Omar Yaghi to lead AI materials center at Tsinghua University

Omar Yaghi, the 61-year-old 2025 Nobel laureate in chemistry, has left the United States for a new role at Tsinghua University. The appointment, announced July 3, 2026, centers on using artificial intelligence to develop materials for water, energy and sustainability goals.

1 source·Jul 5, 5:26 AM(3 hrs ago)·1m read

Omar Yaghi to lead AI materials center at Tsinghua University

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Omar Yaghi has left the United States to head a new AI-driven research center at Tsinghua University in China, @SCMPNews reported. Tsinghua University announced the appointment on Friday, July 3, 2026. Yaghi, 61, previously served as the James and Neeltje Tretter professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.

He will lead a team that uses artificial intelligence to redesign and synthesize new materials. The university stated that the AI-driven approach could shorten development cycles by orders of magnitude. At his appointment ceremony, Yaghi said he hoped to develop materials that address water shortages, carbon neutrality and sustainable development.

He also said he wants to train young scientists in AI-driven chemistry. Yaghi shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Richard Robson and Susumu Kitagawa for work on metal-organic frameworks. Zhou Zihui, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, said Yaghi had trained about 200 researchers, nearly half of them Chinese.

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