Graphical representation of the proposed method. The evolution of the chemical species in the physical space is usually obtained by integrating in time (upper panel). This can be reconstructed by evolving a different set of variables in the latent space by using the (lower panel). The transformation between the two spaces is obtained with an encoder (φ) and a decoder (ψ). The physical space has N chemical species/dimensions (N = 6 in this schematic), while the latent space has M < N variables/dimensions (M = 2 in this schematic). Lines schematically show how the abundances in the physical and latent spaces might evolve with time. Sketches of the chemical networks in the physical space and the latent space are shown on the right side. The latent network has fewer species and reactions, but captures the dynamics of the full chemical network faithfully.