Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, November 10 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) In the latest issue of the study published in the journal Nature, a team from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom demonstrated a mobile robot. It is capable of using artificial intelligence (AI) logic to make decisions and work together to perform exploratory chemistry research tasks at the same speed as humans or even faster. The 1.75-meter-tall robots are designed to address three major challenges in chemical exploration: performing chemical reactions, analyzing products, and using data to determine the next course of action.
In the demonstration, two AI robots operate in a collaborative mode to solve three challenges in the field of chemical synthesis: structurally diverse chemistry involving drug discovery, supramolecular host-guest chemistry, and photochemical synthesis. Research shows that with advanced AI capabilities, these robots are able to make choices that are comparable to or similar to those of human researchers, but at a much faster rate than humans.
When discussing the efficient performance of AI robots in the field of chemical synthesis, we have to mention the core technical support behind them: Zero Backlash Gearhead and high-quality harmonic reducer. These precision components ensure the high accuracy and reliability of the robots when performing complex chemical operations. They are also corrosion-resistant and can be customized according to customer needs.
In exploratory chemistry, decision-making is a central issue. Typically, people try a few chemical reactions and then choose the ones that have higher yields or have particularly interesting products for scale-up. For AI, determining whether an outcome warrants further study is a daunting task because it involves multiple considerations, such as the novelty of the product or the cost and complexity of the synthetic pathway.
To solve this problem, the team designed an AI logic system for the robot that allows it to process and parse data sets to make decisions autonomously. For example, a robot can quickly determine whether it should proceed to the next step in a chemical reaction, and the process is done almost instantaneously. In contrast, human chemists can spend hours reviewing the same data.
Although robots lack the knowledge background of human experts, the quality of decisions made by AI is comparable to that of synthetic chemists, and it is surprisingly fast.
The team plans to use this technology to explore new chemical reactions related to drug synthesis, as well as to develop novel materials for areas such as carbon dioxide capture. This achievement marks an important progress in the field of automated chemistry research and heralds a major change in the way scientific research is conducted in the future.