As 2026 approaches, “uncertainty” remains the inescapable sensation. For all that 2025 has brought — sweeping cuts to research budgets, global disruptions to supply chains, and lagging sales in key industry sectors have become the certainties this year — and the familiar feeling that has lingered throughout the year persists. There is no way to know when the climate of uncertainty that has gripped the scientific landscape will reach its crescendo. As such, taking time today to predict the outcomes of tomorrow feels both futile and impossible. This is the atmosphere in which photonics will continue to persevere. Consider the breakthroughs of 2025 as evidence. In a year characterized by uncertainty across the board, photonics innovation transcended highly disruptive technology areas — and did so across research, academia, and industry. Meta-optics Nearly a decade after debuting the world’s first visible-spectrum metasurfaces, the Harvard University team led by Federico Capasso pioneered a bilayer metasurface this spring. The influence of the added layers is, predictably, in control: The team used the bilayer metalens to act on polarized light in the same way that a complex system of waveplates and mirrors does. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Washington and Princeton University showed that a camera containing an ultraflat optic can record high-quality color images and video comparable to those captured with a conventional camera lens. The work is a major step toward resolving chromatic aberration in metalens imaging. This progress extends to industry, where collaborations between Artilux and VisEra, as well as between STMicroelectronics and Metalenz, promise to advance meta-optics technology deeper into consumer markets. Hollow-core fiber Hollow-core fiber innovation soared to new heights this year, and 2025 wraps up with companies such as Relativity Networks and Lumenisity at the forefront of this growing industry. This technology also remains a burgeoning topic of high-impact research. Relativity is a spinout of optics hotbed University of Central Florida (CREOL), while the Microsoft-owned Lumenisity launched from the University of Southampton. One particularly interesting way to chart anticipated advancements in hollow-core fiber technology is through a geographic lens. Next-generation fiber optics is, no doubt, a supremely consequential technology to national security interests. How this dynamic affects the technology’s growth trajectory remains an open question. However, how a similar dynamic has influenced the broader semiconductor industry offers a compelling clue. These are two of the numerous technologies worth spotlighting as the year draws to a close. Amid stubborn and sustained uncertainty, there remains a degree of hope in the combined efforts of research, academia, and industry that continue to drive photonics forward.