"The times call for fighters who are brave enough to stand at the forefront of technology, and they will definitely be able to create such fighters. As the founder and chief scientist of DeepPotential, Zhang Linfeng has been obsessed with climbing the pinnacle of technology and building an ecological chain of AI for Science (AI-driven scientific research) from the bottom innovation to the implementation of the industry.
At present, AI-driven scientific research has become the new frontier of global artificial intelligence. In order to implement the national "New Generation of Artificial Intelligence Development Plan", the Ministry of Science and Technology, together with the National Natural Science Commission, launched the special deployment of "artificial intelligence-driven scientific research" this year, and laid out the cutting-edge scientific and technological research and development system of "artificial intelligence-driven scientific research".
Zhang Linfeng led the team and became a practitioner of this scientific research paradigm. In 2018, E Weinan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, organized a conference at Peking University on the theme of AI for Science, and Zhang Linfeng, who also has a background in mathematics, physics, and computer science, saw the potential of combining AI with disciplinary models. "The chain from bottom-level innovation to rapid implementation is being opened. The current infrastructure construction will be like the EDA software (i.e., electronic design automation software) in the 80s, providing a source of power for the development of future materials, drugs and other related fields and industries. Zhang Linfeng said.
Such a discovery made Zhang Linfeng both excited and slightly frightened. "One end of the chain of innovation + business is in-depth to the innovation of basic disciplines, and the other end is connected to the specific problems of each industry. And such an opportunity needs to find real needs in the market, solve real problems, and accept the test and baptism of the market. ”
After graduating from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, Zhang decided to return to China to start his own business. He said: "Like-minded partners can think outside the box to define problems, and can become 'translators' and 'bridges' between different disciplines, and continue to explore and learn from each other." Despite facing many obstacles such as theoretical cognition, technical practice, team building, and talent attraction, Zhang Linfeng and his team overcame many difficulties together driven by a sense of mission.
In 2020, Zhang Linfeng's scientific research career ushered in a highlight moment. The team led by him won the "Gordon Bell" Award, known as the "Nobel Prize in the Supercomputing Industry", for its research results of a new generation of molecular simulation methods. This achievement has also been selected as one of China's top ten scientific and technological advances in 2020, together with the milestone of "quantum computing superiority" and the completion of China's highest parameter "artificial sun".
At present, Zhang Linfeng, who is still on the front line of scientific research, most urgently hopes that the AI for Science technology platform and technology ecology will be done more systematically and organized. "If there is enough data, we can run the training model, and running the training model will open up a larger application situation, and a larger application situation will lead to more feedback, more data accumulation, so that we can develop the model on a larger scale, which is a very fast iterative process. ”
On the road of scientific research, the driving force that drives Zhang Linfeng to continue to output results is "curiosity", as he said: "Often the purest curiosity can make us the most motivated and passionate to truly explore those places that no one has studied." "Curiosity goes hand in hand with the courage to choose the path of innovation. Walking on the road of pursuing love, it is very fortunate to be able to combine what you are doing with the pursuit driven by curiosity and responsibility, in Zhang Linfeng's view.
*: People's Daily Online).