AI in Materials Science
- [University of California at Berkeley]
- Overview
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in materials science to simulate properties and analyze data. This helps to reduce trial-and-error and customize materials for different industries.
AI is also used in chemistry to enhance research, development, and operational processes. This includes drug discovery, materials design, reaction optimization, spectroscopy and analysis, process control and optimization, and computational chemistry.
AI can also automate complex problem-solving tasks. For example, Google DeepMind researchers reported that a new AI model discovered more than 2.2 million hypothetical materials. Of those, 381,000 were stable new materials that scientists could attempt to make and test in a lab.
Google also has an autonomous system called A-Lab that combines robotics with AI to create new materials. A-Lab devises recipes for materials, including some that could be used in batteries or solar cells.
- AI and Automation for New Materials Discovery
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are being used to discover new materials. Researchers are using AI to find new materials for electronics, transportation, and energy.
AI for materials discovery uses AI to automate research tasks and discover new scientific concepts and laws. AI can also simulate properties and analyze data to reduce trial and error, and customize materials for different industries.
AI can also be used to improve quality assurance for industrial products. AI-based inspection systems can identify defects in real-time, allowing manufacturers to detect potential quality issues early on and make corrections.
- Why it matters: These fields are under pressure to produce new materials faster and cheaper to support and advance technologies that could transform industries and economies.
- The big picture: Batteries, drugs, and semiconductors require new materials and molecules to underpin green grids, precision medicine, and next-generation computing and communications.
Ongoing initiatives are underway in the United States, China, the European Union, and Japan to stimulate materials development by creating libraries of compounds that can be tested and potentially developed into new materials.
- AI in Materials Science
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in materials science to speed up material discovery and design. AI can:
- Simulate properties: AI can analyze data and simulate properties to help reduce trial-and-error.
- Calculate chemical and physical properties: AI can accurately calculate the chemical and physical properties of predicted materials.
- Create original content: Generative AI can use machine learning to produce new content without using predefined examples.
- Spot patterns: Graph Networks for Materials Exploration (GNoME) can identify patterns beyond the original training data.
- Neural networks: AI can be used to integrate experiments with AI techniques.
- Generative modeling: AI can be used to develop classical force.
- Automated synthesis and characterization: AI can be used for automated synthesis and characterization.
Generative AI (GenAI) can help speed up the discovery and design of materials in material science. GenAI models are trained on a variety of internet information and are usually generic. They can take a variety of data inputs and generate new content.
- Data Analytics and Machine Learning in Materials Science
Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be finding its way into every field these days, and the field of materials science is no exception.
Data analytics and machine learning researchers are exploring and advancing applications “big data” in materials science. They develop and use sophisticated data mining, data analytics, and machine learning approaches to extract the maximum possible information from high-throughput simulations and experiments that produce volumes of data too large for manual analysis by humans.
They develop tools to identify patterns in images and other data to identify the most promising materials and processes from enormous numbers of possibilities at an unprecedented scale.
- [Bagan, Myanmar]
- Applications of AI in Materials Science
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology promises to accelerate material discovery through high-throughput computation and high-throughput experimentation. The application of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as machine learning, deep learning, and various optimization techniques is critical to making this happen.
Some of the key application areas for applying AI techniques to materials include: development of well-curated and diverse datasets, selection of effective material representations, inverse material design, integration of autonomous experiments and theory, and selection of appropriate algorithms/workflows. The idea of including physics-based models in AI frameworks is also appealing.
Finally, uncertainty quantification in AI-based material property prediction and issues related to building the infrastructure for disseminating AI knowledge are critical to making AI-based materials research successful.
- AI Research Topics in Materials Science
Topics addressed in this AI for Materials Science include (but not be limited to):
- Dataset and tools for employing AI for materials
- Integrating experiments with AI techniques
- Graph neural network
- Comparison of AI techniques for materials
- Challenges applying AI to materials
- Uncertainty quantification and building trust in AI predictions
- Generative modeling
- Using AI to develop classical force-fields
- Natural language processing
[More to come ...]
