(3 Sept 2020) IBM has announced on its blog page the development of an AI/cloud-based chemistry lab named RoboRXN. Its purpose is to help chemists develop new materials in a faster and more efficient way than the current trial-and-error process.
For thousands of years, humans have devised new materials by combining other raw materials, quite often through the use of treatments to instigate chemical reactions. However, the trial-and-error method—an oftentimes tedious and expensive endeavor—has remained relatively unchanged over the years. As part of its announcement, IBM suggests that in the modern age, it costs on average $10 million (and takes on average 10 years) for a company to develop a useful new material. IBM is hoping to change that by automating much of the process using a combination of artificial intelligence and cloud-based access. To that end, the company has expanded on IBM RXN for Chemistry, a free cloud-based app the company launched in 2018 that predicts the outcome of chemical reactions. RoboRXN goes further by allowing chemists to feed the system a molecule they want to make, and the system returns a step-by-step instruction guide along with a list of ingredients—essentially, a cooking recipe. IBM claims their new system will allow chemists to synthesize materials in unprecedented ways.
Read the full news from Phys.org here.
Visit RoboRXN here.
