Building Blocks
Building Blocks is a podcast by Granite Asia that deconstructs how innovation transforms industries, society, and the systems we live in. Each season dives into a timely theme, bringing together industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers to discuss how technology can drive progress.
The first season, Living Machines, focuses on the convergence of AI and automation—how intelligent systems are reshaping industries from healthcare to logistics, energy to manufacturing. The series goes beyond the technology itself, exploring how AI-driven automation can be harnessed to create more efficient, resilient, and human-centric systems.
Building Blocks
How AI Is Rebuilding the Chemistry Lab
For decades, chemistry labs have looked almost exactly the same — manual, slow, and heavily dependent on human trial and error. While biology rapidly automated, chemistry quietly fell behind.
In this episode of Building Blocks: Living Machines, we go inside one of the world’s first fully AI-powered chemistry labs with Sean Lin, Founder & CEO of ChemLex, a next-generation contract research organisation reimagining how molecules are discovered.
Joined by Jenny Lee, Senior Managing Partner at Granite Asia, we explore:
- Why chemistry lacked automation for decades
- How ChemLex’s robotic lab runs up to 800 reactions per day
- Why this matters for drug development, national resilience, and the future of scientific work
This is a story about rebuilding one of the most fundamental layers of science — with machines.
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