The outlet MIT Technology Review has released its 2026 edition of Climate Tech Companies to Watch, which highlights 10 companies it considers to be driving real progress toward solving the climate crisis. The people responsible for compiling the list say choosing this year’s honorees was harder than in any year since the project started in 2023.
The current year is on track to become one of the hottest ever measured. To tackle a climate crisis that is already causing harm across the globe, the world must begin reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions. Fires, floods and other calamities driven by a warming planet are taking thousands of lives and costing billions of dollars.
The world is facing a major challenge, and political changes and fighting between nations have slowed down efforts to deal with it, especially in the United States. The team argues that technology by itself cannot fix climate change, but new inventions can still help bring about real improvements and better living conditions as countries work to meet one of the most urgent problems of our time.
How the List Is Built
Before the MIT Technology Review team names its list, it asks its reporters and editors for their nominations. It also seeks recommendations from experts, academics, researchers, investors and analysts. Once those names come in, the pool goes through a vetting process using literature, reports and patents.
A company’s standing depends on its individual merit, yet also on its role within the full list. The group seeks a variety of fields and companies at different points in their growth, with businesses from around the world. Their goal is to balance familiar names with fresh additions.
The yearly survey of major trends and events informs their choices, pointing them toward nominees that mirror those changes.
The Global Spread
According to the team, the US has lost its standing as a leader in climate technology, citing the dismantling of federal rules and reductions in funding support. Just as last year, the 2026 ranking is made up mostly of firms based beyond American borders.
Across energy and climate, China leads the way when it comes to technological innovation. Two Chinese companies appear on this year’s list, marking the country’s continued importance in these fields.
WeLion’s Semi-Solid-State Batteries
WeLion is building semi-solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.
Envision Energy’s Wind Power
Envision Energy is installing huge amounts of wind power and energy storage in China and around the world.
Energy Storage Takes Center Stage
The biggest story of the year concerns the growing demand for electricity, which has been fueled in part by AI data centers. Energy storage plays a central role in this picture because it can help even out fluctuations in the electricity supply as grids incorporate more renewable power.
The list includes several energy storage companies:
- Energy Dome is building long-duration energy storage systems on the grid that rely on compressed carbon dioxide.
- Moment Energy is a Canadian company working to repurpose EV batteries for grid-scale storage.
- Form Energy, which appeared in the 2024 edition of this list, is producing iron-based batteries that can store energy for multiple days.
A Range of Technologies
The collection spans many technologies, ranging from mobile flood barriers to next-generation nuclear reactors. A few of the winners will already be recognized from earlier reports; several others are only beginning to appear and may not yet be widely known.
Why These Companies Matter
This list is built around companies that the team sees as stepping up to face the challenges of the moment. The damages from climate change keep growing, even as political resolve has grown weaker.
These companies show a path worth following by contributing to real progress on the climate crisis during hard times.
Related Coverage
The magazine MIT Technology Review has put out a Deep Dive section connected to the list, which looks at several subjects. Among them are batteries setting new marks in the United States, the heat felt across the country this summer, and why 2027 might turn out even worse than expected. Other topics include engineered microbes that could help feed the world’s crops, and the global search for stores of hydrogen fuel kept underground.
Our View
The process operates openly. The publication itself supplies the nominations, which then form the basis for a list compiled using outside advice, examinations of patents, and accounts of actual use.
The firms on the list are working to solve an issue that will become more serious over time, given how much data centers and power networks are moving toward renewable energy sources.
This group has set out to point to firms that are actually changing things and bettering people’s lives as the world takes on one of its greatest current challenges. The list achieves that purpose, doing so with a plain view of how high those stakes really are.
Policy is lagging behind the climate impacts already unfolding around us, including heat waves, wildfires and floods.
Source material: “Here’s how our climate team picked 10 promising companies to watch,” MIT Technology Review.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.