PARC Forum: Beyond LLMs —
How AI is reshaping scientific discovery
October 1, 2026 | 5:00 PM PT
Sponsored by
Can AI help us identify scientific breakthroughs?
For decades, scientific progress has been shaped by a fundamental process: hypothesis, experiment, iteration. AI is changing that, compressing the space between insight and discovery. The World Economic Forum’s 2026 Top 10 Emerging Technologies report finds this shift already reshaping fields as distinct as cancer treatments, energy storage, and environmental remediation.
This session asks what that shift means for the researchers and institutions navigating it.
Date/time: October 1, 2026 | 5:00 PM PT
Location: SRI’s PARC Campus auditorium,
3333 Coyote Hill Rd, Palo Alto, CA
Stephan Mergenthaler (Managing Director and CTO, World Economic Forum) and David Parekh (CEO, SRI) will explore:
- How AI is transforming the scientific process, not just accelerating it
- What human-in-the-loop collaboration looks like across drug discovery, materials science, and beyond
- What the institutions getting this transition right have in common, and where the gaps are
- How workflows, workforces, and cultures are being rebuilt in real time
SRI’s AI Center turns 60 this year. The lab behind Shakey the Robot and Siri has spent six decades shaping the human-machine relationship, and brings that perspective to this conversation.
Featured speakers
Stephan Mergenthaler
Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer
About Stephan
Stephan Mergenthaler is Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer at the World Economic Forum, where he oversees the organization’s technology and digital innovation strategy as well as its global portfolio of AI initiatives.
Register for the event
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— John Markoff, Tech columnist and author
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