On 19 November, Accelerate brought together researchers from across Cambridge to share perspectives on how AI is supporting their work. This post summarises some of the key points from discussions.

I'm interested in finding out how mental and physical health are interlinked. I study this in serious mental illness, especially in schizophrenia. My long-term aim is understanding how to improve the treatments offered to patients, and help increase their quality of life. In order to do so, we need to disentangle different factors that contribute to a patient’s overall health. Data science and machine learning can help us understand the complex links between mental illness, physical health, and the genetic basis for conditions like schizophrenia.

The past century has seen the most spectacular discoveries and theoretical developments in fundamental physics, but despite this success many questions of fundamental physics remain unanswered. In my PhD, I am focusing on string theory and its implications for our understanding of nature.To study string theories and interpret the physics it produces, we already use a heavy machinery of mathematical tools. Data science and machine learning offer a new route to interrogating how the predictions arising from string theories map onto the world around us.

Solar photovoltaic technologies are vital for sustainable renewable energy. If we’re to make photovoltaics as effective as possible, we need advanced nanomaterials that optimally harvest the Sun’s electromagnetic spectrum. To design these materials, we need better understandings of the quantum dynamics and photo-physics at play. Machine learning can help develop these understandings by analysing high-dimensional datasets to reveal novel physics.