In a study published August 7 in the journal Science, researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute trained AI models to generate complete viral genomes. How AI created viruses from scratchThe research team used AI models called Evo1 and Evo2, which operate similarly to large language models by learning sequence patterns. The AI generated about 700,000 possible viral genomes, from which scientists selected the most promising designs for laboratory testing. Sixteen of the AI-designed genomes produced fully functional viruses capable of infecting and replicating inside E. coli cells. Researchers noted that creating viruses capable of infecting humans would require much more complex datasets and additional scientific advances.