At the recently held 2026 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting, the Chinese Academy of Engineering released the "2025 Global Engineering Frontiers". This achievement identified 94 engineering research frontiers and 95 engineering development frontiers based on multi-source data such as 2.16 million high impact papers, 530000 high impact patents, and technology news worldwide.
94 engineering research frontiers and 95 engineering development frontiers were selected from 9 fields, presenting a total of 4 trends: firstly, AI for Engineering and Engineering for AI are mutually empowered and deeply integrated, promoting engineering practice to enter a new stage of automation, systematization, and intelligence, achieving fundamental improvement in engineering efficiency, engineering quality, and complex problem-solving ability; The second is scenario driven, which accelerates the transformation and value release of new technologies, products, and formats through full process and systematic verification, forcing engineering technology innovation iteration and industrial transformation and upgrading, injecting strong momentum into cultivating and developing new quality productivity; Thirdly, engineering innovation continues to expand into unknown, extreme, and complex fields, constantly enhancing humanity's ability to understand and transform the world, and providing larger scale, lower cost, and more valuable technological support for expanding human activity boundaries; The fourth is the deep reconstruction of the entire chain of the green and low-carbon driving engineering system. The innovative path of the entire chain of engineering, from source carbon reduction, process carbon reduction to end carbon fixation, is accelerating, driving systematic changes in the energy structure, technological route, and industrial model of the engineering system.
The "2025 Global Engineering Frontier" shows that current artificial intelligence is helping the engineering paradigm move towards intergenerational transition. Among the 189 cutting-edge directions identified this time, 74 are closely related to artificial intelligence, including AI assisted energy material design, multi-agent construction, and collaborative technology.
It is reported that the Chinese Academy of Engineering has been organizing academicians and experts to conduct "Global Engineering Frontiers" research every year since 2017. Through data mining, expert interaction, and judgment selection in 9 fields, about 90 engineering research frontiers and 90 engineering development frontiers have been obtained. The research results are released globally in both Chinese and English on an annual basis, effectively playing the role of academic guidance, industry guidance, and decision-making reference, and receiving widespread attention and positive evaluation at home and abroad. This achievement release is the first appearance of global engineering frontiers at the Zhongguancun Forum.