AI Drives Intelligent Transformation of High-End Scientific Instruments, Key Forum Highlights Industry Trends

High-end scientific instruments are the cornerstone of national science and technology, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) is currently promoting their intelligent and precise development. During the 19th China Scientific Instruments Development Annual Conference held on April 23-24, the demand for intelligent instruments in scientific research became a key topic of discussion, reflecting the industry’s focus on technological innovation.

“In the past, scientific research relied on manual experiments, which were prone to errors, inefficient and likely to form data silos,” said Li Jinghong, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor of the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University, at the conference. “Conducting complex calculations and experimental operations through robot platforms can ensure efficient, accurate and large-scale data integration.” He added that many countries are accelerating the construction of AI-driven scientific and technological infrastructure, and the design and implementation of robot laboratories have greatly improved the efficiency of material discovery and synthesis.

Tang Haixia, Chairman of Beijing Xinlifang Technology Development Co., Ltd., one of the conference organizers, noted that the integration of AI and scientific instruments has entered a critical stage from concept to implementation. “AI4S (AI-driven scientific research) is promoting data-driven scientific discovery, and instruments, as the core entry point for data collection, have seen a significant rise in their strategic status,” she stated. China Science and Technology News reported that the annual conference has become an important platform for exchanges and cooperation in China’s scientific instrument industry, gathering hundreds of experts, scholars and enterprise representatives.

AI is profoundly reshaping the paradigm of scientific research, Li Jinghong emphasized. The “trial-and-error paradigm” of scientific experiments, which fixes a series of experimental conditions to measure the relationship between a single factor and an event, cannot reveal the full composition of the real world. In contrast, AI not only has the ability to quickly sort through massive literature and intelligently analyze complex data, but also can conduct massive experiments, process data, screen candidate materials and drugs, generating high-quality and high-throughput experimental data.

“The combination of ‘theory’ and ‘experiment’ enables AI to quickly iterate and generate ‘theory-experiment integration’ models, solving the pain points of traditional research such as long time consumption and high trial-and-error costs,” Li explained with an example. The University of Science and Technology of China has developed software and hardware for scientific instruments, integrating mobile robots, chemical workstations, intelligent operating systems and scientific databases to create a data-intelligent-driven full-process robotic chemist, which can shorten the discovery cycle of the optimal high-entropy catalyst to 5 weeks.

Tang Haixia pointed out that AI has accelerated its penetration into data collection, processing and decision-making, transforming instruments from “measurement tools” to “intelligent analysis platforms” that are rapidly applied in high-throughput experiments, automated laboratories and intelligent detection. Data from the Instrument Information Network, affiliated to Xinlifang, shows that mass spectrometry, spectroscopy and chromatography instruments are increasingly equipped with AI-assisted analysis capabilities amid accelerated domestic substitution.

To strengthen the independent R&D of high-end instruments, the Beijing Action Plan for the Innovative Development of High-End Scientific Instruments (2025-2027) was issued in May last year, aiming to use independent scientific instruments to solve major basic research problems. At present, Beijing has formed an innovative development pattern of “north pilot test, south incubation”, laying a solid foundation for the transformation of original innovation achievements.