AI mathematician, tumour fungi and Africa's coronavirus genomes

AlphaTensor was designed to perform matrix multiplications, but the same approach could be used to tackle other mathematical challenges.Credit: DeepMind An artificial intelligence (AI) developed by machine-learning company DeepMind in London has tackled a type of calculation called matrix multiplication. The system -- called AlphaTensor -- leverages the skills that DeepMind's game-playing AIs use to beat human players at games such as Go and chess. Matrix multiplication is a widely used mathematical technique that involves multiplying numbers arranged in grids, or matrices, that might represent sets of pixels in images, air conditions in a weather model or the internal workings of an artificial neural network. AlphaTensor broke ground by finding shortcuts to solve these problems with fewer steps (A. The same general approach could have applications in other kinds of mathematical operation, its developers say, such as decomposing complex waves or other mathematical objects into simpler ones.