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Nobel Chemist Omar Yaghi Joins Tsinghua to Lead AI Materials Institute

The shift underscores that U.S. research funding cuts are driving top scientists to countries that pair large R&D investments with AI-led laboratories.

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Omar Yaghi
Omar Yaghi last year shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Richard Robson and Susumu Kitagawa for pioneering the development of metal-organic frameworks | chemistry.berkeley.edu
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Overview

  • Tsinghua University confirmed that Omar Yaghi has left his UC Berkeley faculty post to take a full-time position in Beijing as head of a new institute focused on AI-driven materials design.
  • The institute will use artificial intelligence to speed the design, synthesis and discovery of new materials by reducing reliance on slow trial-and-error experiments.
  • Yaghi won a share of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing metal-organic frameworks, porous materials used in water harvesting, carbon capture and gas storage.
  • Yaghi has publicly criticized recent cuts to U.S. science grants and urged wider adoption of AI in research, and he is expected to retain ties to some U.S.-based companies that commercialize his work.
  • Policy analysts and scientists say the appointment illustrates China’s targeted recruitment and rising R&D spending and could accelerate the global race for talent and AI-led scientific discovery.