A Japanese construction firm, the Shimizu Corporation, in concert with many research firms and government agencies, has plans for an underwater city of 5,000 people called the "ocean spiral" off the Japanese coast, which will consist of a giant sphere containing homes and businesses situated just below the surface, held up by a spiral descending to the seabed, where there will be a submarine port and a factory powering the city by using microorganisms that turn carbon dioxide into methane. The Shimizu Corporation plans to start construction in 2025.
Set goals
The international community, including the United Nations, World Bank, and United States, have set the goal of completely eradicating extreme poverty by this year. Noting a significant decline in extreme poverty since 1990, the World Bank has noted that the end of extreme poverty is in sight and pledged to cut it down to at most 3% of the world's population by this time.
The United Nations has made it a goal that Internet access and literacy will be universal by 2030. French demographist Emmanuel Todd forecasted that the global literacy rates will be almost 100% by this year.
The world will need at least 50% more food, 45% more energy and 30% more water than it did in 2012, according to United Nations High Level Panel on Global Sustainability estimates.
According to projections by the United Nations, the world population of humans is estimated to be between approximately 7,800,000,000 and 8,500,000,000 people.
A study estimated that due to continued economic growth in Africa, most impoverished Sub-Saharan African countries will graduate from low to middle-income status by 2030.
It is estimated that the global middle class will number about 4.9 billion people, about 66% of whom will live in Asia, and 80% living in what in 2015 is considered the developing world. Overall, middle classes will be the most important economic and social sector, and a majority of the world's population will be out of poverty.
Of the world's population, 60% will live in urban areas due to rapid urbanization. It is also estimated that there will be 41 megacities that will collectively contain 9% of the world's population. All but one will be in Asia or Africa due to rapid urbanization on those continents.
According to a report by all 16 US intelligence agencies done in cooperation with academics, research institutes, corporations, and politicians from the European Union and 14 individual countries, the unipolarworld order in which the United States dominates will have declined, as China will have surpassed the United States economically and regional powers will have grown in strength, although the United States will probably remain a "first among equals".
3D printing will have grown dramatically in usage, and even buildings and human organs will be printed.
Healthcare will become largely automated, with machines replacing 80% of doctors. In addition, new advances in medical technology will greatly improve human health, particularly nanobots, which will be implanted in the human body to augment the immune system. Ray Kurzweil argues that most diseases will have been wiped out by this time.
Some researchers are aiming for the ability to regenerate human limbs to be achieved by this time.
Self-driving vehicles will dominate the roads, and Elon Musk has projected that operating a non-self-driving vehicle on public roads may even be illegal by this time.
Cars being built during this time, which will be smaller than the vehicles of previous decades, will all be plug-in electrics or hybrids.
Ships may be fully capable of running themselves and running on different types of fuel, will require less maintenance due to sensors and robots locating and repairing problems, while construction using advanced materials will make them lighter.
Commercial delivery drones will be in widespread use, and the Federal Aviation Administration has estimated that there may be as many as 30,000 of them regularly operating in American airspace by 2030.
Advances in robotics will replace many jobs done by humans, and the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence will mean that white-collar jobs will also be increasingly automated. In particular, Ray Kurzweil estimates that artificial intelligence will match human intelligence by this time, and that furthermore, humans will become hybrids with technology by 2030, due to human brains being able to connect with computers and being fed information.
DNA profiling technology will have advanced to the point where the equivalent of the entire Human Genome Project can be performed in seconds using special touch-sensitive gloves.
Architectural advances will see taller and taller skyscrapers appear, including new "megatall" buildings.
Integrated smart grids, or grids which will use sensors and monitoring devices to determine how much energy to direct to any particular building, based on its individual need, will be in widespread use throughout the developed world. Furthermore, energy production will become more decentralized due to widespread use of solar panels and fuel cells by individual businesses and residences, and these grids will be able redirect surplus electricity to other buildings in their area through power lines.
Smart cities will be increasingly common, with over a trillion sensors installed worldwide.
