MIT Review's 2026 Innovators Under 35 list drew 550 global nominations

The machinery behind MIT Technology Review’s annual hunt for the next Lisa Su or Daniel Ek is a brutal numbers game. This year, editors sifted through 550 nominations from around the world to find 35 researchers and engineers whose work they believe will shape the coming decades. The full list drops September 8, but the publication has pulled back the curtain on its selection process—and the filters are aggressive.

After the initial nomination flood, the field was cut to 110 semifinalists. That group didn’t get a free pass. Each had to submit a formal application package: reference letters, video pitches, and résumés. A panel of 44 expert judges—many of them past Innovators themselves—then scored the candidates across four categories: biotechnology, artificial intelligence, computing and robotics, and climate and energy. The editors made the final call, reviewing every score and comment before locking in the 35 names.

Costa Samaras, a 2026 judge who directs Carnegie Mellon’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, described the cohort in terms that suggest the editors weren’t looking for incremental tweaks. “These Innovators represent some of the best aspects of science and technology research—pushing forward bold ideas to improve the future for everyone,” he said. That mandate—bold ideas with demonstrable progress—is the through line. The publication isn’t interested in slick pitches without receipts.

For a newsroom, the list is more than a trophy case. Editors use the nomination process as an early-warning system for rising talent in fields they cover, and they’re betting that today’s picks will echo the track record of past honorees. Lisa Su, recognized in 2002, later engineered AMD’s stunning turnaround into a chipmaking powerhouse. Daniel Ek, named in 2012, had co-founded something the magazine then called “a jukebox in the cloud.” If the pattern holds, several of these 35 will be household names in a decade. The real question is which category produces the most outsized impact—and whether the AI cohort, in a year saturated with hype, can deliver something that lasts beyond the current hype cycle.