Looking Ahead to 2026: Signals from Energy, AI, and Industry
Our POV for what's to come in the new year.
As we enter the new year, the MCJ team reflected on the past 12 months and looked ahead to what 2026 has in store. Below are a few of our predictions.
Cody, on autonomy and automation:
In 2026, we’ll start to see autonomy and automation tip from “pilot tech” into default operating infrastructure across the physical economy, because the pressures are converging all at once: tighter labor and safety constraints, greater volatility on the grid, and higher uptime expectations for critical assets. As these systems move from dashboards to closed-loop control—optimizing energy, routing, maintenance, and operations in real time—automation becomes the fastest path to clean energy abundance, infrastructure resilience, and a new wave of industrial productivity.
David, on the maturation of AI infrastructure:
2026 will see consolidation in the AI and data center space, as major players—both going public and preparing for IPOs—go on acquisition sprees to bulk up, buying smaller players that have land but no power generation, power generation but no land, and further integrating vertically by acquiring small software companies.
Yin, on the migration to the American Southwest:
In 2026, founders building in firm power, heat, and grid-flexibility startups increasingly migrate toward Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas as the Southwest becomes the most important place to commercialize hard-energy ideas. Falling drilling costs, rising AI-driven electricity demand, and a surge of state-backed investment shift gravity away from coastal hubs. The Southwest becomes the test bed where new baseload power technologies move toward commercial scale.
And Yin again, on grid policy innovation:
Starting in 2026, we’ll begin to see real-time co-optimization take hold across U.S. grids as more ISOs adopt ERCOT-inspired storage frameworks (e.g., RTC+B) that give energy storage systems unified participation in both energy and ancillary markets. This shift opens a new class of startups in the “sub-utility layer,” optimizing batteries, HVAC/cold storage, industrial clusters, and campus microgrids for real-time market participation and reliability value. As this takes hold, “load as a resource” becomes a monetizable asset class.
Thai, on the continued buildout of fission:
Since 2024, we have seen strong signs of a nuclear (fission) renaissance emerge in America. Waves of commercial offtake, namely from energy-hungry hyperscalers, have created market signal for an industry that has languished for decades due to project risk and exorbitant cost-overruns. Moreover, bipartisan support and legislation has given many hope that the regulatory environment will be streamlined and it will be easier to approve new nuclear development and technologies. For its part, the DOE has begun to underwrite and provide financing for nuclear re-starts. 2026 will likely see these developments continue to accelerate with actual shovels in the ground building new plants, and novel reactors demonstrating criticality.
Casey, on the rise of geoengineering:
2026 will be the first time the general investor community accepts geoengineering as an investible category. While cloudseeding has been in practice for 70 years, recent events have increased attention and calls for governance. Meanwhile, solar radiation modification (SRM) has quietly received record levels of philanthropic donations over the past few years, along with its first meaningful equity investments. Simultaneously, improvements with physics-informed ML and causal AI for weather modelling enable far higher precision in deployment and verification. While many governments may be slow to adopt, nations experiencing increased extreme drought or heat will likely show a greater appetite for conducting pilot programs over the next year.
What predictions do you have for 2026?
Happy New Year from all of us at MCJ! 🎆
Inevitable Podcast
⛽️ Kurt Terrani, CEO of Standard Nuclear, discusses why fuel (not reactor design) could be the bottleneck for advanced nuclear. He also covers the nuclear fuel cycle and why reactor-agnostic, commodity fuel is critical for advanced nuclear to scale. Listen to the episode here.
The Lean Back
Learn about Aalo’s modular reactors in this episode from the archives.
Climate Jobs
Check out the Job Openings space in the MCJ Collective Member Hub or the MCJ Job Board for more.
Project Coordinator (Deployments) at Base Power (Austin, TX)
Corporate Counsel, Commercial Contracts at Crusoe (Denver, CO)
Laboratory Technician at Fourier (Mountain View, CA)
Head of AI / Reinforcement Learning Engineering (more open roles here) at Hammerhead (Redwood City, CA)
Content Specialist at MCJ (Remote)
Lead Cloud Engineer at Mill (San Bruno, CA)
Project Controls Lead at Pacific Fusion (Albuquerque, NM)
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Great call on autonomy tipping from pilot tech to default infrastructure. The convergence of labor constraints, grid volatility, and uptime demands is real, and most people dont see that the forcing function isn't just ROI anymore but operational necessity. I saw similiar shifts in logistics around 2019 where companies went from testing autonomous routes to depending on them becasue they literally couldn't hire enough drivers for peak demand.