Engineering science and technology is an important force that can change the world, and engineering fronts represent important directions for future innovation in engineering science and technology. While the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation continues to deepen, society is facing unprecedented challenges. All countries now choose to keep abreast of the trends in world science and technology, accurately identify changes, respond to them scientifically, and proactively seek growth and development.

To track development trends in engineering science and technology, the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) has organized a project known as the Global Engineering Fronts every year since 2017 [1,2]. This research identifies and reports on nearly 200 engineering research and engineering development fronts every year to guide academic development and promote innovation in engineering science and technology. The 2025 Global Engineering Fronts research has relied on the nine academic divisions and academic journals of the CAE to identify 94 engineering research fronts and 95 engineering development fronts. This was done by paying equal attention to the engineering research and development fronts, integrating quantitative analyses and qualitative research, and combining data mining with expert argumentation.

In 2025, we continued to improve the technical system at the initial stage of the Global Engineering Fronts project to define the technology boundaries and structures of the nine fields and establish correlations among these branches of technology. In the process of interpreting the key engineering fronts, a development roadmap tool was used to study the development directions of key engineering fronts in the next 5-10 years.

Identifying engineering fronts is a complex and challenging task. For nine years, the research team has been focusing on development hotspots and challenges in global engineering science and technology and has gradually explored a unique research path in which research, forums, and journals are closely integrated to promote each other. This project has been supported by nearly a thousand academicians and experts from various fields and institutions, and we are deeply grateful to all of them.

Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, Table 7, Table 8, Table 9 list the Global Engineering Fronts for 2025.