New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- Early in 2020, as cities around the world began locking down in response to covid, a few researchers were still able to continue to run their experiments. Even though they, like everyone else, had been prohibited from entering their labs, they were able to log into 'cloud laboratories' and submit their trials remotely, leaving it to robotic arms and automated instruments to execute their instructions from a distance.

What was a quaint convenience in the midst of a crisis is now a widespread reality, as software, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have come together to bring the concept of 'work-from-home' to scientific experimentation. Around the world, commercial cloud labs have already begun to invert tradi...