Open and Sustainable AI: challenges, opportunities and the road ahead in the life sciences (October 2025 -- Version 2)

Gavin Farrell (Department of Biomedical Sciences; University of Padova; Padova; Italy); Eleni Adamidi (Athena Research; Innovation Center; Marousi; Greece); Rafael Andrade Buono (VIB.AI Center for AI; Computational Biology; Ghent; Belgium); Mihail Anton (ELIXIR Europe Hub; EMBL-EBI; Hinxton; United Kingdom); Omar Abdelghani Attafi (Department of Biomedical Sciences; University of Padova; Padova; Italy); Salvador Capella Gutierrez (Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC); Barcelona; Spain); Emidio Capriotti (Department of Pharmacy; Biotechnology; University of Bologna; Bologna; Italy; Computational Genomics Platform; IRCCS University Hospital of Bologna; Bologna; Italy); Leyla Jael Castro (ZB MED Information Centre for Life Sciences; Cologne; Germany); Davide Cirillo (Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC); Barcelona; Spain); Lisa Crossman (SequenceAnalysis.co.uk; United Kingdom; University of East Anglia; Norwich; United Kingdom); Christophe Dessimoz (Department of Computational Biology; University of Lausanne; Lausanne; Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics; Lausanne; Switzerland); Alexandros Dimopoulos (Institute for Fundamental Biomedical Science; Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming; Vari; Greece; Department of Informatics & Telematics; School of Digital Technology; Harokopio University; Athens; Greece); Raul Fernandez-Diaz (School of Medicine; University College Dublin; Dublin; Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular; Biomedical Research; University College Dublin; Dublin; Ireland; IBM Research Dublin; Dublin; Ireland); Styliani-Christina Fragkouli (Institute of Applied Biosciences; Centre for Research; Technology Hellas; Thessaloniki; Greece; Department of Biology; National & Kapodistrian University of Athens; Athens; Greece); Carole Goble (Department of Computer Science; University of Manchester; Manchester; United Kingdom); Wei Gu (Luxembourg National Data Service; Esch-sur-Alzette; Luxembourg); John M. Hancock (Institute of Biochemistry; Molecular Genetics; Faculty of Medicine; University of Ljubljana; Ljubljana; Slovenia); Alireza Khanteymoori (Department of Psychology; University of Freiburg; Freiburg; Germany); Tom Lenaerts (Machine Learning Group; Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Brussels; Belgium; Artificial Intelligence Lab; Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Brussels; Belgium; Interuniversity Institute of Bioinformatics in Brussels; ULB-VUB; Brussels; Belgium; FARI; AI for the common good institute; ULB-VUB; Brussels; Belgium; Center for Human-Compatible AI; UC Berkeley; Berkeley; CA; USA); Fabio G. Liberante (ELIXIR Europe Hub; EMBL-EBI; Hinxton; United Kingdom); Peter Maccallum (ELIXIR Europe Hub; EMBL-EBI; Hinxton; United Kingdom); Alexander Miguel Monzon (Department of Biomedical Sciences; University of Padova; Padova; Italy); Magnus Palmblad (Leiden University Medical Center; Leiden; Netherlands); Lucy Poveda (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics; Lausanne; Switzerland); Ovidiu Radulescu (LPHI; University of Montpellier; CNRS; INSERM; Montpellier; France); Denis C. Shields (School of Medicine; University College Dublin; Dublin; Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular; Biomedical Research; University College Dublin; Dublin; Ireland); Shoaib Sufi (Department of Computer Science; University of Manchester; Manchester; United Kingdom); Thanasis Vergoulis (Athena Research; Innovation Center; Marousi; Greece); Fotis Psomopoulos (Institute of Applied Biosciences; Centre for Research; Technology Hellas; Thessaloniki; Greece); Silvio C.E. Tosatto (Department of Biomedical Sciences; University of Padova; Padova; Italy; Institute of Biomembranes; Bioenergetics; Molecular Biotechnologies; National Research Council (CNR-IBIOM); Bari; Italy)

arXiv:2505.16619·cs.AI·April 2, 2026

Open and Sustainable AI: challenges, opportunities and the road ahead in the life sciences (October 2025 -- Version 2)

Gavin Farrell (Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy), Eleni Adamidi (Athena Research, Innovation Center, Marousi, Greece), Rafael Andrade Buono (VIB.AI Center for AI, Computational Biology, Ghent, Belgium), Mihail Anton (ELIXIR Europe Hub

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TL;DR

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities in developing open and sustainable AI in the life sciences, emphasizing trust, reusability, and environmental impact, and offers practical recommendations for ecosystem improvement.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive set of practical recommendations for fostering open and sustainable AI, mapped to over 300 AI ecosystem components in the life sciences.

Findings

01

Highlighting erosion of trust due to poor reproducibility

02

Connecting AI resources to promote sustainability and transparency

03

Providing structured pathways for policy and AI development

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently seen transformative breakthroughs in the life sciences, expanding possibilities for researchers to interpret biological information at an unprecedented capacity, with novel applications and advances being made almost daily. In order to maximise return on the growing investments in AI-based life science research and accelerate this progress, it has become urgent to address the exacerbation of long-standing research challenges arising from the rapid adoption of AI methods. We review the increased erosion of trust in AI research outputs, driven by the issues of poor reusability and reproducibility, and highlight their consequent impact on environmental sustainability. Furthermore, we discuss the fragmented components of the AI ecosystem and lack of guiding pathways to best support Open and Sustainable AI (OSAI) model development. In response, this…

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