How Artificial Intelligence can transform the UK’s leadership of scientific discovery
4 min read
The UK has long been a pioneer in driving scientific progress - the country which gave the world Newton, Darwin and Turing. Today, it stands at the precipice of a new era of technological innovation, the responsible development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI is not just a new form of user interface; it is rapidly becoming the most powerful scientific instrument of the 21st century, an essential tool to solve the world’s most complex challenges.
For the United Kingdom, a nation with a legacy of discovery, this presents a historic opportunity we must seize.
For centuries, scientific progress has been hard-won, built on the brilliance and perseverance of individual minds. Even today, our greatest minds face increasingly complex challenges: from addressing growing climate challenges to developing lifesaving treatments, this work can take a lifetime of research and significant resources to progress.
This is where AI could be an indispensable partner. Not as a replacement for human intellect, but as an extraordinarily powerful assistant—an intelligent tool that can navigate vast oceans of data, identify subtle patterns invisible to the human eye, and accelerate the journey to discovery.
This is not a distant future; it is happening now, and the UK is at the epicentre of this transformation. Consider AlphaFold, an AI system developed by our team at Google DeepMind in London. For 50 years, scientists have puzzled over the protein folding problem. Previously determining the 3D shape of a single protein—a process fundamental to understanding diseases—could take up the entirety of a PhD. AlphaFold solved this grand challenge, predicting the structures of over 200 million proteins, virtually every one known to science.
This breakthrough by the Google DeepMind Science team, for which DeepMind’s founder Demis Hassabis and my colleague John Jumper were recognised with a Nobel Prize, was more than an academic victory. We made the entire database of protein structures freely available, empowering a new wave of research. Today, over 170,000 researchers here in the UK are using AlphaFold to accelerate work on everything from developing malaria vaccines and designing plastic-eating enzymes to gaining new insights into cardiovascular diseases. It is a prime example of a 'root node' problem: solving it has unlocked new branches of scientific inquiry.
This renaissance extends far beyond biology. In genomics, AI is helping us understand which genetic variations cause rare diseases. In materials science, our AI tool, GNoMe, has already
discovered 2.2 million new crystal structures, including hundreds of thousands of stable materials that could form the basis for next-generation batteries, more efficient solar panels, or even new catalysts to clean our environment.
The UK has the talent, the research institutions, and the heritage to lead this new golden age of AI-powered discovery. But to secure this future, and the economic growth and societal benefits it promises, we all need to work together.
First, we must sharpen our focus on grand scientific challenges. We should replicate the success of AlphaFold, setting clear, ambitious goals that rally talent and investment towards unlocking solutions to fundamental, long-standing scientific problems.
Second, we must build the essential infrastructure for this revolution: large-scale, high-quality scientific datasets. Data is the fuel for AI, and therefore, strategic investment in creating and curating these national assets is paramount.
Third, we must equip our researchers with AI tools and training. AI literacy should become as fundamental to a scientist’s education as statistics or microscopy, ensuring they are equipped to master a new era of AI-driven science.
The UK has always pushed the boundaries of human knowledge. With AI, we can amplify that legacy beyond imagination.
And this isn’t merely an opportunity; it’s a critical necessity that will help supercharge not just the scientific community, but also impact the broader economy.
Meaningfully integrating AI into society requires vision and a partnership between government, academia, and industry. Let us work together to embrace this transformative moment with ambition, ensuring a future of accelerated progress and enhanced wellbeing is a future forged here in the UK.
Pushmeet Kohli is Vice President of research at Google DeepMind
