2020s in science and technology

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

Biology and medicine

 * DeepMind used artificial intelligence for the first time to predict protein folding.
 * Singapore became the first jurisdiction to approve the sale of cultured meat.
 * The vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna against Coronavirus disease 2019 became the first vaccines developed using messenger RNA and mark the fastest vaccine development and approval, taking only 10 months.
 * Oregon became the first jurisdiction to legalize the medicinal use of psilocybin for mental health treatment.

Energy

 * QuantumScape revealed that it had created the first functioning prototype of a solid-state battery, promising to massively increase battery capacity.
 * The Chinese Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak 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 has designated the 2020s as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Space

 * NASA's Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance rover, was successfully launched on 30 July 2020 to study the habitability of Mars in preparation for future human missions.
 * The Chang'e 5 successfully landed on the surface of the Moon in 2020.
 * 16 September 2021, SpaceX launched Inspiration4. It was the first orbital launch of an all-private crew, including the first person with a prosthesis who was also the youngest person in space (aged 29).
 * NASA's Artemis 1 mission to the Moon launched on 16 November 2022 to test the Space Launch System rocket.
 * The James Webb Space Telescope was successfully launched on 25 December 2021. On 12 July 2022, the first full-color images captured were released to the public which included Webb's First Deep Field and others.
 * India hopes to conduct its first human spaceflight, Gaganyaan in late 2024.
 * The first component of the Lunar Gateway, a proposed inhabitable space station to be implemented by multiple international space agencies on the Moon, the Power and Propulsion Element, is set to be delivered by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in November 2024.
 * ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer was launched on 14 April 2023.
 * SpaceX founder and entrepreneur Elon Musk plans to send the first Starship to Mars in 2029, paving the way to the colonization of the planet.
 * NASA plans to send "the first woman and the next man" to the Lunar south pole region via Artemis 3 in 2025.
 * The European Space Agency plans to begin mining the Moon for natural resources by 2025.

Air

 * In 2021, United Airlines revealed plans to purchase 15 supersonic Boom Overture aircraft by the end of the decade.

Land

 * Waymo became the first company to offer self-driving car services to the general public without a human supervisor in Chandler, Arizona.
 * Autonomous delivery vehicles began transporting food to customers in Texas in 2021.

Computing and artificial intelligence

 * Artificial intelligence-assisted coding began to emerge in the early 2020s.
 * El Salvador passed Bitcoin law to become the first country to give cryptocurrency and bitcoin the status of legal tender.

Physics

 * In January 2020, Physicists discovered a unique metal with billions of quantum entangled electrons.
 * The Large Hadron Collider will once again begin operation in early 2021;  the collider was shut down in December 2018 "to enable major upgrade and renovation works."