The robots revolutionising chemistry
Researchers working with automated systems are pushing the boundaries of what chemists can achieve in the lab, reports James Mitchell Crow
With rapid recent advances in AI, it suddenly becomes possible to envisage systems in which a computer runs a reaction, characterises the products, analyses the result, then selects the next experiment to autonomously explore chemical space. A diverse array of robot chemists is now beginning to swing into action, carrying out chemistry experiments in an AI-driven feedback-controlled fashion.