MIT Technology Review — 50 Smartest Companies — Tesla & BrightSource Energy

By Bri­an Berg­stein. It might sound dif­fi­cult to define what makes a smart com­pa­ny, but you know one when you see it. When such a com­pa­ny com­mer­cial­izes a tru­ly inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, things hap­pen: lead­er­ship in a mar­ket is bol­stered or thrown up for grabs. Com­peti­tors have to refine or rethink their strategies.

This is what the edi­tors of MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Reviewlooked for as we assem­bled this list. We didn’t count patents or PhDs; instead, we asked whether a com­pa­ny had made strides in the past year that will define its field. The biggest of these strides hap­pened at Illu­mi­na, which is dri­ving down the price of DNA sequenc­ing to lev­els that will change the prac­tice of med­i­cine. We also found dra­mat­ic devel­op­ments on the Web, in bat­ter­ies, and even in agri­cul­tur­al technologies.

Famil­iar names such as Apple and Face­book aren’t on this list because rep­u­ta­tion doesn’t mat­ter. We’re high­light­ing where impor­tant inno­va­tions are hap­pen­ing right now.

See full list at MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review.