Less than a year after collecting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, one of the world's most celebrated materials scientists has traded California for Beijing. Omar Yaghi, 61, has vacated his chair at the University of California, Berkeley to become a full-time Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, in what analysts describe as a telling moment in the intensifying competition between the United States and China for scientific talent.
A ceremony in Beijing
Tsinghua formally welcomed Yaghi at an appointment ceremony on 3 July, where university president Li Lumingpresented him with his appointment letter. The Jordanian-born chemist, previously the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry at Berkeley, will establish and lead a new university-level institute dedicated to AI-driven chemistry and materials research.
The relationship is not new. Yaghi had served as an honorary professor at Tsinghua since 2022 and was elected a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2025. According to a Berkeley postdoctoral researcher quoted by the South China Morning Post, roughly half of the estimated 200 researchers Yaghi has trained over his career are Chinese.
What the new institute will do
The centre's stated ambition is to use artificial intelligence to transform how new materials are designed and synthesised, with Tsinghua saying it aims to shorten development cycles "by orders of magnitude". Speaking at the ceremony, Yaghi said he hopes to create materials addressing water scarcity, carbon neutrality and sustainable development, and to train a generation of young scientists in AI-enabled chemistry.
The work builds directly on the research that earned Yaghi his Nobel. He shared the 2025 prize with Susumu Kitagawaand Richard Robson for developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), ultra-porous, sponge-like structures created by linking metal ions with carbon-based molecules. More than 100,000 varieties now exist, with applications ranging from carbon capture to devices that harvest drinking water from air.
Why he left
Yaghi has been open about his frustrations with the direction of American science. In an interview with Scientific American in June, he described the situation as "not so encouraging", pointing to reduced grants and shrinking support from US science agencies under the administration of US President Donald Trump. He also warned that American researchers were failing to embrace what he called an artificial-intelligence revolution, saying engagement with AI was a matter of "survival" for the US research system.
Part of a wider migration
The move is not an isolated case. China has expanded its talent-recruitment programmes, with some cities and provinces offering relocating researchers lump-sum payments and monthly allowances, while France announced funding this year for dozens of US-based scientists willing to move. Science-policy analysts have characterised Yaghi's relocation as a marker of shifting geopolitical dynamics in research, driven by changes to US federal funding and aggressive institutional recruitment by Beijing.
Yaghi's US business interests appear largely intact. He remains involved with Atoco, a California company developing water-harvesting and carbon-capture materials, whose chief executive Samer Taha said the move forms part of the laureate's global science initiative and "will multiply the opportunities for transformative discoveries".
With information from Nature and the South China Morning Post
