The lab of the future is now

Abstract

After making gradual inroads in drug and materials discovery in recent years, artificial intelligence is suddenly appearing in a new light. Autonomous labs that link AI-based data analysis to robotic synthesis and validation are being demonstrated in both academia and industry. These labs prefigure a new work environment in which machines perform many of the traditional functions of researchers. Proponents argue that this self-driven R&D environment will enhance the efforts of multidisciplinary scientists, who will maintain ultimate control. Chemical and drug firms are taking a serious look at what may be the lab of the future. The laboratory of the future is a visionary concept: a goal that evolves as technology advances. Predictions are made, skeptics respond, and the vision reboots. The future offers few guarantees. But it also tends to develop over time rather than spring up, shockingly new, overnight. The lab of the future, Platonic ideal that it