From models of galaxies to atoms, simple AI shortcuts speed up simulations by billions of times

Emulators speed up simulations, such as this NASA aerosol model that shows soot from fires in Australia. Modeling immensely complex natural phenomena such as how subatomic particles interact or how atmospheric haze affects climate can take many hours on even the fastest supercomputers. Emulators, algorithms that quickly approximate these detailed simulations, offer a shortcut. Now, work posted online shows how artificial intelligence (AI) can easily produce accurate emulators that can accelerate simulations across all of science by billions of times. "This is a big deal," says Donald Lucas, who runs climate simulations at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was not involved in the work.