Mouse over the bar at the bottom of the screen it should say something like age of war 150/200 meaning you need 50 more techs in the yellow area before you can start researching in the red area

Age of ascension requires 100 techs,  which personally I found way too high.  In my game I was hanging back and researching techs using diplomacy to get others to fight for me. I was aiming to grab huge hulls and come out with uber dreadnought,  but I had to research what felt like every other bloody tech before moving forward. It helps slow down research victories, but also kills the fun for some of those end game techs