Google will offer AI tools for drug development and scientific discovery to businesses, GxP News reports.
Tech giant Google, part of Alphabet Inc., has announced a partnership with SandboxAQ – an independent company that spun out of the same holding in 2022. From now on, SandboxAQ’s specialised AI models will be available through the Google Cloud Marketplace, allowing businesses, research centres and pharmaceutical labs to access powerful computational tools to accelerate drug development, create new materials and design semiconductors.
Unlike widely known large language models such as Gemini, which are trained on text, SandboxAQ develops so‑called Large Quantitative Models. These are trained on numerical data, scientific equations and laboratory results, making them effective for chemistry, biology and physics applications. Integration with Google Cloud will allow researchers to combine Gemini language models with quantitative AI systems, creating hybrid workflows.
The first model available on the marketplace will be AQCat, designed to identify promising catalysts and materials for semiconductors, batteries and other technologies. The second model, AQPotency, is focused on biopharma: it helps predict molecules with a high probability of binding to protein targets, a critical step in early‑stage drug development.
SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary said the technology can “save years of research while simultaneously expanding the solution space, opening up approaches that are unattainable with traditional methods.” The company sees the greatest commercial potential today in biopharma, with clients already using the models to study glioblastoma, prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.
Hidary also noted that while SandboxAQ’s models use quantum algorithms, they currently run on traditional accelerators – GPUs and TPUs. In the future, as quantum computers develop, the computational power of these AI systems will only increase. The partnership with Google Cloud, according to experts, strengthens SandboxAQ’s position as a leader in scientific AI alongside Isomorphic Labs (also from Alphabet) and OpenAI, which recently released a model for biological research.
SandboxAQ began as a quantum lab within the famous X division (formerly Google X) and became an independent entity in 2022. Its investors include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Salesforce chief Marc Benioff. The company recently raised $500 million under the CHIPS government programme to develop AI models for semiconductor manufacturing. AQCat, in particular, is used to search for new chemical compositions for batteries, catalysts, magnets and methods for breaking down “forever chemicals” (PFAS).
After the pandemic surge, the pharmaceutical market has faced falling demand and increased regulatory pressure. In this environment, speed and flexibility in development have become strategic advantages, and AI has become a key tool for acceleration.