Project

Impacts of AI in Science: AlphaFold 2

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly integrated into scientific research, driven by advancements in neural networks and the collection of large-scale data. This integration has fueled discussions about AI’s potential to accelerate discovery and widen the scope of scientific exploration.

IGL was commissioned to investigate the impact of AlphaFold2, an AI tool developed by Google DeepMind in 2021, that addresses a longstanding problem in structural biology – protein structure prediction.

We conducted an analysis on 5 million academic publications, clinical articles, patents and protein structures to investigate the impact of AlphaFold 2. We measured the association of AlphaFold 2 with scientific productivity, novel research and applied outcomes. We assessed direct and indirect impacts of the tool against a baseline of structural biology research, and other high-impact, contemporary developments in four key areas: Scientific reach, Experimental structural biology, Academic productivity and quality, Applied research and innovation.

IGL acknowledges support from Google DeepMind to carry out this work as an independent assessment of the impact of AlphaFold 2. IGL retained full control of the methodology, analysis and report.