The Biden administration this week is hosting a first-of-its-kind international summit about the use of artificial intelligence in the life sciences as governments and private industry increasingly push the boundaries of biotechnology. The convergence of the life sciences and advanced AI could reveal the underpinnings of diseases, help identify new cures or produce more resistant crops. But there are barriers and bottlenecks — and potential risks — to combining the technologies. Training today’s advanced AI models requires massive amounts of high-quality, standardized scientific data. But there aren’t many accessible databases with that information. Officials hope the AI-Bioscience Collaborative (AIBC) Summit being held Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C., can begin unlocking troves of data that can be used in the life sciences. The gathering has not been publicly announced. The summit, hosted under the auspices of the State Department and federal science agencies, will bring together representatives of Brazil, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Microsoft, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine are co-hosting the summit. Other companies, universities and foundations are participating. “What we have seen is that no country, including the U.S., has all of the domain knowledge to unlock this opportunity,” says Seth Center, the State Department’s acting special envoy for critical and emerging technology. Discussions are expected to cover international cooperation and different models for housing and accessing AI models, tools and biological datasets.

Full exclusive : AI-Bioscience Collaborative (AIBC) Summit being held in Washington, United States will bring scientists, researchers and technology experts together.