Jane Edwards
Jen Sovada, president of global public sector at SandboxAQ, said the company is using artificial intelligence to discover and develop new compounds and chemistries that could be combined to produce new materials that could support the U.S. Army and other defense and government customers, Federal News Network reported Monday.
In an interview with FNN, Sovada, a 2024 Wash100 awardee, discussed large quantitative models, which she said combine AI with chemistry, physics, biopharma and finance.
“And they really are at the forefront of taking large amounts of data, and training it based on physics based technology to produce an entirely new molecules from scratch, and getting desired sets of combinations based on the properties that we’re trying to look for,” the public sector head said of LQMs.
Sovada, chair of Executive Mosaic’s 4×24 Quantum Group, explained how SandboxAQ will support the Army under two agreements signed with the military branch.
Under the agreements, the company will use its AI-based platform to help the military branch develop battery chemistries for next-generation power systems and alloy materials for armored vehicles.
“And so one of the things that the US Army is interested in is, how do they build the next generation tank that enables them to have a lighter weight vehicle with the same amount of survivability, with the same ability to maneuver and sustain, but also look at something that is made of materials that are more ecologically friendly,” the SandboxAQ executive said.
“And so what we’re doing is we’re partnering with the US Army to try to figure out what kind of molecules that they could test in the laboratory. So we’re doing it in silico. So in the computer, so that they can go and do it in the laboratory, and start with a vast smaller number of molecules to test rather than trying to pick any and every combination that’s out there in the world.”
