Beyond the chatbots and productivity tools that have dominated public attention, AI is extending the reach of cutting-edge science and helping scientists globally tackle some of the greatest challenges facing their communities. This profound shift remains underappreciated-and it is leaving the technology's immense benefits largely untapped. Unlocking AI's potential to accelerate science is a defining goal for both of us.
Five years ago, in late November 2020, researchers at London-based Google DeepMind unveiled AlphaFold2. The artificial intelligence tool for predicting protein structures generated stunningly accurate 3D models that, in some cases, were indistinguishable from experimental maps, dominating a long-running structure-prediction challenge. The first version of AlphaFold was announced in 2018, but its predictions weren't nearly as good as its successor, which limited its impact.