Hassabis received half of the award alongside a colleague, John Jumper, for the design of AlphaFold: an AI tool that can predict the 3D structure of proteins using only their amino acid sequences—something Hassabis describes as a “50-year grand challenge” in the field of biology. Released freely by Google DeepMind for the world to use five years ago, AlphaFold has revolutionized the work of scientists toiling on research as varied as malaria vaccines, human longevity, and cures for cancer, allowing them to model protein structures in hours rather than years. The Nobel Prizes in 2024 were the first in history to recognize the contributions of AI to the field of science. If Hassabis gets his way, they won’t be the last.
AlphaFold’s impact may have been broad enough to win its creators a Nobel Prize, but in the world of AI, it is seen as almost hopelessly narrow. It can model the structures of proteins but not much else; it has no understanding of the wider world, cannot carry out research, nor can it make its own scientific breakthroughs. Hassabis’s dream, and the wider industry’s, is to build AI that can do all of those things and more, unlocking a future of almost unimaginable wonder. All human diseases will be a thing of the past if this technology is created, he says. Energy will be zero-carbon and free, allowing us to transcend the climate crisis and begin restoring our planet’s ecosystems. Global conflicts over scarce resources will dissipate, giving way to a new era of peace and abundance. “I think some of the biggest problems that face us today as a society, whether that’s climate or disease, will be helped by AI solutions,” Hassabis says. “I’d be very worried about society today if I didn’t know that something as transformative as AI was coming down the line.”
