Scientific publications enable researchers worldwide to share discoveries and document progress in human knowledge. Publications are often categorized into science and engineering. Science articles typically focus on uncovering new understanding by exploring questions like “Why?” or “How does this happen?". Engineering articles, on the other hand, concentrate on applying existing knowledge to develop new tools, materials, systems, or algorithms, addressing questions like “Can we build this better?” or “How can we solve this problem?". Currently, there is increasing concern about the lack of a middle ground between fundamental science journals and engineering journals focused on system design and optimization. The Journal of Technology seeks to bridge this gap where scientific inquiry meets engineering innovation
While science seeks to uncover the laws governing the physical world, technology driven by human needs serves as the primary engine for transforming it. From steam engines and electrical grids to artificial intelligence and quantum information, technological advances have repeatedly reshaped the trajectory of human development, remaining the fundamental driver of civilizational progress. Technology not only responds to practical human needs but also continuously reshapes the boundaries of our ability to understand and transform the world. It is more than an extension of scientific knowledge: it is the concentrated expression of human wisdom and creativity. With every leap, it rewrites the underlying logic of how society operates.
Industrialization has propelled humanity into an era of rapid technological innovation. Today, we are better equipped than ever to trace the evolution of technology and analyze its underlying logic and patterns of development—from breakthroughs in fundamental principles to the expansion of applications, from the emergence of individual innovations to the synergy of entire technological systems, and from advances within individual disciplines to integrative innovation across multiple fields. The development of technology involves both the application of scientific principles and refinement of human needs. Exploring this essence of technology is not only the key to understanding the past but also essential to shaping the future. The history of technology demonstrates that disruptive innovations often emerge at the blurred boundaries between disciplines and from the tension between basic research and practical needs. This tension drives technology from the laboratory to industry, transforming theoretical constructs into practical capabilities.
The technological frontier no longer advances by simply scaling existing paradigms. It is increasingly constrained by physical and systemic limits that incremental engineering alone cannot bypass. Three converging bottlenecks are likely to define the next decade.
First, in computing hardware, photonic interconnects may help overcome the energy constraints of electronic data movement. However, nonvolatile optical-weight refresh and crosstalk-suppressed detection remain unsolved. Without addressing these challenges, photonics may remain peripheral rather than become foundational. Second, in semiconductor manufacturing, stochastic effects—governed by photon statistics rather than resist chemistry—now constrain yields at sub-2-nm nodes, shifting the ultimate limit from conventional engineering toward probabilistic control at the nanoscale. Third, in artificial intelligence for science, the principal constraint is not model architecture but data interoperability: fragmented datasets and non-unified ontologies confine progress to isolated proofs of concept.
These are not isolated pain points but the symptoms of a broader structural pivot. Sustained progress now depends less on refining individual components and more on redesigning the interfaces among physical mechanisms, data architectures, and system engineering approaches.
It is against this backdrop that Technology is being launched. Our central mission is to bridge the persistent gap between scientific insight and robust engineering, a divide that can leave promising ideas stranded in the laboratory. In pursuing this mission, we seek to extend the conventional paradigm of academic publishing by redefining what constitutes a foundational technical contribution. We believe that crossing this threshold demands research that spans scales—from the molecular to the system level, and from controlled experiments to real-world operation. Technology is an international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to multidisciplinary research on technological evolution, providing a forum for connecting fundamental scientific discovery and applied engineering. Through rigorous empirical inquiry, the journal investigates the historical contexts, institutional frameworks, and frontier innovations that shape global technological advancement.
The journal welcomes high-quality original research papers and forward-looking reviews encompassing the following core areas of technological development:
-Frontier interdisciplinary research: Focusing on the deep integration of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other foundational disciplines with engineering technology, and promoting innovation across the full pathway from fundamental discovery to technological translation.
-Life sciences and healthcare: Covering biomedical engineering, precision medicine, synthetic biology, intelligent diagnostics, and therapeutics, with a focus on advancing human health through technological innovation.
-Information technology and intelligent sciences: Focusing on artificial intelligence, big data, photonic computing, quantum information, communication networks, and other frontier fields driving the architectural innovation in the information age.
-Advanced manufacturing and mechanical engineering: Exploring smart manufacturing, robotics, precision machining, additive manufacturing, and related fields that are shaping the future of manufacturing.
-Energy and environmental engineering: Addressing clean energy, energy storage, carbon neutrality, environmental monitoring, and remediation, through engineering solutions that support sustainable development.
-Materials science and engineering: Covering the full spectrum from structural to functional materials, and from nanoscale to macroscopic properties, while strengthening the foundations of technological progress.
-Astronomy and Earth sciences: Focusing on deep space exploration, remote sensing technologies, and Earth systems science to advance the frontiers of human knowledge.
Although these thematic areas define the scope of Technology, our editorial philosophy is grounded in the recognition that technological translation is inherently nonlinear. The advancement of applied science operates as a dynamic feedback loop: engineering bottlenecks expose the limits of fundamental theories, while scientific discoveries generate the new tools and instruments needed to overcome those limits. Technology is founded on the premise that this iterative exchange is a key driver of large-scale advancement. Historically, the literature has tended to prioritizes findings that are readily amenable to theoretical formalization. However, we contend that critical knowledge operates within two complementary paradigms.
First, we maintain a strong commitment to reproducible scientific formalisms—the algorithms, material syntheses, and operational protocols validated through rigorous empirical peer review—that provide the foundation for applied engineering.
Second, and equally importantly, we recognize the scholarly value of empirical heuristics and tacit engineering knowledge. We welcome studies that examine architectural optimizations, robustness protocols, and iterative refinements that ensure system viability in complex real-world environments, even in the absence of a unified theoretical framework. We are particularly interested in studies that reveal how microscopic mechanisms translate into macroscopic behavior and identify the scaling principles that connect laboratory findings with industrial practice. Thus, field-validated methodologies have intrinsic academic value.
Furthermore, we recognize that systematic limitations can be as scientifically informative as functional validations. We therefore encourage submissions that rigorously document falsified hypotheses, implementation bottlenecks, and unresolved epistemological gaps. A comprehensively analyzed negative result can delineate the technological frontier more precisely than an incremental optimization.
Technology not only highlights contemporary breakthroughs in technology, but also seeks to advance understanding of the underlying principles that shape technological evolution. We advocate the use of scientific methods to analyze the underlying logic of technological innovation and to advance research from empirical observation toward theoretical frameworks. We encourage deep interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral integration research that examines the interactions among technology, society, ethics, and ecology, with the aim of ensuring that technological innovation advances in ways that serves human well-being. Furthermore, as the research ecosystem becomes increasingly global and collaborative, a critical governance challenge has emerged: balancing the imperative of knowledge dissemination with the strategic and commercial need to protect proprietary intellectual property. Technology aims to foster a rigorous discussion of this tension, seeking to ensure that efforts to promote open-source innovation do not inadvertently weaken that support investment in deep technology. We firmly believe that technology does not develop in isolation but is shaped by—and in turn shapes—science, culture, institutions, and the environment. Understanding this broader system is therefore essential to understanding the trajectory of technology.
As a newly launched journal, Technology upholds the following editorial philosophies:
An international vision: We aim to bring together leading scholars worldwide; build an open and inclusive academic community; and promote cross-border, cross-cultural intellectual exchange and collaborative innovation.
Pursuit of the frontier: We seek to identify emerging technological trends; prioritize forward-looking research with the potential to advance technological innovation and generate system-level impact.
A cross-disciplinary orientation: We seek to overcome traditional disciplinary boundaries, encourage the discoveries at the intersection of disciplines, and promote the integration and restructuring of technological systems.
Social responsibility: We support technological development that considers ethical dimensions and social impacts and seek to ensure that technology serves the broader interests of humanity.
Commitment to open science: We support open-access publishing, promote the dissemination and sharing of knowledge, and facilitate the translation of research findings into practical applications.
We invite scholars, engineers, and scientists across the globe to submit their work to Technology, and particularly warm welcome contributions from industry professionals, research and development leaders, and technology entrepreneurs. We believe that most transformative innovations emerge at the intersection of academic inquiry and industrial practice. Technology seeks to foster this exchange through a bidirectional dialogue: translating scientific discoveries into practical applications, while bringing the engineering challenges encountered in real-world settings back to the research community. By bridging the gap between the laboratory and factory floor, we aim to strengthen the cycle of knowledge creation and technological deployment. Whether you are an expert in a specific field or an investigator working at interdisciplinary frontiers, Technology will provide rigorous, fair, and efficient peer-review, alongside an international platform for disseminating your research. We look forward to shaping the future of technology together.
We hope that Technology will become a platform that connects ideas, disciplines, and communities and fosters meaningful collaboration. Let us push technological civilization to a higher plane. With reason as our compass and innovation as our sail, we will explore the boundless possibilities of technology, contributing our knowledge and strength to the lasting progress of humankind. On this journey filled with unknowns and hope, Technology stands ready to walk alongside global scholars, witnessing and recording every breakthrough from 0 to 1 and every leap from 1 to N.
Acknowledgement
During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used Deepseek for proofreading purposes. After using this tool, all authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Article History
Received Date: 2026-07-31
Accepted Date: 2026-08-14
Published Date: 2026-08
Corresponding Author
Citation
Luo XG, Hong MH. To the Future: The Infinite Possibilities of Technology. Technology 1, 26e001 (2026)
Author Information
Corresponding author Xiangang Luo, E-mail: lxg@ioe.ac.cn
State Key Laboratory of Optical Field Manipulation Science and Technology, Institute of Optics and Electronics, ChineseAcademy of Sciences, Chengdu 610209, China
Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu610209, China
Minghui Hong
Pen-Tung Sah Institute of Micro-Nano Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China
Copyright & License
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Technology Publishing.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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