Is humanity facing its final hour? Doomsday Clock update raises existential fears

Humanity is about to learn its fate as the Doomsday Clock is being updated on January 27, 2026 as scheduled by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS).

In 2025, the BAS moved the Doomsday Clock forward by one second to 89 seconds before midnight.

As reported by Daily Mail, it is now expected that the Doomsday clock will move even closer to midnight.

According to experts, the highly turbulent geopolitical landscape, widespread conflicts, the rapid advancements in the field of artificial intelligence, rise of infectious diseases, and ever-present threat of climate change make it certain for the clock to move forward.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will reveal this year’s time in a live streaming starting at 15:00 GMT. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa is scheduled to headline the reveal.

How much change is expected?

According to Alicia Sanders–Zakre, head of policy at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, “In my opinion, the Clock could be moved forward by at least one second. Our biggest concern is the existential threat posed by the more than 12,000 nuclear weapons in the world today.”

Dr SJ Beard, researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge and author of Existential Hope, said, “the clock should be moved nine seconds forward,” citing the drastic change.

Professor Andrew Shepherd, a climate scientist from Northumbria University, told the Daily Mail, “I would not be surprised to see the clock change once again.” citing the harsh climate change realities unfolding in various parts of the world.

Besides the nuclear threats, AI is on equal footing with nuclear weapons since the past years, suggested by Dr Beard.

What is the Doomsday Clock?

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece which is designed to show how close we are to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making”, according to BAS.

The closer clock moves to midnight, the closer the world is to self-destruct.

The clock was developed in 1947 by BAS, founded by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch along with University of Chicago scholars.

It was created to track the risks of nuclear war between the Soviet Union and America. Initially the clock was set at 7-minutes. But in 1949 after the Soviet Union’s testing of the atomic bomb the clock moved forward from 3-minutes to midnight.