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Cosmological large-scale structures are shaped by nonlinear processes mainly driven by gravity. Previous methods of analyzing this rely on theoretical templates that are based on perturbative expansion about the linear solution, restricting the extraction of information to large, mildly nonlinear, scales. On the other hand, N-body simulations can uncover structures on smaller scales, until non-gravitational effects such as gas cooling and feedback eventually become a factor. However, their high computational cost hinders their direct use in statistical inference. In this talk, I will discuss the emulator approach as a potential solution. In particular, I will present our Dark Quest simulation project and its applications to the SDSS and HSC datasets. I will briefly touch on the future direction of the whole analysis framework, which involves coupling simulators and observations for automated knowledge acquisition.