Jarzynski Equality Wins Korean Prize for Linking Physics to Generative AI

Physicist Christopher Jarzynski of the University of Maryland received the 2026 Lee Hwi-so Prize from South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT and APCTP for his 1997 equality linking nonequilibrium processes to free energy. The method now underpins drug discovery simulations and training of energy-based generative AI models.

• Jarzynski derived the equality in 1997 in Physical Review Letters
• A 2002 optical-tweezers RNA experiment confirmed the equality
• Computational chemists use it to compute binding affinities in drug discovery
• Since 2023 it has been applied to train energy-based generative models