This article is a summary of the 2020s in science and technology.

Biology and medicine

DeepMind DeepMind Technologies Limited, trading as Google DeepMind or simply DeepMind, is a British–American artificial intelligence research laboratory which serves as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Founded in the UK in 2010, it was acquired by Go ...

used artificial intelligence for the first time to predict

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein, after Protein biosynthesis, synthesis by a ribosome as a linear chain of Amino acid, amino acids, changes from an unstable random coil into a more ordered protein tertiary structure, t ...

. *Singapore became the first jurisdiction to approve the sale of

cultured meat Cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat among other names, is a form of cellular agriculture wherein meat is produced by culturing animal cells ''in vitro''; thus growing animal flesh, molecularly identical to that of conventional meat, ou ...

. *The vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and

Moderna Moderna, Inc. ( ) is an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to carry inst ...

against

Coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include f ...

became the first vaccines developed using

messenger RNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein. mRNA is created during the ...

and mark the fastest vaccine development and approval, taking only 10 months. *

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

became the first jurisdiction to legalize the medicinal use of

psilocybin Psilocybin, also known as 4-phosphoryloxy-''N'',''N''-dimethyltryptamine (4-PO-DMT), is a natural product, naturally occurring tryptamine alkaloid and Investigational New Drug, investigational drug found in more than List of psilocybin mushroom ...

for mental health treatment.

Energy

* QuantumScape revealed that it had created the first functioning prototype of a

solid-state battery A solid-state battery (SSB) is an electrical battery that uses a solid electrolyte (''solectro'') to conduct ions between the electrodes, instead of the liquid or gel polymer electrolytes found in conventional batteries. Solid-state batteries t ...

, promising to massively increase battery capacity. * The Chinese

Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), also known as HT-7U (Hefei Tokamak 7 Upgrade), is an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion energy reactor in Hefei, China. Operated by the Hefei Institutes of Physical Sc ...

was turned on for the first time. The China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor is being planned for commissioning later in the decade. * Group14 Technologies has patented SCC55, a silicon-carbon composite, leading to 50% more in fully lithiated volumetric energy density than graphite used in conventional lithium-ion battery anodes.

Environmental sciences

* The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

has designated the 2020s as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Space

Transport

Air

* In 2021,

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that operates an extensive domestic and international route network across the United States and six ...

revealed plans to purchase 15 supersonic

Boom Overture The Boom Overture is a supersonic airliner under development by Boom Technology, designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 or . It is expected to carry 64 to 80 passengers, depending on configuration, with a range of . Boom aims to introduce the Ove ...

aircraft by the end of the decade.

Land

Waymo Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Google's parent company (Alphabet Inc., Alphabet Inc). T ...

became the first company to offer

self-driving car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no human input. They are sometimes called robotaxis, though this term refers specifica ...

services to the general public without a human supervisor in

Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is the List of municipalities in Arizona, fourth-most populous city in Arizona ...

. *Autonomous delivery vehicles began transporting food to customers in

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

in 2021.

Computing and artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

-assisted coding began to emerge in the early 2020s. *

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

passed

Bitcoin law The Bitcoin Law (, )Diario Oficial ...

to become the first country to give

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

and

bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

the status of

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

Robotics and machine learning

Physics

* In January 2020, Physicists discovered a unique metal with billions of quantum entangled

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

s. *The

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

will once again begin operation in early 2021; the collider was shut down in December 2018 "to enable major upgrade and renovation works."

Paleontology

Archaeology

References

{{2020s, state=expanded Science and technology by decade 2020s-related lists 2020s