Now, an artificial intelligence model has identified a powerful new antibiotic called halicin, which cleared infections of most superbugs in mouse tests.

Ever since antibiotics were invented in the early 20th century, we've been locked in an arms race with bacteria. Antibiotics work for a while, but eventually the bugs evolve resistance to those in wide use. Scientists develop new ones, so bacteria continue to evolve, and so on. The problem is, we're starting to lose the battle as the bugs outpace us and fewer new drugs are in the pipeline.

Drug discovery is an arduous task, requiring huge amounts of data to be crunched – and that's just the kind of job that AI excels at.