Data as a foundation for AI innovation and global discovery research in the life sciences

EMBL-EBI's data resources are a fundamental necessity for biomolecular research. Through open data, there is tremendous potential for accelerating scientific understanding and producing significant gains for all nations. The transformative scientific frontiers in which EMBL-EBI can play a unique role are the development of new AI algorithms, the integration of multimodal data, and a deeper engagement with LMICs. Alongside meeting the ongoing challenges of managing data scale and diversity, we will co-develop new interfaces to data delivery. Firstly, for AI, we will deliver cross-cutting data training sets, enriched and formatted to lower barriers for innovators. Deploying AI in our processes will increase efficiencies as well as bring the fruits of AI to users in our data services. Secondly, data resources need to interoperate consistently to ease the submission of FAIR, linked, multimodal data and maximise the downstream reuse potential for software developers and researchers via easy-to-use interfaces to find and explore data. Finally, the emphasis on LMICs within our engagement programme is essential to build an equitable and interoperable global data ecosystem; without this, our ability to impact on global challenge areas such as human health and biodiversity will be severely diminished.