Pictures of the Future

China, 2020. Pensioner Jun Yang has been invited by his nephew to visit the new Ministry of Energy. The small village where Jun Yang lives has been connected to the electrical grid for only a few years, so he’d like to know where the energy that has changed his life comes from. He reports on his experiences in a letter to his friend Wan.

The world’s population is growing—as is its thirst for energy, which is increasingly being quenched, especially in emerging markets, by streams of coal. But solutions are in sight. Emissions can be cleaned and CO2 can be sequestered. Efficiency can stretch supplies and cut pollution. And new, renewable energy technologies are right around the corner.

Economic development and population growth in many emerging markets are causing the global demand for energy to increase rapidly.

The boom in renewable energy sources is benefiting developing countries, especially in remote areas not connected to power grids. It is also leading to environmental projects in large emerging markets such as India and China.

Economist and China expert Prof. Andreas Oberheitmann, 43, is the director of the Research Center for International Environmental Policy (RCIEP), as well as a guest professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Oberheitmann previously worked at the RWI economic research institute in Essen. His activities at RCIEP focus on a program sponsored by the GTZ technical cooperation organization that seeks to develop practical solutions to problems associated with climate protection in developing countries.

May 2020. Iceworld, a miniature replica of Iceland, has just opened at a desert location. Project manager Jimmy Cargon is showing a journalist the gigantic hall’s many technological refinements.

Customers’ wishes are becoming increasingly individualized. Manufacturers must thus achieve fast, flexible production cost-efficiently. For Siemens, this means focusing on platform strategies, key account management, and the virtual world.

Prof. Dr. Günther Schuh, 49, has been Chairman of the Production Systems department at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany since 2002 and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT). He developed the concept of the "virtual factory" and has played a key role in motivating the discussion on "lean innovation." His most important research results include definitive methods and instruments for complexity management.

In just a few years, the number of intelligent medical assistants—programs that recognize illnesses at an early stage—will be such that they may be combined into a hybrid decision support system. Here’s how such a system might work—as told by the system itself.

An army of algorithms is being developed. Built on expert knowledge and capable of learning from experience, these systems are pointing out anomalies in radiology exams, providing decision support in a range of fields, and optimizing split-second decision making in high-speed industrial processes. As such systems harvest knowledge, there will be no limit to what we will learn from them.

Medical diagnostic procedures are overwhelming physicians with data. In response, doctors are turning to computer programs that help them assess and interpret results. Newly-developed software is now providing fast, accurate decision support.

Mummy Marvel / World’s First Pocket Ultrasound Unit / Portable Water Purification / Toward Quantum Computing / German Future Prize for LEDs / Two Inventors of the Year 2007

Thanks to Europe’s most modern hot strip mill, which was built by Siemens, the world’s leading steel company, ArcelorMittal, has been able to boost production in Kraków, Poland, and manufacture even harder and more resistant grades of steel.

U.S. start-up Zolo Technologies is working closely with Siemens on optimizing combustion processes in coal-fired power plants in order to make such facilities more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Reinhold Achatz, Head of Siemens Corporate Research and Technologies, on multiple impact technologies.