Reproduced under a CC BY 3.0 licence. How does an iPhone predict the next word you're going to type in your messages? The technology behind this, and also at the core of many AI applications, is called a transformer; a deep-learning model that handles sequences of data in parallel, and can be fine-tuned for specific tasks. Now, researchers at EPFL and KAIST have created a transformer for Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), a class of porous crystalline materials whose potential applications include energy storage and gas separation. MOFs are composed of thousands of tunable molecular building blocks (metal nodes and organic linkers), and, considering all possible configurations, a vast number of MOFs could potentially be synthesised.

How does an iPhone predict the next word you're going to type in your messages? The technology behind this, and also at the core of many AI applications, is called a transformer; a deep-learning algorithm that detects patterns in datasets. Now, researchers at EPFL and KAIST have created a transformer for Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), a class of porous crystalline materials. By combining organic linkers with metal nodes, chemists can synthesize millions of different materials with potential applications in energy storage and gas separation. The "MOFtransformer" is designed to be the ChatGPT for researchers that study MOFs.