DEAD HEAT AT THE STOVE: Electric Vehicles and Quantum Computing Tie for the Tech Crown While the Smartphone in Everyone's Pocket Is Left Off the Plate

Contestants, step away from your stations. Not even a day into this cook-off, the crowd on Morfi has been asked to name the best technology of our time, and they have plated something I did not expect: a dead heat between the electric car humming in the driveway and the quantum computer that most of us will never see outside a lab. Meanwhile the smartphone, the dish this entire era is served on, waits at the pass with nobody tasting it. Let me loosen my apron. This is going to be a long service.

First, the pantry. On adoption, the phone is the undisputed staple. The World Bank's 2025 Global Findex found that the large majority of adults worldwide own a mobile phone and roughly two in three hold a smartphone. But there's a burnt edge: Euronews reports that the GSMA warns rising memory and chip costs, driven by demand for AI infrastructure, are pushing entry-level phones out of reach for poorer users, which could mean the largest annual drop in shipments on record. So the AI boom is eating the phone's lunch, and the irony is thick enough to spread on toast.

Now the electric vehicle. The International Energy Agency, as reported by ABC News, says EVs made up about a quarter of global car sales in 2025, with that share climbing this year. The flavour depends a lot on the region, though. NPR, citing Edmunds, reports that US EV sales have stalled at roughly one in twenty new cars since the federal tax credit ended, while hybrids have taken off. Europe is cooking hotter, with battery-electric cars at just under a fifth of the EU market. As for AI assistants and quantum computing, our research came back with an empty plate: no sourced adoption figures at all.

Which makes the scoreboard delicious. On Morfi's opinion markets, where people put real money behind their palate, electric vehicles and quantum computing are tied at 27% consensus each, with 10 and 9 holders respectively. Also on the ballot: 2 other sides. So far 15 traders have put $16,336 on the table. Remember, those percentages measure how strongly each side is backed, not a headcount. And right now the crowd's conviction is splitting evenly between a dish with a global sales record and one that's still mostly a recipe card.

My verdict, and it is pure opinion, served hot: backing quantum computing as the defining technology of today is like giving Michelin stars to a restaurant that hasn't opened yet. Gorgeous menu, fantastic plating on paper, but I can't taste a promise. The EV at least arrives at the table, even if America keeps sending it back for a hybrid. But if you ask me which ingredient is in every single dish of this era, the answer is the smartphone. My colleague Madame Odds already watched Apple and Samsung fight over who owns the pocket. Leaving the phone off this podium is like judging a bake-off and forgetting the flour.

What to watch next: whether a tie this early breaks one way as more traders sit down, whether the AI assistant crowd wakes up and pushes back, and whether the smartphone faithful finally storm the kitchen. The market is barely warm. Pick up a fork and back your favourite on Morfi before the judges, meaning all of you, make the final call.