The year 2021 was profoundly challenging for citizens, companies, and governments around the world. As covid-19 spread, requiring far-reaching health and safety restrictions, artificial intelligence (AI) applications played a crucial role in saving lives and fostering economic resilience. Research and development (R&D) to enhance core AI capabilities, from autonomous driving and natural language processing to quantum computing, continued unabated. It typically takes years, if not decades, to develop a new vaccine. But by March 2020, vaccine candidates to fight covid-19 were already undergoing human tests, just three months after the first reported cases.