MIT's 35 Under 35 list returns as China-linked AI attacks hit Taiwan

MIT Technology Review is gearing up to reveal its 2026 Innovators Under 35 list on September 8, and the selection process itself tells you something about where technology is heading. The publication fielded 550 nominations this year before whittling them down to 35 young scientists and engineers doing what editor Amy Nordrum describes as groundbreaking work on stubborn problems. That’s a 15-to-1 rejection rate, and the list has historically been a reliable early-warning system for talent in fields like AI, biotech, and materials science. Last year’s cohort is worth revisiting if you want to see how those bets played out.

Meanwhile, the security beat is delivering genuinely alarming news. China-linked hackers have reportedly struck Taiwan in what the Financial Times calls an unprecedented AI attack, using open-source agents to compromise government websites. The detail that jumps out: open-source. That means the tooling isn’t exotic or state-of-the-art in a classified sense—it’s widely available, which raises the floor for what smaller threat actors can pull off. Taiwan’s silicon shield, the semiconductor industry that acts as both economic engine and geopolitical deterrent, is looking shakier under this kind of sustained pressure.

Separately, my colleague Eileen Guo has been tracking the rise of the censorship-industrial complex narrative, which she first reported on April 16 when the State Department’s foreign disinformation monitoring office faced shutdown. The term has moved from right-wing internet forums into actual US policy, and Guo’s deep dive traces how that happened. The throughline connecting these stories: the tools and narratives that shape what information people trust are being contested more aggressively than at any point in the last decade.

One thread worth pulling: Montana’s right-to-try expansion now lets biotech companies sell experimental drugs after preliminary testing in as few as 10 healthy people, for a $12,500 application fee. That’s not just a regulatory curiosity—it’s a live experiment in whether consumer demand can substitute for clinical rigor, and the implications for the longevity industry are substantial if the model spreads.