# Open-Source ESMFold2 Predicts 1.1 Billion Protein Structures, Surpasses AlphaFold

> A new open-source model called ESMFold2 has generated the ESM Atlas, a database of 1.1 billion predicted protein structures. To put that in perspective, it eclipses the well-known AlphaFold database by more than 800 million entries, and it draws on a pool of 6.8 billion protein sequences that includes messy environmental and metagenomic data from the natural world. Scale is not the whole story. The researchers report that ESMFold2 matches or beats AlphaFold3 on several benchmark tasks, and that it is particularly strong on protein complexes, such as how an antibody locks onto its target. That last capability is exactly what drug designers and immunologists care about, since biology mostly happens when proteins interact rather than sit alone. The open-source part matters as much as the numbers. AlphaFold reshaped biology in part by being widely accessible, and an even larger, openly available atlas lets any lab search, build on, and check the predictions without gatekeepers. It is a reminder that some of the most consequential AI is not chatbots at all, but tools quietly expanding what scientists can see.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: Lab Manager · Published Sunday, September 6, 2026_

## Wortins' read

A new open-source model called ESMFold2 has generated the ESM Atlas, a database of 1.1 billion predicted protein structures. To put that in perspective, it eclipses the well-known AlphaFold database by more than 800 million entries, and it draws on a pool of 6.8 billion protein sequences that includes messy environmental and metagenomic data from the natural world. Scale is not the whole story. The researchers report that ESMFold2 matches or beats AlphaFold3 on several benchmark tasks, and that it is particularly strong on protein complexes, such as how an antibody locks onto its target. That last capability is exactly what drug designers and immunologists care about, since biology mostly happens when proteins interact rather than sit alone. The open-source part matters as much as the numbers. AlphaFold reshaped biology in part by being widely accessible, and an even larger, openly available atlas lets any lab search, build on, and check the predictions without gatekeepers. It is a reminder that some of the most consequential AI is not chatbots at all, but tools quietly expanding what scientists can see.

## Source

[Read the full story at Lab Manager](https://www.labmanager.com/how-a-new-protein-folding-ai-generates-over-one-billion-structures-for-research-35487)

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