Beijing institute launches AI platform to boost new-drug development

The Global Health Drug Discovery Institute on Thursday unveiled AI Kongming in Beijing, an artificial intelligence-driven platform designed to sharply improve the efficiency and success rate of drug development from target discovery to clinical candidates.

The institute said the platform puts a strong emphasis on accelerating the development of new drugs for major global health challenges such as tuberculosis and malaria.

Domestically developed in China starting from 2017, the platform is open to global academia and industry and aims to promote a new AI-driven drug development paradigm led by Chinese innovation. It draws on knowledge from a global network of leading research institutions as well as years of real-world research data gathered by the institute.

According to the institute, AI Kongming integrates scattered biological, chemical, and pharmacological knowledge and converts it into AI capabilities that can reason, create, and evolve. The approach significantly reduces the traditional trial-and-error cycle in drug discovery. The system continuously learns and evolves, providing frontline researchers with advanced computational drug design capabilities in an accessible way, and helping shift computational drug development from a specialist-dependent tool to scalable scientific infrastructure.

Ding Sheng, director of the institute, said the launch of AI Kongming reflects China's progress in AI-driven drug discovery. But he emphasized that "technological breakthroughs are not the end goal."

"As a nonprofit organization, our primary aim is to address urgent global health needs neglected by the market and diseases affecting millions worldwide but lacking commercial investment," Ding said.

The institute invited global academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and research organizations to join the AI Kongming network and broaden its application across diseases and research scenarios.

The Global Health Drug Discovery Institute was established in Beijing in 2016 as an independent, nonprofit organization initiated by the Beijing government, Tsinghua University, and the Gates Foundation. It leverages global resources and China's innovation strengths to advance biomedical research and build a world-class platform for drug discovery and development.