Ask HN: Why did Google build Alphafold?
Can someone give some insight into their motivation for funding this project? It's an impressive feat, but I'm trying to see how it fits into any of their businesses.
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Protein folding, as far as I understand, is a very challenging problem. There's a huge profit potential for such endeavour, not to mention the scientific advancement of that field. Only a fool would let that chance pass by.
Recall that Alphabet was created with the intention of forming a group of different, unrelated and independent companies (of which Google is part of and basically funds the entire operation). The goal here, IMO, is to diversify investment and therefore increase profit potential.
To get a better picture of the whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_Inc.
Also, read the founders' letter: https://abc.xyz/
I was thinking that if you can do the process in reverse - "we need a molecule that is shaped like <this> - find me the RNA sequence that will build it" - that might have interesting repercussions.