Scientific computing in the age of agentic AI

Scientific computing is crucial for modern research, but its software often lags due to origins in academic teams with limited engineering. This leads to slow, fragile workflows that hinder discovery. Agentic AI, like GPT-5.5, can accelerate this by modernizing tools; for example, GPT-5.5 improved cyvcf2's build and packaging, making it easier to install, test, and release. As coding agents advance, researchers can focus more on discovery and less on maintaining analysis pipelines.