AskChem: Claim-Centered Infrastructure for Chemistry Literature Synthesis

Source

• Source name: arXiv
• Source kind: paper
• Authors / organization: Bing Yan, Gregory Wolfe, Stefano Martiniani, Kyunghyun Cho
• Venue: arXiv: cs.CL
• Published: 2026-07-30
• Collected: 2026-07-31
• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2607.28618v1
• PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.28618v1
• DOI: UNKNOWN

Plain-Language Brief

AskChem is a system designed to make it easier for scientists and AI agents to find specific findings in chemistry literature by converting papers into atomic, typed claims that are grounded by their source DOI and a verbatim quote or an explicit evidence locator. AskChem provides a web interface, as well as REST, SDK, and MCP access for AI agents. The system currently indexes 2.4M claims from 147K papers.

What the Document Says

• AskChem is a claim-centered infrastructure for cross-paper chemistry search.
• Each paper is converted into atomic, typed claims that are grounded by a source DOI and a verbatim quote or an explicit evidence locator.
• Over this shared claim store, AskChem provides structures for search and synthesis: a stabilized faceted taxonomy, an evidence graph linking claims through relations, and an exploratory living taxonomy.

Key Concepts Mentioned

• AskChem
• claim-centered infrastructure
• chemistry literature synthesis
• atomic, typed claims
• source DOI
• verbatim quote
• explicit evidence locator
• stabilized faceted taxonomy
• evidence graph
• exploratory living taxonomy

Claims Made by the Document

• AskChem changes the unit of retrieval from the paper to the provenance-carrying claim.
• Currently, AskChem indexes 2.4M claims from 147K papers.

Evidence Used

• The text states that AskChem is a claim-centered infrastructure for cross-paper chemistry search.
• The text states that AskChem currently indexes 2.4M claims from 147K papers.

Methods / Approach

• Converting each paper into atomic, typed claims
• Creating a shared claim store
• Providing structures for search and synthesis: faceted taxonomy, evidence graph, exploratory living taxonomy

Limitations Stated by the Authors

UNKNOWN

Limitations Noted by the Agent

Agent interpretation — not from the source.

UNKNOWN

Open Questions

UNKNOWN

Notes for Future Q&A

May include interpretation. Labeled where it does.

UNKNOWN

Raw Abstract / Excerpt

Chemistry literature synthesis often requires assembling specific findings scattered across many publications, yet existing literature-search systems primarily return ranked document lists. As a result, scientists and AI agents need to locate relevant information, verify their provenance, and assemble cross-paper answers manually. We present AskChem, a claim-centered infrastructure for cross-paper chemistry search. AskChem changes the unit of retrieval from the paper to the provenance-carrying claim: each paper is converted into atomic, typed claims, each grounded by a source DOI and a verbatim quote or an explicit evidence locator. Over this shared claim store, AskChem exposes complementary structures for search and synthesis: a stabilized faceted taxonomy for hierarchical retrieval and browsing, an evidence graph linking claims through relations, and an exploratory living taxonomy that situates indexed papers under scientific principles. AskChem currently indexes 2.4M claims from 147K papers and provides a web interface, as well as REST, SDK, and MCP access for AI agents. On AskChem-Bench, grounding a GPT-5.5 reader in AskChem yields 100% resolvable DOIs, compared with 88.3% without retrieval, and the highest citation density among five tested systems. AskChem is live at https://askchem.org.