A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering will organize a public workshop to examine fundamental questions that could help shape our understanding of chemistry's future and identify pathways toward new opportunities and capabilities: What will the chemical sciences landscape look like in 2050? How can the chemical sciences community identify important issues to begin addressing and what actions can be taken now and over the next decade to achieve success by 2050?

The workshop will focus on three conceivable inflection points where strategic investment today, and increased adaptive capacity to capitalize on breakthroughs, could yield transformative benefits for chemistry's competitiveness:

1. Energy: With advances in energy generation and the prospect of nuclear fusion on the horizon, how will chemical industries capitalize on inexpensive abundant electricity? What new processes become viable when constraints related to the costs of energy are greatly reduced or removed?
2. Quantum Computing: Will quantum computing compress molecular design and synthesis timelines? Could challenges in catalysis and circular resource systems be overcome, helping avoid dependence on scarce materials like rare earth and platinum group metals?
3. Materials and Manufacturing: Can new materials and feedstocks be achieved through carbon capture? What opportunities could be unlocked from a fully circular chemical economy? Looking beyond Earth, might space-based manufacturing enable processes impossible under terrestrial conditions?

A workshop proceedings-in-brief, authored by a rapporteur, will be published after the workshop, synthesizing insights for the research priorities and collaboration needed that could ensure chemistry delivers breakthrough technologies for global competitiveness.