AI turns to science — and the top models get their own timetable
Anthropic launched a research-focused app while Google and OpenAI delay their flagship models. The AI summer is a busy one.
If you thought artificial intelligence was now just for writing emails and summarising meetings, early July brings a different message: the big companies want to put AI to work doing serious science.
Claude heads to the lab
Anthropic announced an app dedicated to scientific research, with the stated ambition of shortening research and development cycles in the life sciences — read: helping to discover drugs and test hypotheses faster. The move comes with high-profile hires and an acquisition in the hundreds of millions of dollars, a sign this is more than a marketing announcement.
Behind it is an idea that is simple to explain and hard to pull off: if a model can read thousands of papers, suggest experiments and analyse results, it might compress years of lab work into months. It is a bold promise, and it deserves the healthy skepticism owed to anyone who has heard bold promises before.
The flagship models in the waiting room
Meanwhile, the heavyweights are juggling calendars. Google pushed back its next flagship after enterprise customers complained it burned through too many tokens on long tasks. OpenAI held off on the wide release of its new generation at the request of the US government, which wanted to review the model before it reached the public.
In plain terms: the race is still intense, but it is no longer only about who ships first — it is about who ships reliably, without raising red flags with regulators.
For context, see what we wrote about Claude arriving on the iPhone and about the real cost of using AI. The official details are on Anthropic’s site.
By Oliver Grant
Illustrative · Photo: Ron Lach / Pexels
