AI-Infused Research and Development in Universities: Accelerating Scientific Discovery

The past decade has witnessed the role that artificial intelligence (AI) has in university research and development (R&D) processes emerge as a very potent catalyst for accelerating scientific discovery. It thus seeks to explore the transformative impacts that AI-infused R&D is likely to bring in universities, focusing mostly on key mechanisms, challenges, promising avenues for future exploration, and technological breakthroughs in the field. The traditional methodologies of R&D have seen a massive revolution through the entry of AI, which now poses uncharted capabilities in data analysis, pattern recognition, and predictive modeling. The application is able to thoroughly search vast sets of data in an unrealistically short period, so as to reveal latent structures, patterns, and other actionable insights, with the help of machine learning algorithms, neural networks, and natural language processing techniques. This paradigm shift in R&D supports a more agile, data-driven approach to scientific inquiry that allows researchers to better focus their efforts with precision and alacrity on the most vexing, complex problems. The biggest gain to be reaped from infusing $A I$ in R&D is the hastening of the pace of experimentation and hypothesis testing. AI systems thus enable researchers to iterate very quickly by automating repetitive tasks and offering the best designs for experimentation. This will, in effect, bring down the time-todiscovery cycle. Equally, AI simulations allow for the possibility of in silico virtual experiments, thus reducing overreliance on capital-intensive and unwieldy laboratory experiments.