Multidrug-resistant bacteria are among the greatest medical challenges of our time. To significantly improve the development of new antibiotics, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Saarland University, the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), and the biotechnology company smartbax GmbH have launched the collaborative project OptimAIze.The project combines state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods with innovative biological testing procedures to identify promising antibiotic candidates more quickly and to optimize them in a targeted manner.