About AIAS 2025

Organized in partnership with UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, AIAS2025 (www.aias2025.org) is a two-day gathering focused on promoting cutting-edge ways that AI is accelerating scientific discovery across disciplines.

This year’s program featured presentations from three Nobel Laureates – Jennifer Doudna, David Baker and Omar Yaghi. It also included a wide slate of academic and industry leaders including distinguished academy members.

The Chen Institute and Science AI Prize for Accelerated Research Grand Prize Winner, Zhuoran Qiao, and finalists Aditya Nair and Alizée Roobaert also presented their research after receiving their awards.

Talks highlighted generative modeling for molecules and materials, AI‑driven experimental automation, climate and earth‑systems modeling, and next‑generation memory and reasoning architectures.

The Future of AI

Tianqiao Chen: “Human evolution has never stopped; it has changed its form. Our tools—now including AI—are the external organs of evolution. The ultimate value of AI is discovery: systems that pose new questions, uncover causal structure, and generate knowledge. That is what I call “Discoverative” Intelligence.”

Thoughts on Discoverative AI

Animashree Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology: AI for scientific discovery needs to extrapolate beyond the training regime. This cannot come from data alone. We need to infuse knowledge of physics to enable novel and surprising discoveries.

David J. Anderson, Ph.D., Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair, Director, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience, Investigator, HHMI: "The scale of funding and new mechanisms proposed by TCCI to attract talented young researchers to push the capabilities of AI, from acceleration of research to discovery of the unknown, would have a transformative impact."

Jennifer Chayes, Dean, UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society:
“Discoverative intelligence is the perfect term to describe the iterative process of integration of generative AI, massively parallel experimentation, and human-guided creativity. Discoverative intelligence is the future of science, and will lead to tremendously accelerated discoveries in biomedicine and health, climate and sustainability, and human welfare.”

John Hennessy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, Chairman of Alphabet Inc.: “Science is fundamentally about discovery, and discoverative AI captures the essence of applying AI to science, namely to speed up and enhance discovery!

Yannis C Yortsos, Zohrab A. Kaprielian Dean’s Chair in Engineering and Chester Dolley Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering: Whether as a tool, a catalyst or as a technology, AI is rapidly accelerating scientific discovery. This “discoverative” element is only going to grow.

Full List of AIAS2025 Speakers

Listed in alphabetical order:

• Animashree Anandkumar — Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology.

• David Anderson — Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology; Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience Leadership Chair; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Director, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience, California Institute of Technology.

• David Baker — Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Henrietta Aubrey Davis Endowed Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington.

• Chris Bishop — Technical Fellow, Director of Microsoft Research AI for Science.

• Jennifer Chayes — Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, University of California, Berkeley.

• Tianqiao Chen — Founder, Shanda Group.

• Jia Deng — Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University.

• Jennifer Doudna — Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences; Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, University of California, Berkeley.

• John Hennessy — President Emeritus of Stanford University; Chairman of Alphabet Inc.

• Jiantao Jiao — Director of Research and Distinguished Scientist, NVIDIA and Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.

• Hamid Karimian — Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University.

• Parisa Kordjamshidi — Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University.

• Heather J. Kulik — Lammot du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Yan Li — Executive Director of Scientific Programs, Chen Institute.

• Zhandong Liu — Associate Professor of Neurology and Co-Director of the Quantitative & Computational Biosciences Graduate Program, Baylor College of Medicine.

• Chrissy Luo — Co-Founder, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute; Co-Founder, Vice Chair & President, Shanda Group.

• Theresa Maldonado — AAAS President, University of California Office of the President.

• Tom Miller — Co-Founder and CEO, Iambic Therapeutics.

• Aditya Nair — Nanyang Assistant Professor of Neuroscience & AI, LKC Medicine–NTU Singapore.

• Jian Pei — Arthur S. Pearse Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Duke University.

• Pietro Perona — Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering; Director, Information Science and Technology, California Institute of Technology.

• Angela Pisco — Director of Data Science, CZI.

• Zhuoran Qiao — Founding Scientist, Chai Discovery.

• Alizée Roobaert — Researcher, Flanders Marine Institute.

• Stuart Russell — Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley.

• Maryam Shanechi — Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science, University of Southern California.

• Widya Mulyasasmita — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, BEVC.

• Omar M. Yaghi — Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley.

• Yannis C. Yortsos — Dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; Zohrab Kaprielian Dean’s Chair in Engineering, University of Southern California.

• Larry Zitnick — Research Scientist in the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team at Meta AI.

Accepted Papers

The AIAS 2025 Program Committee is pleased to present the papers accepted for inclusion in the conference program. Each submission was subject to a rigorous peer review process conducted by the paper review committee, with careful attention to scholarly quality, originality, and relevance to the conference themes.

From more than sixty submissions, the following papers were selected for presentation. These contributions reflect significant advances in the field and exemplify the high standards of research and academic integrity upheld by AIAS 2025.