The role of carbon-dioxide removal (CDR) has long been a topic of discussion within the climate-tech community, but 2022 boosted the profile of this suite of both proven and nascent technologies.

This year, direct air capture (DAC) projects saw a wave of significant investments from both private and public sources. In the second quarter alone, VCs invested $841 million in carbon-capture and DAC startups, nearly double the total VC funding for the sector over the previous four quarters combined, according to data from Pitchbook.

• Corporations looking to reach their own net-zero goals also came together to try and provide a guaranteed customer base for CDR startups.
• In April, Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability announced Frontier, which aims to do just that and plans to spend $925 million collectively over the next nine years on permanent carbon removal.

Even still…CDR remains unproven at scale and prohibitively expensive for most buyers. Even if it does overcome those hurdles, it is unlikely to ever be the most efficient solution for decarbonizing our planet.

But 2022 may prove to be a turning point in how governments, companies, and investors think about CDR and the importance of scaling this technology—from less than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 removal this year—to several billion tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050.

Read the full breakdown on-site.—GD

The generative AI trend first picked up steam in 2020, when OpenAI released GPT-3, a large language model that made waves for its ability to produce human-like text.

But it wasn’t until 2022 that the trend exploded.

In 2022, a slew of powerful generative AI vehicles for text, image, and video debuted, and the tools are already being used across a wide range of industries, from marketing to graphic design.

• Even amid a historic contraction in venture funding, investment in generative AI startups was up 15% year over year as of late November, according to Pitchbook data.
• What’s more, VC interest in the space skyrocketed from 2020 to 2021, with deal count nearly doubling from 48 to 84 and a spike in deal value of nearly 400%.

Big picture: “It’s hard for me to think of any new technology that has seen so much development in so short a time,” Andy Baio, a technologist, writer, and former CTO of Kickstarter, told us in TKTK. “I’ve been in technology for over 20 years…And just to see in a matter of months, with new developments really every single week, just how rapidly this [technology] has gotten better…It’s an area that is overflowing with potential—and practical and creative applications—but it is also a morass of legal, ethical, and moral dilemmas.”

Read the full breakdown here.—HF

Up above us, companies like Apple and Globalstar, SpaceX and T-Mobile, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and more are duking it out over a new frontier of business: satellite connectivity.

“It’s been a big year because you’ve seen a lot of satellites launched,” Chris Daehnick, senior solution leader and associate partner at McKinsey, told Emerging Tech Brew. “And in addition to the launches, you’ve also seen an unprecedented contract for future launches.”

SpaceX had a dominant year, breaking its own annual launch record in July, and had over 3,500 satellites in orbit as of this month, according to an astronomer who tracks satellites. Starlink told the FCC in May that it had over 400,000 global subscribers, up from the 145,000 subscribers it reported at the start of 2022, a surge likely driven in part by the company’s entry into Ukraine after Russia invaded the country.

But it wasn’t the only one making moves. In September, Apple announced it would spend $450 million to develop a satellite-based emergency feature for iPhones in partnership with Globalstar, called Emergency SOS via satellite. Most of the money will be used to fund Globalstar’s satellite constellation.

• Eutelsat and OneWeb agreed in July to merge in a bid “to compete with Starlink and Amazon.”
• Amazon’s Project Kuiper signed multibillion-dollar launch deals for its satellites and announced plans for a new satellite factory outside of Seattle.

Big picture: “I think the market has, to some degree, been validated.” Daehnick said. “And I think you’ll look back on 2022 and say that this was when a lot of people finally said, ‘Oh, this is real.’”

Click here to read on-site.—JM

Stat: The UK’s tech sector reached a total market valuation of $1 trillion in 2022, per a report from the UK government and Dealroom, double its 2019 valuation of $500 billion.

Quote: “We are telling our portfolio companies you shouldn’t get overly anchored on a valuation you had a couple of years ago when the market was abnormally inflated. It is best to take your medicine now.”—An investment manager to the Financial Times

Read: What it’s like to actually set up and use Matter-enabled devices.

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Owners of VR headsets often face higher home-insurance premiums, per a new report.
• A mom was booted from Radio City Music Hall after its facial-recognition system identified her.
• The NFL is coming to…YouTube TV?
• The secret to widespread EV adoption could be less range.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• A breakout year for AI art brings as many questions as answers
• The under-the-radar tech at the core of Matter’s smart-home platform
• A major homebuilder tests the market for climate-conscious homes