Skala DFT Breakthrough: How Microsoft’s AI Achieves Hybrid Accuracy at Low Cost

Skala: Microsoft’s Deep Learning Breakthrough Achieves Hybrid-Level DFT Accuracy at Semi-Local Cost When computational chemist Dr. Elena Martinez stared at her screen at 3 AM, watching another batch of drug candidates fail experimental validation, she knew the fundamental bottleneck had to be solved. The trade-off between accuracy and computational cost in Density Functional Theory (DFT) has plagued researchers for decades—until now. Microsoft Research’s Skala project just shattered this paradigm, delivering hybrid-level accuracy with semi-local efficiency. The Quantum Chemistry Revolution We’ve Been Waiting For For 60 years, scientists have climbed “Jacob’s Ladder” of DFT approximations—each rung promising higher accuracy at exponentially …