SCIENTIFIC FORECAST — 2026: The Year of Major Experiments

Photo by Sangharsh Lohakare on Unsplash

Artificial intelligence will become a key tool for scientists. Missions to explore the moons of Earth and Mars will be launched. A large-scale drilling installation will be mounted on the ocean floor. These are just some of the scientific and technological advances that, according to experts from the scientific journal Nature, we will witness in 2026.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

t appears that artificial intelligence is here to stay with humanity for the long term. At least for scientists, it is increasingly becoming an indispensable tool. This year, solving the most complex scientific problems is expected to rely ever more often not on a single large language model (LLM), but on the integration of several such models. Moreover, this will happen with virtually no human involvement. Unfortunately, the intensive use of AI will lead not only to significant scientific discoveries made with the help of artificial intelligence, but also to serious failures in some systems.

Researchers have already reported errors to which AI agents are prone, such as data deletion. A major limitation of models with large datasets is that their training is prohibitively expensive. As a result, developers will begin to shift toward smaller, narrowly specialized models trained on limited datasets. Such systems will not generate texts but will focus on processing mathematical representations of information. The first precedent occurred in 2025: one such tiny AI model outperformed massive LLMs in a logic test.

GENE EDITING

This year is expected to see the launch of two new clinical studies in the field of personalized gene therapy for children with rare genetic diseases. The first trial will continue the story of the treatment of K. J. Muldoon, a boy with a rare metabolic disorder. To correct the mutation that caused the disease, the boy underwent CRISPR therapy.

In 2026, the team of American physicians who carried out his treatment plans obtained approval to conduct clinical trials in Philadelphia. These trials are needed to test gene-editing methods on a larger number of children with rare metabolic disorders. These conditions are caused by variations in seven genes that can be corrected using the same type of gene editing that was applied in Muldoon’s therapy. The second clinical trial will also involve gene editing, but will focus on treating diseases of the immune system.

CANCER DIAGNOSIS FROM A SINGLE TEST

One of the most anticipated scientific events of 2026 is linked to clinical trials conducted in the United Kingdom. A development has been announced that makes it possible to detect around 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear, using a single blood test. The test checks for fragments of DNA released into the bloodstream by cancer cells and can accurately identify the type of tissue or organ from which the signal originates. More than 140,000 people took part in the trials. If the results prove convincing, UK health authorities plan to introduce this tool in all hospitals.

CHANGES TO TRIAL REGULATIONS

In April 2026, new clinical trial regulations will come into force in the United Kingdom. This marks the largest change to regulatory requirements in the past 20 years. Under the new rules, researchers will be able to obtain ethical and regulatory approval through a single application. Previously, the approval of new medicines required two separate clinical trials. At the same time, requirements for transparency and openness of experimental data are being strengthened.

The law requires all information about drug trials to be published before participant recruitment begins, as well as a summary of the results to be made public within 12 months after the trial’s completion. The aim of these changes is to accelerate research, expand participation in trials, and reduce the time needed for promising treatments to become available to those in need.

THE LUNAR RACE

This year, humanity will continue its push into space. NASA is launching the Artemis II program. As part of this mission, four astronauts are set to fly around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft. The flight will last 10 days and will become the first crewed lunar mission since the 1970s. The project is regarded as a kind of rehearsal for a subsequent Moon landing, which is also included in NASA’s long-term plans.

China is keeping pace with the United States. In August, it plans to launch another lunar probe, Chang’e-7. The spacecraft will be equipped with shock-absorbing capabilities. Its goal is to land near the Moon’s highly challenging south pole, in a rocky region with numerous craters. A similar landing in this area was carried out in 2023 by the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3. However, its Chinese counterpart will have a very specific mission: to search for water ice and to study lunar earthquakes.

MARS’S MOONS AND EARTH’S “TWINS”

No less than the Moon, Mars continues to attract scientists’ attention. Japan is sending the Martian Moons eXploration mission to its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. The spacecraft will collect surface samples and deliver them to Earth in 2031. The project has no analogues in the history of human space exploration. An equally ambitious mission is being advanced by the European Space Agency. By the end of 2026, it will launch the PLATO planet-hunting satellite. Equipped with 26 cameras, PLATO will monitor more than 200,000 bright stars and search for an “Earth twin” — a planet with water and similar temperatures.

INDIA STORMS THE SUN

India, meanwhile, is focusing on the study of the Sun. Since last year, the country’s first solar mission, Aditya-L1, has been located on a halo orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This year, it will observe the Sun during the period of solar maximum — an 11-year activity cycle characterized by the highest intensity of sunspots, flares, and solar storms. The goal of the research is to obtain a more complete picture of the state of our star during solar maximum.

DRILLING THE OCEAN FLOOR

China has built a unique drilling vessel, Meng Xiang. It is designed for drilling ultra-deep wells in the ocean. Next year, the ship will set out on its first expedition. To collect samples, the Meng Xiang drill will penetrate to a depth of up to 11 kilometers through the oceanic crust into the Earth’s mantle. Chinese scientists hope that this research will help them better understand how the ocean floor is formed and what drives its tectonic activity.

UPGRADING THE HADRON COLLIDER

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a powerful particle accelerator located at the European laboratory for particle physics near Geneva. It has already enabled scientists to make a number of major discoveries, including the identification of the Higgs boson, which gives mass to all other particles. Next year, physicists are expecting an exciting event: the collider will undergo a major upgrade. It will carry out its final particle collisions and then be shut down for the installation of an extraordinarily powerful facility known as the High-Luminosity LHC, which is scheduled to begin operation in 2030.

UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES OF THE MUON

The muon is 207 times heavier than the electron but is almost identical to it in terms of its set of quantum numbers. However, unlike the relatively well-studied electron, it is a very short-lived and extremely mysterious subatomic particle. Muon tomography is a technology that makes it possible to look inside almost anything: Egyptian pyramids, a shipping container, or the sarcophagus of a nuclear reactor.

In April 2026, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, hopes to complete the construction of the Mu2e detector. The experiment is designed to test whether a muon can transform into an electron without the formation of additional particles. After construction is completed, the scientific team will spend another year calibrating the magnets, and full-scale data collection will begin in 2027.

TRUMP ALARMS SCIENTISTS

Experts from the journal Nature once again give a negative assessment of the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump on the development of science. They predict that the confrontation between the White House and Congress over cuts to science funding will continue. This primarily has a negative effect on the country’s healthcare policy and climate policy. In addition, American universities are facing restrictions on their ability to attract foreign students and researchers.

Many educational institutions are becoming embroiled in legal disputes over the termination of grants and layoffs. There is little dispute that the Trump administration has chosen research in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies as a priority. However, some scientists are concerned that this is happening at the expense of the development of other areas of science.

Original research: