Seven Ways Berkeley Lab is Using AI to Advance Science

AI Unleashes Scientific Breakthroughs: Seven Innovations from Berkeley Lab

Artificial intelligence is transforming scientific research. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), advanced AI tools accelerate discovery, enabling entirely new fields of inquiry. From particle physics to advanced materials, Berkeley Lab's AI expertise keeps U.S. science at the cutting edge. Here are seven transformative projects showcasing this profound impact.

1. Autonomous Lab of the Future (A-Lab)

To speed up new material development for fuel cells and batteries, Berkeley Lab's A-Lab uses AI-guided robots. It synthesizes and tests materials 50 to 100 times faster than humans. This "closed-loop" system generates chemical recipes from vast data, with robots synthesizing promising candidates. This integration of AI and automation frees scientists for design, revolutionizing materials discovery.

2. Faster Bio-Based Product Pipeline

Synthetic biology designs organisms for specific purposes, like producing chemicals or targeting cancer. Staff scientist Héctor García Martín merges AI, mathematical modeling, and robotics to speed up design and testing. His work aims to accelerate timelines 20-fold, potentially creating new commercial molecules in six months instead of ten years. This benefits medical, chemical, and energy sectors immensely.

3. Record-Breaking Capacitor Materials

Film capacitors are crucial for high-temperature electronics. Traditionally, finding suitable chemicals was slow. Berkeley Lab scientists developed a machine learning technique to rapidly screen chemical libraries. It screened nearly 50,000 structures in a fraction of the time, identifying a compound with record-breaking performance. This innovation yields more cost-effective, reliable energy technologies.

4. Smarter Particle Smashing (OmniFold)

Particle collider data is enormous; analysis can take decades. Berkeley Lab developed OmniFold, an AI tool simplifying this. Used to study proton structure with HERA data, OmniFold performs analyses in minutes, leveraging supercomputers like Perlmutter. It accelerates fundamental physics discoveries, helping identify hidden patterns and potentially new particles, with astrophysics applications too.

5. Revolutionizing Data Collection (gpCAM)

gpCAM, an open-source tool from Berkeley Lab’s CAMERA, automates data collection and analysis. Using advanced math, it quickly predicts outcomes and measures uncertainty, boosting experimental efficiency. For example, 2D material microscopy imaging time dropped from three weeks to eight hours. An R&D 100 Award winner, gpCAM is widely adopted, speeding high-quality data acquisition across diverse fields.

6. Enhanced Molecular Modeling (DeePMD-kit)

Simulating complex chemical processes like protein folding needs accurate atomic modeling, often limited by scale. Berkeley Lab co-developed DeePMD-kit, an AI software vastly improving simulations. This 2020 Gordon Bell Prize winner uses neural networks to simulate over 100 million atoms—ten times more than previous programs—accurately. Open source, DeePMD-kit accelerates materials science, chemistry, and biology research by enabling longer reaction analyses.

7. Machine Learning at the Control Panel (GPTune)

Optimizing complex instruments, like particle accelerators, involves fine-tuning many parameters. Berkeley Lab co-developed GPTune, an AI algorithm for instrument control. Trained on Brookhaven Lab’s RHIC data, GPTune adjusted 45 parameters. This significantly increased RHIC’s beam intensity and precision. This powerful tool applies to various scientific instruments, promising enhanced efficiency in experimental science.

The AI-Powered Future of Science is Here

These seven examples show how AI actively drives groundbreaking scientific discovery at Berkeley Lab. From autonomous labs and rapid materials synthesis to accelerated biological engineering and fundamental physics research, AI reshapes scientific inquiry. The tangible benefits—unprecedented speed, efficiency, tackling intractable problems, and novel discoveries—highlight these technologies' transformative power. For researchers, it means more creative design, faster experiments, and deeper insights. For society, it promises quicker solutions in energy, medicine, and technology. As AI tools advance, we foresee breakthroughs at unparalleled pace. Berkeley Lab champions this exciting AI-powered science era.