Image source: Nobel Prize Committee Blue Whale News, October 10 (Reporter Zhu Junxi) Following the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, another Nobel Prize will be awarded to artificial intelligence. On October 9, local time, the Royal Sweden Academy of Sciences announced that the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded to David Baker, a biochemist in United States, as well as Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, and John Jumper, director, in recognition of their major breakthroughs in protein structure. According to the Nobel Prize Committee, David Baker, a professor at the University of Washington at Seattle in United States and a researcher at the Howard · Hughes Medical Institute, won the award for constructing a new type of protein, "successfully accomplishing an almost impossible feat." In addition, the Rosetta software developed by David Baker has also introduced deep learning technology, which has become an important tool in the field of protein structure prediction and design, and is widely used in drug development, vaccine design, etc. Demis Hassabis, 48, co-founded AI research company DeepMind in 2010 and has served as CEO since then, leading several important projects such as AlphaGo and AlphaFold. John Jumper, 39, joined DeepMind in 2017 and is currently a senior research scientist and lead the AlphaFold project. In 2014, Google acquired DeepMind for more than $500 million, and in 2023 it merged with another AI research unit, Google Brain, to form Google DeepMind. The merged team has become the core force of Google to deal with the global AI arms race, with general artificial intelligence as the ultimate goal, involved in AI technology research, basic scientific research, game AI and other fields, with famous AlphaGo, AlphaFold and other projects. The Nobel Prize Committee noted in its announcement that Demis Hassabis and John Jumper proposed the AI model AlphaFold2 in 2020. With the help of this model, it was possible to predict the structure of almost all of the 200 million proteins discovered by the researchers. Since this breakthrough, more than 2 million people from 190 countries have used AlphaFold2, which can help researchers better understand antibiotic resistance and develop enzymes that break down plastics. In May of this year, Google DeepMind also launched the latest version of AlphaFold 3. The model can predict not only protein structure, but also the structure and interaction of all living molecules, including DNA, RNA, etc., with high accuracy. Google's DeepMind said at the time that AlphaFold 3 had moved beyond protein into the broader biomolecular realm, a leap that could unlock more transformative science, from developing biorenewable materials to accelerating drug design and more. After learning of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Demis Hassabis told the media, "I have dedicated my life to advancing artificial intelligence because I truly believe that it has the potential to improve the lives of billions of people." John Jumper said in a statement that the award shows that AI will accelerate scientific research, help understand diseases and develop treatments. The announcement of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry comes just a day after this year's physics prize was awarded to two pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence, including Geoffrey Hinton, the "godfather of AI" who served as Google's vice president and engineering researcher. After the physics prize was announced, Demis Hassabis was quick to congratulate the "good friend and former Google colleague" on social media X, praising him for laying the foundation for the deep learning revolution in modern artificial intelligence. Fortunately, a day later, Demis Hassabis himself won the Chemistry Prize. The Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Physics Prize to Geoffrey Hinton for his groundbreaking discovery in machine learning using artificial neural networks to train machines using the tools of statistical physics. However, after the award was announced, many people questioned the appropriateness of awarding the physics prize to AI research in the field of computer science, arguing that AI is not closely related to traditional physics. Nobel Prize winners David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper in chemistry have also been widely regarded as favourites for this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In September last year, Google's DeepMind's Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the 2023 Lasker Prize for Basic Medical Research for their AlphaFold project, which is also seen as a bellwether for the Nobel Prize. But the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, announced on October 7, was awarded to two other scientists, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, for discovering the basic principles that regulate gene activity. The Nobel Prize Committee has made it clearer why the Chemistry Prize should be awarded to AI-related research. According to its interpretation, proteins are the delicate chemical tools of life, capable of controlling and driving all the chemical reactions that together form the basis of life. Google's DeepMind's AlphaFold is able to predict protein structures based on amino acid sequences, solving long-standing research problems and opening up a wide range of possibilities. It can be said that Google is the biggest winner of this year's Nobel Prize, thanks to the awards of several former and current employees.
Source | Blue Whale Finance
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