Centrus Energy operates a $900 million federal facility at the same location producing High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU), the advanced fuel these new reactors require. This creates a vertically integrated supply chain from fuel fabrication through power generation.
Ohio’s nuclear expertise runs deep. The Portsmouth site employed thousands during the Cold War and maintains specialized infrastructure and workforce knowledge rare in the United States. Power to Hydrogen, an Ohio nuclear startup, raised an $18 million Series A (Reg D filed Q1 2025) to develop hydrogen production systems integrated with next-generation reactors.
And Ohio knows how to support early-stage energy efforts. A key example is BRITE Energy Innovators, based in Warren/Youngstown (a key industry lead in the Jumpstart Entrepreneurial Network), reports that it has supported over 600 companies and facilitated approximately $250 million in investment, creating roughly 2,100 jobs in the advanced energy space (along with allied technologies). While focused primarily on advanced manufacturing and energy technology, BRITE’s expert team and infrastructure supports the kind of early-stage commercialization that translates research breakthroughs into investable opportunities.
Generative Coding: Software Development Transformed
AI coding tools exploded in 2025, with Cursor alone raising $2.3 billion at a multi-billion-dollar valuation. The broader generative AI sector captured significant portions of the $89 billion in early-stage AI/software venture funding. These tools don’t merely assist programmers-they’re rewriting the economics of software development itself.
Ohio’s software development ecosystem has begun integrating these capabilities at scale. Major technology employers including JPMorgan Chase, IBM and Google maintain significant Ohio engineering operations. The state’s 15 research universities produce thousands of computer science graduates annually, creating talent pipelines that AI coding tools amplify rather than replace. Early-stage coding infrastructure companies raised modest but growing amounts-the velocity matters more than absolute dollars at this stage.
AI Companions and Mechanistic Interpretability: Understanding the Black Box
AI safety and interpretability research attracted substantial 2025 funding, with Anthropic raising $13 billion specifically for mechanistic interpretability work-techniques to understand how AI systems actually process information and make decisions. As AI companions form increasingly sophisticated relationships with users, understanding their decision-making becomes critical for safety and ethics.
Tembo’s $14 million raise positions the Cincinnati-area company in the AI assistant market, focusing on enterprise applications where understanding AI reasoning matters for compliance and liability purposes. The mechanistic interpretability field remains nascent but growing, particularly as regulators worldwide grapple with AI governance frameworks.
Base-Edited Gene Therapy and Cellular Medicine: Ohio’s Clinical Advantage
Biotech venture capital totaled approximately $1.5 billion in early-stage funding in 2025, though the sector lagged AI infrastructure. However, Q3 2025 saw a 70.9% surge in biotech VC to $3.1 billion nationally, driven largely by AI-biotech hybrids and precision medicine breakthroughs. Model transaction: Kriya Therapeutics’ $313 million raise for base-edited gene therapy. Nationally, reproductive genomics companies like Orchid Bioscience raised $12 million for embryo screening technologies.
Cleveland Clinic leads multiple CRISPR clinical trials that moved toward commercialization in 2025. CTX310, a base-edited CAR-T therapy for blood cancers, demonstrated encouraging Phase I/II results. EDIT-301 (renamed Reni-Cel) received FDA approval in December 2023 for sickle cell disease, with Cleveland Clinic participating in pivotal trials. Most significantly, a November 2025 NEJM publication detailed VERVE-101 results in familial hypercholesterolemia patients-a single base-editing infusion achieved 50%+ LDL reduction sustained over 12 months, approaching functional cure territory for a previously untreatable genetic condition.
The gene and cell therapy market, valued at $30 billion in 2022, is projected to reach $153 billion by 2029-a 26% compound annual growth rate. Ohio’s clinical infrastructure positions it well to capture this growth. Case Western Reserve University (home of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine), the MetroHealth System, the Cleveland Clinic, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center all maintain advanced cell therapy commercialization facilities and active clinical trial pipelines.
Ohio biotech ventures raised approximately $350 million across multiple rounds in 2025. Armatus Bio secured over $15 million for its microbiome platform. Clarametyx raised around $33 million for precision diagnostics adjacent to embryo scoring technologies. Branch Insurance ($60 million) and Root Insurance ($100 million), while not biotech companies, demonstrate Ohio’s capacity to raise significant late-stage capital across sectors.
Case Western Reserve University’s Fusion RGME (Regenerative Medicine & Entrepreneurship) program trains graduate students at the intersection of cellular medicine, intellectual property strategy, and business development-the exact skillset required to translate breakthrough research into viable companies. The program integrates with the law school’s established Fusion initiative, creating a unique pipeline of scientifically literate entrepreneurs who understand both the biology and business models.
Commercial Space Stations: From Orbit to Ohio
Space technology attracted $7.8 billion in venture capital in 2024, stabilizing a market that continues to mature. Starlab Space, the commercial joint venture between Voyager Space and Airbus, has established critical terrestrial operations at Ohio State University’s George Washington Carver Science Park (VISTA). The $160 million NASA Space Act Agreement awarded to the Voyager-led team funds the development of the station’s core modules, which will serve as an orbital research platform following the International Space Station’s retirement. Instead of a seed-stage startup, it is Voyager Space-through its acquisition of Cleveland-based ZIN Technologies-that provides advanced manufacturing and microgravity hardware expertise to the region. These Ohio operations are positioned to support both terrestrial testing and eventual orbital deployment, aligning with Starlab’s long-term vision of orbital industrial capacity. Ohio State’s involvement isn’t coincidental; the university maintains deep aerospace expertise through its proximity to the NASA Glenn Research Center and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (home of the national Airforce Research Labs), creating and growing talent pipelines and research collaborations unavailable in most markets.
Niche Technologies: Sodium-Ion, Gene Resurrection, and the Long Tail
Sodium-ion battery ventures raised $50-200 million globally in 2025, with most capital flowing to manufacturing scale-up rather than R&D. Acculon Energy in Columbus operates a 2-gigawatt-hour sodium-ion production facility, positioning Ohio in a supply chain less dependent on lithium sources concentrated in China and South America. While sodium-ion technology trades energy density for safety and cost, grid storage applications increasingly favor these trade-offs.
Gene resurrection-using extinct species’ DNA for novel therapeutic compounds-remains early-stage but raised modest venture rounds in 2025. Ohio’s research universities participate in synthetic biology research that could eventually support this work, though commercial activity remains limited.
The pattern across niche technologies: Ohio provides manufacturing scale, research partnerships, and regulatory pathways that translate breakthrough concepts into production realities.
What This Means for Investors and Companies
Ohio’s position in breakthrough technologies reflects structural advantages: abundant energy (validated by Meta’s 2026 nuclear partnership with Vistra), advanced manufacturing capacity, and research talent. While strict venture capital totals for 2025 were likely closer to $1.6 billion, the broader capital inflow was massive, anchored by corporate ‘megaprojects.’ This includes AWS’ continued multi-billion dollar expansion and the $4.4 billion Jeffersonville EV battery plant, which Honda moved to fully acquire from strategic partner LG Energy Solution in late 2025 to secure its supply chain.
The investment thesis for next-gen technologies extends beyond individual industry verticals. Hyperscale AI infrastructure requires nuclear power, which requires advanced manufacturing, which requires materials science breakthroughs. Gene therapies require AI-powered drug discovery, which requires compute infrastructure, which requires cooling technology and energy efficiency innovations. These technologies don’t develop in isolation-they form an integrated system where Ohio’s manufacturing and research strengths create compounding advantages.
For companies seeking capital to scale breakthrough technologies, and for investors seeking exposure to sectors likely to generate substantial returns over the next decade, Ohio offers deployment opportunities unavailable in higher-cost coastal markets. The talent exists. The infrastructure exists. The capital is flowing. KJK’s Corporate & Securities Practice Group works with companies and investors navigating these markets, from early-stage financing through exit transactions. To discuss further, please contact Ted Theofrastous, Chair of KJK’s IP, Technology & New Ventures practice at TCT@kjk.com or attorney Chris Herrel at CGH@kjk.com.