Silicon Valley's Grand Designs

Apple, it was recently confirmed, is building a self-driving car. What else does America’s tech industry have in store for us?

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What’s going on out West? 

Over the past 20 years, the US high-tech industry, centred in Silicon Valley in northern California, has revolutionised the way that we buy goods and services, communicate, read newspapers, watch TV, listen to music, consume videos, bank, and hail taxis. But recently, digital pioneers have tried to break out of established online businesses – partly to find new markets to “disrupt”, and partly out of frustrated idealism: in the words of one former Facebook engineer, “the best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.”

Who is doing what? 

The classic example is Elon Musk, once CEO of PayPal, who has branched out into electric cars (Tesla), solar power systems (SolarCity), ultra-high-speed train travel (Hyperloop) and spacecraft (SpaceX). The latter aims to create “the technology needed to establish life on Mars”. Hardly less ambitious is Google’s “moonshots” division, X, led by the entrepreneur-scientist Astro Teller. It is developing Waymo, Google’s driverless car arm; Project Loon, which aims to create a global internet network using balloons in the strato sphere; and Project Wing, pioneering the use of self-flying vehicles to deliver goods. Google has also set up Calico, a company devoted to “life extension” – research into the biology of ageing. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has pledged $3bn towards preventing, curing or managing all diseases by 2100.

Are any of these remotely practical?