Predicting the tech of tomorrow

Self-aware AI systems, autonomous high-speed mass transportation systems and robot-controlled decision-making in surgery could be among the technologies of tomorrow, according to the European Innovation Council (EIC).

The organisation has released its 2023 Tech Report which highlights some of the new ideas submitted to it and gives an overview of potential future advances and challenges. It focuses on emerging insight in three areas – health, cleantech and digital, industry and space – as well as providing “deep dives” into ten different technologies from those topics.

In health, it includes precision cancer treatments and the possibility of manufacturing full body parts designed to identically match a patient’s tissue.

Enric Claverol, EIC Programme Manager responsible for medical technologies and medical devices, writes: “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells obtained from, for example, a skin sample provided by a patient, will be used to create aggregates physiologically and anatomically identical to those of the patient’s tissue. A shift to such personalised biological constructs could thus allow repair through reconstruction or full replacement of damaged tissue with new cell aggregates, indistinguishable from the original.”

The EIC is part of the Horizon Europe project, the EU’s key research funding initiative, and supports European researchers and entrepreneurs to develop their ideas.

Read the full report