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Category: robotics/AI – Page 696

New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble

Proteins are the molecular machines that sustain every cell and organism, and knowing what they look like will be critical to untangling how they function normally and malfunction in disease. Now researchers have taken a huge stride toward that goal with the development of new machine learning algorithms that can predict the folded shapes of not only proteins but other biomolecules with unprecedented accuracy.

In a paper published today in Nature, Google DeepMind and its spinoff company Isomorphic Labs announced the latest iteration of their AlphaFold program, AlphaFold3, which can predict the structures of proteins, DNA, RNA, ligands and other biomolecules, either alone or bound together in different embraces. The findings follow the tail of a similar update to another deep learning structure-prediction algorithm, called RoseTTAFold All-Atom, which was published in March in Science.

China’s home-grown general-purpose humanoid jogs out at 6 km/h

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center has unveiled Tiangong, an electrically-driven general-purpose humanoid that’s capable of stable running at 6 km/h, while also able to tackle slopes and stairs in “blind conditions.”

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center was set up in November last year as “the first provincial-level humanoid robot innovation center in China,” and is part of a new technology hub that’s home to more than a hundred robotics companies – coming together to form a complete industrial chain for core components, applications development and complete robot builds.

The company is a joint venture from Beijing Yizhuang Investment Holdings Limited, UBTech Robotics, Xiaomi, and Beijing Jingcheng Machinery Electric. Its aim is to “undertake five key tasks, including the development of general-purpose humanoid robot prototypes and general-purpose large-scale humanoid robot models.”

Tesla releases new Optimus humanoid robot video that creates controversy

Tesla has released a new video of a prototype of Optimus, its humanoid robot, and it created some controversy as some disagree about how impressive it is.

Last month, Elon Musk gave an update on the timing for the rollout of Optimus. The CEO says that Optimus is already performing factory tasks inside its lab. He believes that Optimus will be used to perform real tasks inside actual Tesla factories by the end of the year.

Furthermore, Musk said that he believes Tesla could start selling its Optimus humanoid robot to customers outside of the company by the end of 2025.

Research team develops AI to perform chemical synthesis

Chemistry, with its intricate processes and vast potential for innovation, has always been a challenge for automation. Traditional computational tools, despite their advanced capabilities, often remain underutilized due to their complexity and the specialized knowledge required to operate them.

Now, researchers with the group of Philippe Schwaller at EPFL have developed ChemCrow, an AI that integrates 18 expertly designed tools, enabling it to navigate and perform tasks within chemical research with unprecedented efficiency. Their research is published in Nature Machine Intelligence.

“You might wonder why a crow?” asks Schwaller. “Because crows are known to use tools well.”

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