• D.C.
  • BXL
  • Lagos
  • Riyadh
  • Beijing
  • SG
  • D.C.
  • BXL
  • Lagos
Semafor Logo
  • Riyadh
  • Beijing
  • SG


Flagship newsletter icon
From Semafor Flagship
In your inbox, every weekday
Sign up

AI may soon make Nobel-level discovery, scientists predict

Oct 7, 2025, 6:12pm EDT
PostEmailWhatsapp
Scientists work in cancer research laboratories at the Old Road Campus research building at Oxford University.
Peter Nicholls/Reuters

AI-powered science is advancing so quickly that it may soon make a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize without human intervention, scientists predicted.

The Nobel Turing Challenge was established in 2016 to offer a prize for a machine that can achieve a discovery equivalent to the most cutting-edge human research. For a discovery to count, the AI has to oversee the entire project, from hypothesis generation to experiment design to data analysis. Machines are already assisting human researchers in almost every step of that process, but being truly autonomous is still a leap forward.

“It’s almost certain” that AI will reach that level eventually, one researcher told Nature: “The question is if it will take 50 years or 10.”

AD