50 BY 2050

Why 50 by 2050?

We are excited to unveil the 2026 edition of our 50 by 2050 list – 50 climate tech companies with the vision, technology and scale to power the next 24 years of the global economy. These are the businesses building the infrastructure the world will run on, which makes them among the most consequential companies for global decarbonization as well.

Narrowing the climate startup ecosystem to just 50 companies is no easy feat; many others are also poised to contribute meaningfully to global decarbonization by 2050. The 50 by 2050 list is not exhaustive, but it showcases a cross-section of the most promising solutions across four primary themes:

• How We Power Our Lives — generation and grid technologies such as nuclear, geothermal and long-duration storage

• How We Source + Nourish + Fortify — critical resources, food systems, land and agriculture

• How We Move + Build + Live — transportation and the built environment

• How We Create + Consume — industry, carbon and, new for 2026, compute

For 2026, the list adds compute as a subsector for the first time, reflecting the mounting climate impact of AI data center emissions. The International Energy Agency projects that data center power demand could double within five years — without further decarbonization, global data center emissions could reach more than 600 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.

We see this moment as both a call to action and a catalyst for innovation. Our commitment is twofold: to invest in the next generation of technologies that can redefine what's possible and to support the deployment of mature, proven solutions. The companies on this year’s list have the potential to be the unicorns, market makers and industry disruptors of the future.