An end-to-end, integrated chemical research system unveiled by IBM last week gives us a glimpse of how artificial intelligence, robotics and the cloud might change the future of drug discovery. And it's a good time as any to see some a breakthrough in the field. The world is still struggling with the covid-19 pandemic, and the race to the find a vaccine for the dangerous novel coronavirus has not yet yielded reliable results. Researchers are bound by travel and social distancing limitations imposed by the virus, and for the most part, they still rely on manual methods that can take many years. While in some cases, such delays can result in inconvenience, in the case of covid-19, it means more lives lost.

IBM has announced on its blog page the development of an AI/cloud-based chemistry lab named RoboRXN. Its purpose is to help chemists develop new materials in a faster and more efficient way than the current trial-and-error process. For thousands of years, humans have devised new materials by combining other raw materials, quite often through the use of treatments to instigate chemical reactions. However, the trial-and-error method--an oftentimes tedious and expensive endeavor--has remained relatively unchanged over the years. As part of its announcement, IBM suggests that in the modern age, it costs on average $10 million (and takes on average 10 years) for a company to develop a useful new material.

An end-to-end, integrated chemical research system unveiled by IBM last week gives us a glimpse of how artificial intelligence, robotics and the cloud might change the future of drug discovery. And it's a good time as any to see some a breakthrough in the field. The world is still struggling with the covid-19 pandemic, and the race to the find a vaccine for the dangerous novel coronavirus has not yet yielded reliable results. Researchers are bound by travel and social distancing limitations imposed by the virus, and for the most part, they still rely on manual methods that can take many years. While in some cases, such delays can result in inconvenience, in the case of covid-19, it means more lives lost.

The news: IBM has built a new chemistry lab called RoboRXN in the cloud. It combines AI models, a cloud computing platform, and robots to help scientists design and synthesize new molecules while working from home. How it works: The online lab platform allows scientists to log on through a web browser. On a blank canvas, they draw the skeletal structure of the molecular compounds they want to make, and the platform uses machine learning to predict the ingredients required and the order in which they should be mixed. It then sends the instructions to a robot in a remote lab to execute.