Correction to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56122-3, published online 29 January 2025

In the version of this article initially published, there was a missing milestone in the Fig. 3a timeline, where “2018: Metasurface inverse design104” (ref. 104: Malkiel, I. et al. Light Sci. Appl. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-018-0060-7 (2018)) was not listed. The figure is now amended in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.