Google DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold Protein Database has surpassed 3 million researchers across 190 countries. The freely available tool has become a standard resource for scientists, with more than one-third of its users located in low- and middle-income countries.
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Google Senior Vice President James Manyika detailed these figures in a commentary for Fortune published ahead of the India AI Impact Summit. They noted that AI’s impact extends beyond consumer applications to fundamental scientific discovery. “Beyond the chatbots and productivity tools that have dominated public attention, AI is extending the reach of cutting-edge science and helping scientists globally tackle some of the greatest challenges facing their communities,” the executives wrote.
The AlphaFold system addresses a 50-year-old challenge by predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences. For this achievement, Hassabis and colleague John Jumper received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The database currently holds over 240 million structural predictions, covering most known proteins. DeepMind estimates that generating this data experimentally would have required hundreds of millions of years of work.
Researchers are applying the technology to specific regional issues. At the National University of Malaysia, scientists study Melioidosis, a disease more fatal than dengue. At India’s Birla Institute of Technology and Science, researchers use the database to breed soybeans resistant to charcoal rot.
DeepMind is expanding its suite of scientific tools. The company highlighted an AI co-scientist designed to generate research hypotheses, EarthAI for environmental monitoring and disaster response, and AlphaGenome, which predicts cancer-fueling mutations. In healthcare, DeepMind’s diabetic retinopathy detection model has facilitated 600,000 screenings globally. Partnerships in India and Thailand aim to expand this to 6 million additional screenings over the next decade.
The India AI Impact Summit is scheduled for February 19-20 in New Delhi. This event is the first global AI summit hosted by a Global South nation. Hassabis and Manyika emphasized the need for international collaboration to ensure broad access to these technologies.
