AI-Powered Biotech Can Help Deploy a Vaccine In Record Time

The magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic will largely depend on how quickly safe and effective vaccines and treatments can be developed and tested. Many assume a widely available vaccine is years away, if ever. Others believe that a 12- to 18-month development cycle is a given. Our best bet to reduce even that record-breaking timeline is by using artificial intelligence. The problem is twofold: discovering the right set of molecules among billions of possibilities, and then waiting for clinical trials. These processes ordinarily take several years, but AI holds the key to radically shortening both.