You may have heard of AI engines that can draw realistic images of landscapes or portraits of people that don’t exist. These are called generative models, and rather than use them to create imaginary things, we’ve adapted this technology to design new materials at unprecedented speeds.
Generative modeling “flips” the traditional design process. Rather than going through cycles of invention then testing, researchers simply decide what characteristics they want a new material to have, and AI pulls from massive amounts of data to reverse-engineer molecules that fit the description. In a matter of hours, an AI engine can draft thousands of designs. This significantly expands the scope of possibility researchers can explore.