Innovation and Instability at the Edge of Tomorrow

Aerospace: Old Winners and New Winners

In aerospace, the winners keep on winning, but we were fortunate enough to see some new winners this year too. SpaceX has continued to dominate, but we also saw the two most successful years of Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and Firefly Aerospace. The first, often criticized for its slow progress, was able to perform the second successful launch of New Glenn and the first landing of its boosters. This comes with more bad news for ULA and Vulcan, as CEO Tory Bruno recently resigned and joined Blue Origin. The second, perhaps the third most promising rocket company at the moment, completed 21 successful launches with Electron, and is set to move further into the defense and commercial satellite industries with Neutron in 2026. And finally, the third landed Blue Ghost on the Moon as the first company in history to do so, and then went public. They were met with a very generous valuation, but have ultimately fallen and steadied since. It is worth noting that Rocket Lab has been far more successful and has undeniably more current launch capabilities than Firefly. Many of these aerospace companies are being actively contracted for the likes of defense and are collaborating on things like satellite constellations.

Nobel Prize Season 2025

In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physics controversially operated too far within AI/ML as opposed to physics (Hinton isn’t even a physicist; Hopfield definitely is). This year, the prize was given to a very respectable team for their work in quantum tunneling where they observed that the phenomenon occurs not only with single particles, but also macroscopically: as a single particle. This has significant applications in quantum computing.

In chemistry, the award was given for work in metal-organic frameworks. I’m not in materials but know that they are difficult to work with for many reasons, such as the fact that they are unstable in water. But I think they do have a lot of interesting applications, such as in the context of thermoelectric systems given their low thermal conductivities. But what’s worth noting is that one of the recipients, Professor Yaghi, is a refugee from incredibly humble beginnings, and from Palestine nonetheless.

Next up is perhaps the most controversial award, the Peace Prize, which went to María Corina Machado for her fight towards democracy and opposition to Maduro's regime in Venezuela. Unfortunately, Machado is willing to tolerate the likes of humanitarian crises, violent intervention such as President Trump’s bombing of boats in the Carribean, coups, and presumably war to get what she wants. Is this the type of figure that should be given such an award? While she does still stand as a voice against dictatorship and advocates for more progressive policy, it certainly should reflect as a stain on the Nobel Committee for giving out this award to someone so heavily involved with violent resistance. Going forward, we will have to see if violent opposition leaders who oppose regimes will be given the Peace Prize.

Trump’s Incompetence

The single most important factor in the 2024 election was inflation. When Trump won, perhaps the policy he was loudest on was tariffs. He believes tariffs are a way to boost American manufacturing, reduce trade deficits, and push other countries into his demands. On April 2nd, he impulsively launched a massive set of tariffs that, as far as we know, seem to have been determined in an extremely crude fashion; they aren’t even “reciprocal” tariffs.

Trump's Liberation Day tariffs
Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs. Image credit: The White House

Congress had the authority to reject these tariffs but ultimately did not. We are currently waiting for the Supreme Court to give their decision regarding Trump’s use of tariffs. Now, let’s get into these tariffs more and their impact. First, most agree that tariffs are generally bad for the economy, and especially bad when it comes to promoting growth between the countries involved. The situation here is no different. Trump’s tariffs ended up lighter than he initially said, as they began to get reduced a week after. Furthermore, trade deals with several countries were made and other rates continued to go down or were cut entirely. However, the impact and the lack of impact are still clear.

When it comes to metrics like the change in total nonfarm employment rate (job growth), we can see that the numbers haven’t been great:

Total Nonfarm Change Graph
Image credit: FRED

We also see that unemployment numbers are generally rising:

Unemployment Rate Graph
Image credit: FRED

The demand for manufacturing is rising, as production has increased:

Industrial Production Graph
Image credit: FRED

Additionally, prices have been rising for materials that are very important for modern infrastructure and electronics:

Gold Prices
Image credit: Business Insider
Silver Prices
Image credit: Business Insider
Copper Prices
Image credit: Business Insider

While this overall trend is influenced by a much wider variety of things aside from Trump, there is little doubt that the recent surges have a lot to do with his tariffs. And while demand for technology is increasing and production is up, the number of employees in manufacturing is decreasing:

All employees, manufacturing graph
Image credit: FRED

In other words, prices for electronics are going to continue to rise (alongside the groceries), and the job growth numbers are looking poor at the same time. The Trump Administration has failed to bring the “boom” they promised, as some of their numbers are lukewarm at best.

We can look at the stock market which, since its crash after Liberation Day, has been trending upward:

Nasdaq Market Summary
DOW Market Summary
S&P 500 Market Summary

But keep in mind that the stock market can be blown out of proportion by a handful of the largest corporations, and that it reflects optimism among investors more so than consumers, who are generally unhappy right now. The perspective among manufacturers is also all over the place.

Perhaps one of the most self-revealing examples of this administration is how JD Vance condemned Kamala’s policy in which she suggested "socialist" price controls for groceries and then went and used them for drugs.[1] Kamala’s proposed policies were actually unfortunately quite sound: expanding housing supply, maintaining Biden’s oil production dominance, expanding the Child Tax Credit, and making it easier for small businesses to get started. In other words, the economy isn’t performing as well as it should be, and the Trump Administration has failed on its promises. This is what the American people voted for.

Trump’s incompetence obviously also spreads into his handling of race relations, immigration, and the social issues that have followed. ICE continues to detain students and there are many cases where politicians, such as Trump’s puppet Rubio, justifies their removal on the basis of speaking against the country.[2][3] Republicans continue to argue that they are purging “illegal immigrants who are leeching off society” yet ICE continues to harass workers.[4][5] They have also falsely arrested plenty of people, including children, and committed quite a number of crimes in the name of the American taxpayer. At protests, Trump was unhappy with the use of protestors expressing their first amendment rights to wear masks and attempted to ban their use while allowing ICE to wear masks–an unethical ideal that seems a little too close to that of an authoritarian regime.[6][7] During the flurry of protests we saw this year, such as No Kings and those against ICE, we saw ICE escalating violence and Trump sending in the military to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago (where he initially threatened war against them), and DC.[8][9][10] In the case of Los Angeles, Trump overstepped the demands of Governor Newsom and sent in troops, who ultimately ended up doing nothing in a grand display of political theater.[11][12]

The list of other miscellaneous offenses include things like request to become the pope with support from Senator Graham, making billions off his crypto endeavors, selling Trump 2028 merch in the White House, taking money from the Middle East in which he was granted a luxurious motorcade into Qatar, and riding around with Putin in the presidential limo.[13][14][15][16]

Additionally, in his attempts to cut government spending, he cut billions from the likes of substance abuse, mental health, and cancer research and federal budget cuts to schools.[17][18][19][20] While many moderates and Republicans, especially those in tech, were quick to criticize the inefficient spending of Democrats–sometimes rightfully so–they have been far less vocal about the fact he gutted important programs and spent excessively on the things we have already discussed. I suppose USAID and medical research had to go, but Trump’s ballroom, mall restaurant-esque rose garden, and Gatsby parties during the shutdown were okay.[21][22][23]

Few images capture the politics of this administration better than the state banquet at Windsor Castle, where Trump and the Royal Family feasted with global elites: billionaires raising their glasses through the unrest.

Trump speaking at Windsor Castle during a party
Image credit: The Royal Family Channel

And Yet the Democrats Can’t Capitalize

In light of Trump’s failure to come anywhere near his economic promises, the hypocrisy from the Republican party, the agitated general public, it’s not clear that the Democrats will regain ground going forward. As a matter of fact, not only have they failed to make themselves more popular, but they haven’t been cogent in attacking the Trump administration either.

What is the main problem? Well, polls from the 2024 election showed us that people did not have faith that Kamala would be a catalyst for change. This is almost certainly the case nationwide, as people do not believe the Democrats are efficient. From a past and present of poorly ran cities, with incoherent stances on issues like drugs and crime, filled with policies that make it difficult for people to live and businesses to grow, it is difficult for the average voter to have faith that a Democrat will be able to institute effective policy nationwide if they cannot run their cities well.

And where should we be looking? Well, it’s been right in front of us for a while: the Democrats need the rationalism of Obama, the leadership and bravery of AOC, the gamesmanship of Newsom, and they need to heavily tap into a modern and bright sense of culture. Because that’s the reality. It’s always heavily been about a sense of culture. Are Republicans a great bastion of Christianity? Hardly, in the span of a month or so alone, we saw Kash Patel say “we’ll see you in Valhalla” in remembrance of supposed Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk and we saw Congressman Niehls saying that Kirk would have been the “Thirteenth Disciple”. We saw Trump say he’s currently on his way to hell.[32][33][34] It's about spectacle and identity; voters need an alternative who is credible, decisive, and convincing. They are searching for someone with conviction who stands for something exciting from the modern era.

White House Timeline
It's always been about winning the culture war. Image credit: The White House

So will it be Newsom? Shapiro? Kelly? Beshear? AOC? We will have to see. Until then, Americans are just going to have to tolerate living in a backwards society at home and watch their President humiliate the country in front of the rest of the world.[35][36][37]

Trump on an escalator at the United Nations
Trump claims the escalator at the UN was sabotaged. Image credit: AP News

Big Tech: AI, Electric Vehicles, Batteries, and Energy

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Eui-sun eating fried chicken
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Eui-sun. Image credit: NY Times

AI is booming and LLMs are becoming more and more advanced. In 2025, we saw Google have an extremely productive year in this regard. Gemini has performed very well, and they’ve also been working on models Imagen, Nano Banana, and Veo for the generation of images and videos. In the same vein as AlphaFold from five years ago, DeepMind has also been absolutely on top of it with their contributions to Earth sciences and biology as a whole. Furthermore, we saw two of the three Nobel laureates in physics from this year herald from Google’s Quantum AI team.

2025 NeurIPS contributions broken down
2025 NeurIPS contributions broken down. Image credit: Pierre-Alexandre Balland

If we zoom out, we can look at this breakdown of contributions to NeurIPS. In the US, we can see that while academia remains a prominent force, industry labs are starting to take over. This has of course been the trend for a few years now. We can see that China is really the only rival to the United States. The number of universities contributing is impressive and it’s a number that only seems to be growing.

Outside of the two giants, the numbers specifically from Singapore are outstanding; NUS and NTU have of course been among the most premier institutions in Asia for a while, but they are still absolutely punching above their weight. KAIST (South Korea), MBZUAI (UAE), and Mila Research Institute (Canada) are also doing the same. I expect to see more Korean institutions on here next year, as does big tech, given their investments.[38][39] In Europe, the numbers aren’t very dazzling. One thing to keep in mind is that a good portion of the research done in industry labs is done in Europe, and that these labs are not going to be publishing their most noteworthy discoveries.

Data Center Energy Use
Image credit: LBNL

With the demand for computing power growing extremely fast and projected to grow even more, big tech has entered a war over who can build the best data centers—whether that's on Earth or in orbit.[40][41][42] If AI is to keep growing and being the “savior of the economy” as many are arguing, then we can look at the above to see who is really going to be sticking around. Going into 2026, many of these AI companies are becoming increasingly dependent on debt financing for infrastructure in particular.

These hyperscalers are also very closely intertwined with the likes of electric vehicles, batteries, and robotics for a reason. For instance, in 2025, another huge winner was Waymo, who now have confidence and will likely continue to scale throughout 2026. The ability to control these sectors on a global scale and continuously innovate are absolutely crucial, just as much if not more so than AI.

China, with their manufacturing prowess and aggressive building of ambitious infrastructure and energy projects, understands the need for batteries very clearly, and is dominating us in this regard. This dominance has been led by giants BYD and CATL.

Electricity generation
Image credit: Our World in Data
China versus the US on Battery Exports
Image credit: Kleinman Center for Energy Policy

Going forward, we need to build a domestic supply of critical minerals by boosting mining, put smart tariffs on China, develop our manufacturing infrastructure, and invest in allies who can help us with this such as Korea, Australia, and Canada.

Can you feel the future? It is getting very, very close. Aerospace companies are privatizing orbit, autonomous vehicles are beginning to be rapidly scaled, and we’re building hyperscale data centers to accompany the new era of human interaction and activity being fueled by AI. The decisions we make now will echo longer than we realize.

Conclusion

It's mistake that it took me so long to get this out. I admittedly wasn't very productive towards the end of the year. But yeah, this is my very late attempt to summarize the main events of 2025 that are relevant to the scope of this website. I plan to write about many of the topics year in much more depth going forward (and I hope to write more in general in 2026 too). It seems like a lot of people feel disoriented and disheartened about 2025; I can relate. I personally struggled but learned a lot about myself along the way. Going into 2026, I have a better idea of the type of future I want to build.

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