Executives, employees and all sorts of stakeholders across the European biotechnology industry gathered 18 June at the Excel London convention center for the second annual London Biotechnology Show. Over 350 companies specializing in all fields of the industry from manufacturing to research will attend this year's two-day event. As with many industries, the recent rise of artificial intelligence has impacted biotechnology in many ways. Here's what some experts and employees had to say about their current AI usage:
Has AI Already Taken Over?
Several AI companies had booths at the event, offering a wide range of business capabilities, data analysis and consumer satisfaction functions. All the companies we spoke to lauded AI for its efficiency in data analysis, making it easier to judge and comb through internal tests and statistics for any company's respective product or consumer data, although they also stressed the importance of double checking.
'There are a lot of AI technology which is now coming in like expos, also in industries where we can save the data in quickly within a second, just to tap in the phone and then you will save all the entire data in just a few seconds,' India-Based Ami Polymer Manager Simran Khan said about her company's AI usage. Ami Polymer also uses Salesforce for their Customer Relationship Management, which offers a full AI customer relations suite that can adapt to their needs.
The Predictive Power of Future AI is On Everyone's Mind
When asked about future AI developments they're most excited about, several attendees discussed the predictive, trend recognition applications of AI to their products and programs. These predictive capabilities can apply to all fields of the industry, from manufacturing to product design.
'Machines like this could be sending signals that when you interpret those signals, you're able to predict failure rates in advance, and how long your machine will last,' said Dmitrijus Sluka, Sales Engineer for Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions. 'So basically, instead of waiting for it to fail, if AI is analyzing data in the background constantly, it's able to tell you and it's able to spot the trends.'
Sluka said this would increase companies' proactivity, and anticipate failures before waiting for them to happen, allowing them to work out these issues beforehand. Tom Whale, business unit manager for Testo UK, a professional measurement device company, echoed similar excited sentiments about future AI's anticipation features.
'For example, if a compressor on a fridge is wearing, you may get subtle changes in the profile of the temperatures over a period of time and it will be able to accurately predict when a problem is likely to happen before it actually does happen,' Whale said. 'So it could be based on all sorts of things such as weather conditions, can have an impact, contaminants if the air can have an impact, people can have a massive impact.
People are Optimistic About Environmental Impact
According to the United Nations Environment Programme AI global infrastructure consumed six times more water than the country of Denmark, as of September 2024. With AI capabilities increasing every week and more and more companies deciding to invest in this technology, environmental groups have brought up real concerns about its sustainability.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Account Manager Saira Khan acknowledged these problems, but expressed her personal optimism for future environmentally-friendly innovations.
'Because we've come to the development stage, like with anything, when you first create it, it's gonna have its problems.' She said. 'Then as you move on and people use it more and you understand the product more, you can optimise it and make it more sustainable.' She also pointed to the use of plastics in the industry, and how it faced similar environmental concerns when it was first used in a wide scale but eventually became widely recyclable.
Gemma Rowe, a business development manager for Mölnlycke Health Care, which received an EcoVadis Platinum sustainability medal, acknowledged that products like plastic surgical gloves may not be the most recyclable, but the company takes a holistic approach to see where they can cut down on waste if other sides like AI are more wasteful.
