High-performance computation and artificial intelligence in pesticide discovery: Status and outlook

Abstract

ecological safety. Use of pesticides can prevent around 20% to 30% of global crop loss every year. The continuous growth of population and the limited acreage of agricultural land require increasing crop yields to feed people. Pesticides are important for protecting crops and preventing yield losses. With the increasing concerns over environmental protection, ecofriendly pesticides are needed to replace some higher risk ones. It is slow and difficult to successfully discover new pesticides with the standard random screening. New technologies and methods, such as high-performance computation and artificial intelligence (AI), can dramatically facilitate in the pesticide discovery process.