The booming steel industry in Osceola, Arkansas has failed to bring prosperity to the town's impoverished community, even as it generates high-paying jobs.
Although steelworkers' average annual salary far exceeds that of other industries, nearly 30 percent of the city's residents still live below the poverty line.
A relief station has been set up to provide free meals to those in need. Volunteers said that even after the opening of another steel mill in the area, the number of free lunches they need to distribute each day has increased.
"We are maxing out at 75 to 80 meals a day. We are feeding about one percent of the population," said Gregory Brown, head of the relief station.
The city's weak public transportation system has prevented many locals from getting a job at the steel plants, leaving them to rely on food from the relief station instead.
"I've worked there a few times. I mean, I lost a couple friends rushing to work and who died in car accidents rushing to work. If I caught a train system or a bus system or whatever, back and forth, I wouldn't have a problem going back and forth to work," said Antonio, a local resident.
Antonio is one of many in the community who believe that, even though blast furnaces in the town operate day and night, the profit for steel producers has not translated into real benefits for struggling residents.
"They are building a steel mill here every other month, so the money's not here. I mean, wherever it's at, I don't know. Wherever it's going, I don't know," he said.
US town struggles with poverty even as local steel industry booms
Advanced computing and artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify solutions from the vast range of new materials to tackle humanity's challenges and ensure materials are fully recyclable, 2025 Nobel Chemistry Laureate Omar Yaghi said on Friday.
Speaking to China Media Group (CMG) in an interview on the sidelines of the ongoing 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai, Yaghi said that AI and computation are crucial for sorting through an abundance of new materials to find those that are both economically viable and commercially scalable.
"Now, in this space of what I call abundance -- abundance of new materials that are going to solve almost every problem facing our planet, I mentioned climate, environment, but there are many, many other problems. They all require new materials. So in this vast space of new materials, which one is going to solve which problem, and AI and computation are going to help us identify, which is that material that is going to solve the problem and also not just solve the problem, but solve the problem in an economic fashion and commercializeable fashion, so that the molecule reaches society," said Yaghi, who is leading an initiative to use AI to discover entirely new materials.
Yaghi also said that the ultimate goal of integrating AI into chemistry is to ensure a fully circular and sustainable lifecycle for materials, allowing them to be broken back down into their original components once their utility is exhausted.
"In the fullness of time, we want to use AI to not just go from the molecule to society. After they have run their lifetime, take them back to the original building units that we put in. And so now you're closing the cycle on this new technology, so that you create an industry that is sustainable," said Yaghi.
The 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance runs from Friday to next Monday under the theme of "AI Partnership for a Brighter Future."
AI critical to solve humanity's challenges, make materials fully recyclable: Nobel winner
