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Large Language Models (LLMs) are reshaping many aspects of materials science and chemistry research, enabling advances in molecular property prediction, materials design, scientific automation, knowledge extraction, and more. Recent developments demonstrate that the latest class of models are able to integrate structured and unstructured data, assist in hypothesis generation, and streamline research workflows. To explore the frontier of LLM capabilities across the research lifecycle, we review applications of LLMs through 34 total projects developed during the second annual Large Language Model Hackathon for Applications in Materials Science and Chemistry, a global hybrid event. These projects spanned seven key research areas: (1) molecular and material property prediction, (2) molecular and material design, (3) automation and novel interfaces, (4) scientific communication and education, (5) research data management and automation, (6) hypothesis generation and evaluation, and (7) knowledge extraction and reasoning from the scientific literature. Collectively, these applications illustrate how LLMs serve as versatile predictive models, platforms for rapid prototyping of domain-specific tools, and much more. In particular, improvements in both open source and proprietary LLM performance through the addition of reasoning, additional training data, and new techniques have expanded effectiveness, particularly in low-data environments and interdisciplinary research. As LLMs continue to improve, their integration into scientific workflows presents both new opportunities and new challenges, requiring ongoing exploration, continued refinement, and further research to address reliability, interpretability, and reproducibility.
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This content will become publicly available on June 24, 2026
Rethinking chemical research in the age of large language models
Large language models (LLMs) offer opportunities for advancing chemical research, including planning, optimization, data analysis, automation and knowledge management. Deploying LLMs in active environments, where they interact with tools and data, can greatly enhance their capabilities. However, challenges remain in evaluating their performance and addressing ethical issues such as reproducibility, data privacy and bias. Here we discuss ongoing and potential integrations of LLMs in chemical research, highlighting existing challenges to guide the effective use of LLMs as active scientific partners.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2202693
- PAR ID:
- 10609221
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Computational Science
- ISSN:
- 2662-8457
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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