AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery

In this white paper, we present AlphaEvolve, an evolutionary coding agent that substantially enhances capabilities of state-of-the-art LLMs on highly challenging tasks such as tackling open scientific problems or optimizing critical pieces of computational infrastructure. AlphaEvolve orchestrates an autonomous pipeline of LLMs, whose task is to improve an algorithm by making direct changes to the code. Using an evolutionary approach, continuously receiving feedback from one or more evaluators, AlphaEvolve iteratively improves the algorithm, potentially leading to new scientific and practical discoveries. We demonstrate the broad applicability of this approach by applying it to a number of important computational problems. When applied to optimizing critical components of large-scale computational stacks at Google, AlphaEvolve developed a more efficient scheduling algorithm for data centers, found a functionally equivalent simplification in the circuit design of hardware accelerators, and accelerated the training of the LLM underpinning AlphaEvolve itself. Furthermore, AlphaEvolve discovered novel, provably correct algorithms that surpass state-of-the-art solutions on a spectrum of problems in mathematics and computer science, significantly expanding the scope of prior automated discovery methods (Romera-Paredes et al., 2023). Notably, AlphaEvolve developed a search algorithm that found a procedure to multiply two $4 \times 4$ complex-valued matrices using $48$ scalar multiplications; offering the first improvement, after 56 years, over Strassen's algorithm in this setting. We believe AlphaEvolve and coding agents like it can have a significant impact in improving solutions of problems across many areas of science and computation.

Learning to Decode the Surface Code with a Recurrent, Transformer-Based Neural Network

Quantum error-correction is a prerequisite for reliable quantum computation. Towards this goal, we present a recurrent, transformer-based neural network which learns to decode the surface code, the leading quantum error-correction code. Our decoder outperforms state-of-the-art algorithmic decoders on real-world data from Google's Sycamore quantum processor for distance 3 and 5 surface codes. On distances up to 11, the decoder maintains its advantage on simulated data with realistic noise including cross-talk, leakage, and analog readout signals, and sustains its accuracy far beyond the 25 cycles it was trained on. Our work illustrates the ability of machine learning to go beyond human-designed algorithms by learning from data directly, highlighting machine learning as a strong contender for decoding in quantum computers.

GraphCast: Learning skillful medium-range global weather forecasting

We introduce a machine-learning (ML)-based weather simulator--called "GraphCast"--which outperforms the most accurate deterministic operational medium-range weather forecasting system in the world, as well as all previous ML baselines. GraphCast is an autoregressive model, based on graph neural networks and a novel high-resolution multi-scale mesh representation, which we trained on historical weather data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)'s ERA5 reanalysis archive. It can make 10-day forecasts, at 6-hour time intervals, of five surface variables and six atmospheric variables, each at 37 vertical pressure levels, on a 0.25-degree latitude-longitude grid, which corresponds to roughly 25 x 25 kilometer resolution at the equator. Our results show GraphCast is more accurate than ECMWF's deterministic operational forecasting system, HRES, on 90.0% of the 2760 variable and lead time combinations we evaluated. GraphCast also outperforms the most accurate previous ML-based weather forecasting model on 99.2% of the 252 targets it reported. GraphCast can generate a 10-day forecast (35 gigabytes of data) in under 60 seconds on Cloud TPU v4 hardware. Unlike traditional forecasting methods, ML-based forecasting scales well with data: by training on bigger, higher quality, and more recent data, the skill of the forecasts can improve. Together these results represent a key step forward in complementing and improving weather modeling with ML, open new opportunities for fast, accurate forecasting, and help realize the promise of ML-based simulation in the physical sciences.