The world is still catching up to Nikola Tesla. New findings, anniversaries, and modern applications of his work — updated regularly.
Records fell in every direction over the last twelve months. 1,180 watts over 100 meters by microwave. More than a kilowatt by laser. 800 watts across 8.6 kilometers. Here is how that actually stacks up against what Tesla promised at Wardenclyffe, and what is still missing.
Reach Power and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln NIMBUS Lab took an AFWERX STTR Phase I award on August 4 to build drones that perch on a wireless power source and stay on station, instead of flying home every forty minutes to charge.
On July 11 the Tesla Science Center dedicated the Eugene Sayan Center, the first building on Tesla's Shoreham campus ever open to the public. It landed on his 170th birthday, and just under three years after the fire that took the laboratory's roof.
Meta reserved early access to up to a gigawatt from Overview Energy. Virtus Solis signed terms on a 500 megawatt deployment. Space based solar stopped being a thought experiment the moment somebody agreed to pay for it.
Reach Power and Gambit were selected for Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund money on June 9 to pair wireless power beaming with AI autonomy. The target is a swarm that manages its own energy budget and never returns to base to recharge.
China's Zhuri program pushed microwave power transmission to 20.8 percent end to end efficiency and delivered 1,180 watts to multiple moving targets more than 100 meters away. Tesla proposed the same idea in 1901. The engineering finally caught up.
In a modern twist on Nikola Tesla’s century-old wireless-power ambitions, NTT and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries reported a real-world demonstration that delivered 152 watts of usable electricity over 1 kilometer at Nanki-Shirahama Airport in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. The test transmitted just over a kilowatt of laser power to a photovoltaic receiver about a meter above ground, converting the beam at roughly 15% efficiency and running continuously for 30 minutes. Tesla famously pursued wireless power in the early 1900s, including his Wardenclyffe Tower prototype on Long Island, and today’s laser-based approach hints at practical near-term uses like powering equipment in disaster zones or keeping drones aloft longer.
On March 6, 2026, the YouTube channel The Reason of Reasons released “Nikola Tesla and Wireless Energy: A Technology Ahead of Its Time,” a concise documentary that walks through Tesla’s most documented electrical milestones before zooming in on his most ambitious: wireless power. Instead of treating Wardenclyffe Tower like a fantasy gadget, the video ties the project to Tesla’s real high-voltage work and his vision for a world-scale “wireless” system that could carry both information and energy. It’s a useful reminder that the legend of “free energy” grew from a serious engineering question Tesla pursued for decades: whether the Earth and atmosphere could be used as part of a transmission system without copper lines.
On May 4, 2026, YouTube channel The History Profile released “Nikola Tesla: Genius or Mad Scientist ?” (49 minutes), a biography-style documentary that frames Tesla’s life around what we can actually verify: the AC system that won the War of Currents, the Tesla coil, and his late-career push for wireless power via Wardenclyffe. The strongest moments are when it separates Tesla’s real, published engineering work from the internet-era legend-making that tends to swallow him whole. If you want a modern watch that stays anchored to the historical record while still feeling cinematic, this one is a solid pick.
A team at NTT and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) reported a real-world laser wireless power demonstration at Nanki-Shirahama Airport in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. They transmitted just over a kilowatt of laser power across one kilometer and converted it into 152 watts of usable electricity at the receiver—about 15% end-to-end efficiency. The test reportedly ran for 30 minutes continuously, a key milestone because outdoor air turbulence can distort a laser beam and reduce performance. It’s a modern, engineering-grounded echo of Nikola Tesla’s century-old dream of sending power through the air—now aimed at practical uses like powering remote sensors and emergency deployments.
Nikola Tesla imagined a world where power could travel without wires, and in early 2026 engineers in Japan published a rare thing in the wireless-power world: field-test numbers you can sanity-check. In a January 2026 technical write-up, NTT described a joint demonstration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at Nanki-Shirahama Airport in Wakayama Prefecture, where a laser system delivered 152 watts of usable electricity to a receiver 1 kilometer away. The experiment reportedly ran continuously for 30 minutes and achieved about 15% efficiency under real atmospheric conditions — meaning this wasn’t a lab-bench trick, but power delivered through open air. It’s not Wardenclyffe-scale energy, but it’s a measurable step toward the same core question Tesla chased: how far can useful electricity be sent without a cable?
In 1964, an engineer named William C. Brown flew a small helicopter for 10 hours without fuel — powered entirely by a microwave beam aimed from the ground. It was the first practical proof that Tesla's dream of transmitting usable power through the air was not just theory. Eleven years later, in 1975, Brown partnered with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the Goldstone facility in California to push the experiment further: they successfully beamed 30 kilowatts of electricity over 1.6 kilometers (about a mile) at a remarkable 54% end-to-end efficiency — a record that still draws citations today. These milestones are the direct technical ancestors of every modern wireless power demonstration, from Japan's 2026 NTT laser transmission to DARPA's long-range power beaming program. Tesla described the physics in his 1900 Century Magazine article; Brown and NASA showed it could work in the field.