{"id":1142126,"date":"2025-06-18T03:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-video&#038;p=1142126"},"modified":"2025-07-17T07:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T14:27:58","slug":"what-is-density-functional-theory-dft","status":"publish","type":"msr-video","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/video\/what-is-density-functional-theory-dft\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Density Functional Theory (DFT)?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this video, Microsoft\u2019s Chris Bishop, Technical Fellow and Director of Microsoft Research AI for Science, explains how Microsoft researchers achieved a breakthrough in the accuracy of density functional theory (DFT) and the challenges they faced. Scientists worldwide use DFT to calculate the properties of molecules and materials. The researchers generated a vast dataset, two orders of magnitude larger than anything scientists used previously and then combined it with the power of deep learning. The result is the world\u2019s first deep learning exchange correlation (XC) functional, which achieves high accuracy without sacrificing speed. Microsoft\u2019s new deep learning-powered DFT model has the potential to advance and accelerate scientific discovery in areas like clean energy, semiconductor technology, medicine, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-pill\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link has-white-color has-blue-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/ai.azure.com\/labs\/projects\/msr-acc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Microsoft Research Accurate Chemistry Collection<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, Microsoft\u2019s Chris Bishop, Technical Fellow and Director of Microsoft Research AI for Science, explains how Microsoft researchers achieved a breakthrough in the accuracy of density functional theory (DFT) and the challenges they faced. Scientists worldwide use DFT to calculate the properties of molecules and materials. The researchers generated a vast dataset, two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1142299,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[13556],"msr-video-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[269148,269142],"msr-session-type":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"msr-episode":[],"msr-research-theme":[],"class_list":["post-1142126","msr-video","type-msr-video","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-approved-for-river","msr-post-option-include-in-river"],"msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/wtB50-si1hI","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_video_file":"http:\/\/0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video\/1142126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-video"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video\/1142126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145109,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video\/1142126\/revisions\/1145109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1142299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-video-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video-type?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-session-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-session-type?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-episode","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-episode?post=1142126"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-theme?post=1142126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}