Omar Yaghi, an immigrant to the United States who shared last year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has left his faculty post at the University of California, Berkeley, for one in China, where he will lead an institute using artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of new materials.

移居美国的科学家奥马尔·亚吉去年与他人共同获得诺贝尔化学奖。如今他已辞去加州大学伯克利分校的教职，前往中国任职。在那里，他将领导一个利用人工智能加速新材料发现的研究所。

Dr. Yaghi’s move comes amid the Trump administration’s continuing disruptions of U.S. science funding and China’s efforts to woo international scientists with hefty budgets.

亚吉这一举动正值特朗普政府持续干扰美国科学资助，以及中国努力用丰厚预算招揽国际科学家之际。

Last week, Tsinghua University in Beijing welcomed Dr. Yaghi in an appointment ceremony, calling him one of the world’s foremost chemists. The university said he saw his new post as an opportunity “not to slow down, not to repeat what has already been done, but to do science with more energy, more intensity, and more ambition than ever before.”

上周，位于北京的清华大学举行聘任仪式欢迎亚吉，称他是世界上最杰出的化学家之一。该大学表示，亚吉将自己的新职位视为一个机会，“不是放慢脚步，不是重复已经做过的事情，而是要以比以往任何时候都更多的精力、更高的强度和更大的雄心来做科学研究。”

“China is increasing its investment in science overall, including chemistry,” said Alessandra Zimmermann, a budget analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a scientific group based in Washington, D.C. The best measures of scientific accomplishment, she added, show that China “has been outperforming the U.S. in top chemistry papers.”

“中国正在增加对包括化学在内的整体科学投资，”总部位于华盛顿特区的科学组织美国科学促进会的预算分析师亚历山德拉·齐默尔曼说。她还说，衡量科学成就的最佳指标显示，中国“在顶级化学论文方面表现一直优于美国”。

Last year, three of America’s six winners of science Nobels were born outside the country. In this century, overall, the émigré fraction for U.S. Nobels in physics, chemistry and medicine now stands at 40 percent.

去年，美国六位科学类诺贝尔奖获得者中有三位出生在美国境外。总体而言，在本世纪，美国物理学、化学和医学诺贝尔奖得主中，移民的比例目前达到了40%。

In an interview, Ram Seshadri, a professor of chemistry and materials science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said Dr. Yaghi’s move to China shed light on a fast-emerging dynamic between the two nations. “They’ve overtaken us in many areas of materials science and chemistry,” he said, referring to China. “They’re willing to invest very large sums of money to attract new talent.”

加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的化学和材料科学教授拉姆·塞沙德里在接受采访时表示，亚吉迁往中国凸显了两国之间迅速显现的动态变化。“在材料科学和化学的许多领域，他们已经超过了我们，”他在提到中国时说。“他们愿意投入巨额资金来吸引新人才。”

A subfield of chemistry, materials science is the underlying force behind many of the innovations that define modern life, from the silicon chips in smartphones to the carbon fibers in racing bikes to the biomaterials of medical implants. By nature, it’s an interdisciplinary field that investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at an atomic or molecular scale and their macroscopic properties.

作为化学的一个分支，材料科学是许多定义现代生活的创新背后的驱动力，从智能手机中的硅芯片、竞速自行车中的碳纤维，到医疗植入物中的生物材料均是如此。本质上，这是一门跨学科领域，研究材料在原子或分子尺度上的结构与其宏观属性之间的关系。

Dr. Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugees whose one-room home lacked electricity and running water. Early on, he became fascinated with a schoolbook’s depiction of atomic building blocks. When he was 15, his father, a butcher, sent him to the United States.

亚吉出生于约旦安曼的一个巴勒斯坦难民家庭，他们家中只有一个房间，没有电也没有自来水。早年，他便对教科书上描绘的原子构件产生了浓厚兴趣。15岁时，做屠夫为生的父亲将他送到了美国。

Last year, before flying to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, Dr. Yaghi in an interview with The New York Times voiced concern about Mr. Trump’s immigration policies, saying that they endanger the nation’s system of universities, companies and governments that promote scientific excellence.

去年，在飞往斯德哥尔摩领取诺贝尔奖之前，亚吉在接受《纽约时报》采访时对特朗普的移民政策表达了担忧，称这些政策危及了美国大学、企业和政府共同构成的、致力于推动科学卓越发展的体系。

“I think it’s regrettable,” he said of Mr. Trump’s nationalism.

“我认为这令人遗憾，”他在谈到特朗普的民族主义时表示。

“We have to know that people coming from different backgrounds improve the level for everybody involved,” he added. “That’s an amazing story. Great thinkers can improve not only the U.S. but the world.”

“我们必须认识到，来自不同背景的人能提高所有参与者的水平，”他还说。“那是一个了不起的故事。伟大的思想家不仅能改善美国，也能改善整个世界。”

Dr. Yaghi joined the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012, and while there earned many awards for his scientific advances.

亚吉于2012年加入加州大学伯克利分校，在任期间因其科学成就荣获多项奖项。

He received his Nobel Prize for helping discover a world of chemistry in which molecular building blocks are assembled into structures that possess vast internal surface areas — the largest of any known substance. His porous structures can act like sponges that readily absorb, store and release gases and vapors.

他因帮助发现了一个全新的化学领域而获得诺贝尔奖。在这个领域里，分子构件被组装成具有巨大内部表面积的结构——其表面积之大在已知物质中首屈一指。他研发的多孔结构可以像海绵一样，轻松吸收、储存和释放气体与蒸汽。

He named them metal-organic frameworks. The metal atoms form an adjustable framework that can hold chemicals associated with life — carbon atoms in particular. While deeply theoretical, the frameworks are so radical, innovative and flexible in nature that materials experts and companies foresee many commercial uses for them.

他将其命名为金属有机框架。金属原子形成了一个可调节的框架，能够容纳与生命相关的化学物质——尤其是碳原子。尽管这些框架理论色彩很强，但它们在本质上激进、创新且灵活，所以材料专家和公司预见它们具有许多商业用途。

The frameworks can, for instance, harvest water from desert air. In 2018, Dr. Yaghi’s students at Berkeley tested the idea in the Mojave Desert in California, finding that a small passive harvester could each day produce nearly three cups of pure, drinkable water. The device is now nearing commercialization.

例如，这种框架可以从沙漠空气中收集水分。2018年，亚吉在伯克利的学生在加利福尼亚州的莫哈韦沙漠测试了这一想法，发现一个小型被动式收集器每天可以产生将近三杯纯净的饮用水。该设备目前已接近商业化。

In the interview with The Times, Dr. Yaghi credited the invention to his boyhood efforts to secure water for his family. The municipal pipes worked for only a few hours every week or two. That hardship, he added, shows how the diverse experiences of émigrés can lead to unexpected breakthroughs.

在接受《纽约时报》采访时，亚吉将这项发明归功于他童年时期为家人找水的经历。当时市政管道每隔一两周才供水几个小时。他还说，这种艰辛经历表明，移民的多样化经历能够带来意想不到的突破。

Dr. Yaghi has longstanding ties with Tsinghua University. In 2022, the Beijing school appointed him as an honorary professor and in that role he closely followed its work in chemistry, materials science and related disciplines.

亚吉与清华大学有着长期的联系。2022 年，这所北京的高校任命他为名誉教授，在此期间，他密切关注着该校在化学、材料科学及相关学科领域的工作。

Now, on joining Tsinghua full time, Dr. Yaghi is being named as the head of a new A.I. institute for science research that will focus on the design and synthesis of new materials.

如今，在全职加入清华后，亚吉被任命为一个新成立的人工智能科学研究所的负责人，该研究所将专注于新材料的设计与合成。

Its underlying aim, the university said, is to “overcome the efficiency bottlenecks of traditional trial-and-error approaches” and shorten the usual cycles of discovery.

该大学表示，其根本目标是“破解传统试错研发模式的效能瓶颈”，并缩短常规的发现周期。