The Download: computing’s next leap and permafrost’s climate threat

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.

How far can we push computing?

On a December evening in 1959, the physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” There is no physical law stopping us from writing the entire Encyclopædia Britannica on the head of a pin, he argued. We simply had not built the tools yet.

He was right, and for decades, computing took us into that space almost for free, as transistors repeatedly halved in size. But that easy descent has now stalled. Today, the industry is increasingly turning to brute force, building ever-bigger data centers to boost performance.

Yet the laws of physics leave plenty of room for improvement. 

Here’s how researchers are exploring ways to unlock the next leap in computing.

—Volkan Gurses

This story is from the latest edition of our print magazine: The Impossible issue. Subscribe now to read it in full.

It’s also part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series exploring the ideas shaping technology. Read more from the series. 

Three things you should know about permafrost

How much do you know about permafrost? Maybe, like me, you’ve been aware that this layer of frozen soil is thawing, that it’s important in the global puzzle of climate change … and that’s about the extent of it.

The great news for both of us is that my colleague James Temple just helicoptered into Alaska’s forests to report on the fires threatening permafrost and their complicated potential climate effects.

Here are three things I took away from his reporting.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate tech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Roundtables: a conversation with the creator of AI-designed viruses

Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King offered a preliminary answer by using a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. It isn’t yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. 

In our latest Roundtables conversation, MIT Technology Review senior AI reporter James O’Donnell spoke with King about his work, being named one of our Innovators Under 35, and new ways of seeing biology. Subscribers can now watch a full recording of the event.

Want to join the next conversation? Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for exclusive access to all our Roundtables.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 AI has uncovered a decade-old flaw threatening much of the web
It found flaws in PHP, the code behind most websites. (Reuters $)
+ Governments are urging website owners to patch PHP or take sites offline. (BBC)
+ Exploit attempts jumped from thousands to millions after disclosure. (Axios)
+ Now is a good time for doing crime. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Hackers used Claude and Grok to automate attacks on over 400 banks
The AI agents targeted financial institutions in Latin America. (Information $)
+ Unvetted AI agents are also accessing US bank accounts.(Axios)
+ Barclays says AI is allowing the bank to cut 5,000 jobs. (Guardian)
+ AI is making online crimes easier. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The Pentagon has cleared the DHS to test a heat ray weapon
It could be used for crowd control at the southern US border. (CNN)
+ It uses invisible energy beams to produce a burning sensation. (Axios)

4 A startup says AI-designed viruses have treated their first patient
The experimental treatment targets drug-resistant E. coli. (NYT $)
+ But the company has not published peer-reviewed results. (Futurism)
+ AI-designed viruses are already killing bacteria. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Japan hopes to return the first samples from Mars’s moons
Its spacecraft is now on its way to Phobos. (Guardian)
+ It aims to reveal whether Mars was once habitable. (Economist $)

6 Meta faces a $25 billion penalty over the Cambridge Analytica scandal
The company says it will appeal the New Mexico ruling. (CNBC)
+ A Meta share deal has convinced Mark Zuckerberg to stay in California. (WSJ $)
+ Until the company remade its stock structure to help him pay it. (NYT $)

7 A new antimatter experiment could open the door to new physics
Scientists hope to spot differences between matter and antimatter. (Nature)

8 China’s Unitree is pitching its latest humanoid as a robot bodyguard
A promotional clip shows the H2-X disarming attackers. (SCMP)

9 Just Eat has apologised for bizarre AI-generated menu pictures
Users were unimpressed by the bacon in cola and cheese sushi. (BBC)

10 Airbnb hosts are furious they can no longer make guests do chores
Hosts are threatening to strike, but guests are celebrating. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Now they’ve given everybody a reason not to use Starlink: that Starlink isn’t reliable for national security for anybody but Trump. Maybe he’d turn it off on the United States if he didn’t like policy and he didn’t like the president.”

 —SpaceX investor Ross Gerber tells CNN that Elon Musk’s decision to restrict Ukraine’s Starlink access has made the service a liability for every other government that relies on it.

One more thing

Online harassment is entering its AI era

Scott Shambaugh didn’t think twice when he denied an AI agent’s request to contribute to matplotlib, a software library he helps manage. Then things got weird. 

In the middle of the night, Shambaugh opened his email to discover the agent had retaliated with a blog post. Titled “Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story,” the post accused him of rejecting the code out of a fear of being supplanted by AI. “He tried to protect his little fiefdom,” the agent wrote. “It’s insecurity, plain and simple.” 

Shambaugh isn't alone in facing misbehaving agents—and they’re unlikely to stop at harassment. Read the full story.