Nobel-winning chemist leaves US to direct AI materials lab in China

Nobel-prize-winning chemist Omar Yaghi has left the United States for a full-time position at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, where he will lead a new artificial-intelligence-assisted materials discovery institute. The move—first reported by the South China Morning Post and formally welcomed at a 3 July ceremony—puts Yaghi at the center of a programme aimed at combining AI, chemistry and materials science to tackle problems that cross disciplines. Tsinghua had previously named Yaghi an honorary professor in 2022, but he has now accepted the full-time role. Yaghi was not available to speak with Nature for the story; however, in an interview with Scientific American earlier he said the state of US science was “not so encouraging” because of cuts to grants and reduced support from science agencies, and he urged researchers to engage with AI “as a matter of survival” for advanced research systems.

Yaghi is known for developing metal-organic framework (MOF) materials—highly porous substances with vast internal surface areas used for applications such as gas storage, catalysts for chemical reactions, and more. After years of work that helped chemists create tens of thousands of MOF variants, his Nobel recognition and subsequent move highlight how competition for top international scientific talent is increasingly shaped by funding, institutional support, and emerging AI-driven research approaches.