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The 21st century is the current century in the Anno Domini or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001 and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the 3rd millennium.
The rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism marked the beginning of the century, along with increased private enterprise and deepening concern over terrorism after the September 11 attacks in 2001.[1][2][3] The NATO intervention in Afghanistan and the United States-led coalition intervention in Iraq in the early 2000s, as well as the overthrow of several regimes during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world, resulting in several civil wars and political instability.[4] In February 2022, Russia conducted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has since became the largest conventional military offensive in Europe since World War II, resulting in a refugee crisis and disruptions to global trade. Since October 2023, the Israel–Hamas War has been an armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups, taking place chiefly in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. The United States has remained the sole global superpower, while China is now considered to be an emerging superpower.
In 2022, 45% of the world's population lived in "some form of democracy", although only 8% lived in "full democracies".[5] The United Nations estimates that by 2050, two thirds of the world's population will be urbanized.
The world economy expanded at high rates from $42 trillion in 2000 to $101 trillion in 2022, and though many economies rose at greater levels, some gradually contracted.[a] The European Union greatly expanded in the 21st century, adding 13 member states, but the United Kingdom withdrew. Most EU member states introduced a common currency, the Euro. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also greatly expanded, adding 13 member states.
Effects of global warming and rising sea levels exacerbated the ecological crises, with eight islands disappearing between 2007 and 2014.[6][7][8]
Globally, from January 2020 to May 2023, the COVID-19 pandemic began to rapidly spread worldwide, causing more than 7 million reported deaths,[9] and around 18.2 to 33.5 million estimated deaths,[10] while at the same time, causing severe global economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s.[11] COVID-19 vaccines were widely deployed in various countries beginning in December 2020. Widespread supply shortages, including food shortages, were caused by supply chain disruptions and panic buying. Reduced human activity led to an unprecedented temporary decrease in pollution. Educational institutions and public areas were partially or fully closed in many jurisdictions, and many events were cancelled or postponed during 2020 and 2021. Telework became much more common for white-collar workers as the pandemic evolved. Misinformation circulated through social and mass medias, and political tensions intensified.[12]
Due to the sudden proliferation of internet-accessible mobile devices, such as smartphones becoming ubiquitous worldwide beginning in the early 2010s, more than two thirds of the world's population obtained access to the Internet by 2023.[13] After the success of the Human Genome Project, DNA sequencing services became available and affordable.[14][15] There were significant improvements in the complexity of artificial intelligence, with American companies, universities, and research labs pioneering advances in the field.[16] Generative AI-based applications such as ChatGPT and DALL-E have accumulated billions of users, and allow users to instantly generate complex texts, images, art, and video, comparable to the sophistication of human work.[17] Research into outer space greatly accelerated in the 2020s, with the United States mainly dominating space exploration, including the James Webb Space Telescope, Ingenuity helicopter, Lunar Gateway, and Artemis program.[18][19]
Instead, the United States has developed a new area of dominance that the rest of the world views with a mixture of awe, envy, and resentment: artificial intelligence... From AI models and research to cloud computing and venture capital, U.S. companies, universities, and research labs – and their affiliates in allied countries – appear to have an enormous lead in both developing cutting-edge AI and commercializing it. The value of U.S. venture capital investments in AI start-ups exceeds that of the rest of the world combined.
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