In this week’s edition of The Prototype we look at the biggest tech breakthroughs of 2025–and the year’s best music. To get The Prototype in your inbox, sign up here.

Despite political and economic challenges, scientists and engineers kept pushing the envelope in 2025 to develop new technologies that will pave the way for the economy of the future. I’ve been chronicling those week by week in The Prototype newsletter, and as we enter the new year, it’s a good time to look back and see which of those new discoveries seem best positioned to change the world in the upcoming years. Here are what I think historians will look back on as some of the pivotal breakthroughs of 2025.

On March 2, Firefly Aerospace became the first company to successfully land on the Moon, when its spacecraft, called Blue Ghost, touched down on the lunar surface.

This was no easy feat–two previous attempts, from SpaceIL and ispace, crashed on the Moon. Intuitive Machines landed a spacecraft in February, but it broke a strut when it hit the surface and wasn’t able to complete its mission objectives. Its second attempt, in February 2025, resulted in the spacecraft tipping over and rendering it unable to complete its objectives. Ispace made another attempt in June, but its spacecraft again crash-landed.

Blue Ghost’s success, though, shows that it’s possible for private companies to do what only governments could do before. And other companies are undeterred by failure. Intuitive Machines plans another landing attempt in 2026, as is ispace. And Firefly’s next Blue Ghost mission, which will land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, is currently set to launch as early as the second half of this year.

In October, Google used its Willow quantum computing chip, making calculations an

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