ISTANBUL
The global technology competition was dominated by developments in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, which became one of, if not the most, important items on the global agenda this year.
AI ushered in a new era, particularly in July when OpenAI announced its agentic model, which responds to commands and conducts research. AI systems that utilize data, such as personal calendars, to plan trips or make hotel reservations have risen to prominence.
This year saw a significant increase in development among AI tech giants. AI tool users worldwide preferred ChatGPT in general, but Google made a significant improvement.
Google had long been overshadowed by OpenAI's ChatGPT in the AI race, but the tech giant pulled a wild card with the announcement of its Nano Banana image processing model, which debuted in August, and Gemini 3, which was released last month.
Gemini quickly grew from 450 million to 650 million monthly active users, and it outperformed ChatGPT in Humanity's Last Exam, an independent performance test.
However, while these developments occurred in the middle and near the end of the year, Chinese models sent shockwaves throughout the AI industry.
Chinese AI large language model (LLM) DeepSeek wowed users and investors alike, as it was developed in a fraction of the time Western AI models need, while using far fewer chips to train.
Chinese e-commerce and tech giant Alibaba joined the AI race in the last quarter of the year with its Qwen3 model, which was, similarly to DeepSeek, trained at a much lower cost while capable of much higher performance than its competitors. The open-source Qwen3 model was also well-received in performance benchmarks.
With US President Donald Trump's announcement of the Stargate project in January, his first major move after taking office for a second term, competition between the two countries spiked.
The Stargate project is the US’ largest investment plan for AI to date—US firms like OpenAI pledged to invest up to $500 billion over four years to build new AI infrastructure in the country.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a national initiative to mobilize for AI development, furthering Beijing’s tech independence goal for 2025—the new policy aims to boost domestic innovation in response to Western tech restrictions, while state resources and private sector research and development (R&D) investments are planned to be allocated into developing key algorithm tech and homegrown chip production.
However, one of the biggest crises between the US and China in the tech war was with TikTok. US media reported that an agreement had been reached for the Chinese ByteDance-owned short-form content platform to operate under a venture controlled by American investors, and thus, ByteDance and TikTok signed binding agreements with Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX.
At the same time, the massive energy demands of AI prompted tech giants to invest in nuclear energy and green hydrogen-powered data centers.
This year was also critical for quantum computing, as this cutting-edge technology finally made its way out of the lab and into commercial and industrial solutions. Significant progress was made in both hardware capacity and error correction algorithms.
These developments enabled tech giants to maintain their position as the most valuable companies this year. Nvidia led the list, followed by Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and TSMC in terms of market capitalization, according to the Companies Market Cap website.
The future-oriented developments did not stop at quantum computing, however. Humanoid robots replaced human workers in factories and pilot areas as an alternative labor force.
The experimental robots took their first steps in performing complex production tasks alongside humans with AI-powered learning.
Tesla, one of the pioneers in this technology, started making and testing its humanoid robot called Optimus for internal use. The EV maker aims to begin mass production and offer services to other companies next year.
More advanced versions of humanoid robots are expected to come to the fore next year.
The industrial use of humanoid robots is expected to be widespread in the short term, while there are some strides being made in bringing robots home to take up household tasks.
- US tech giants under fire for alleged pro-Israel practices
One of the most pressing issues this year was the cloud, AI, and general tech support provided to Israel by US tech giants.
Western media outlets reported at the beginning of the year that major tech firms have been helping out Israel, especially after Oct. 7, 2023.
Tech companies involved with Israel, like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, are a few.
The Associated Press reported that the rate at which the Israeli army used OpenAI and Microsoft AI surged 200% after Oct. 7, while there was a significant rise in the use of cloud services.
- Türkiye’s place in global tech competition, from domestic social media platforms to TEKNOFEST and beyond
This year was historic for Türkiye’s efforts in the social media industry. The domestic platform NSosyal, developed as part of the country’s homegrown software initiative, launched this year and quickly amassed over 1 million users.
The app was the most popular social media app in the Turkish Apple App Store catalogue.
Meanwhile, the country’s premier aviation, space, and tech festival, TEKNOFEST, was held this year in both Türkiye and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
A total of 1.5 million people visited the three versions of the event, namely the TRNC edition, the one focused on marine technology, and the one in Istanbul. The marine event, dubbed Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan), showcased the tech competition in Istanbul.
At the same time, Türkiye made efforts to develop its tech ecosystem, with the number of technoparks nationwide reaching 110 this year.
These areas became centers for high-value-added product development and research and development (R&D) activities—a concrete example of university–industry cooperation.
The rising number of technoparks also indicates the country’s rise in global innovation.
Türkiye also made great strides in the space sector. Fergani Space launched its first satellite, the FGN-100-d1, in January.
The firm also launched the country’s largest private sector satellite, the FGN-100-d2, as well as Türkiye’s first orbital transfer vehicle called the FGN-TUG-S01.
These developments marked the first step into the realization of Türkiye’s homegrown global positioning system (GPS) called ‘Ulug Bey.’
Additionally, astronomers have discovered a new galaxy resembling the Milky Way, dating back approximately 1.8 billion years after the universe's formation, or 12 billion years ago. The galaxy bears striking similarities to the one Earth is in, and it has the potential to reshape theories of galactic evolution in the early universe.
