A UK materials developer has been chosen alongside a handful elite US universities to work with Toyota as it turns to Artificial intelligence AI in order to develop new battery materials, the company announced last week.
The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) will collaborate with research entities, universities and companies on materials science research, investing approximately $35 million over the next four years.
“Toyota recognizes that artificial intelligence is a vital basic technology that can be leveraged across a range of industries, and we are proud to use it to expand the boundaries of materials science,” said TRI Chief Science Officer Eric Krotkov.
“Accelerating the pace of materials discovery will help lay the groundwork for the future of clean energy and bring us even closer to achieving Toyota’s vision of reducing global average new-vehicle CO2 emissions by 90 % by 2050.”
Initial research projects include collaborations with Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University at Buffalo, the University of Connecticut, and the U.K.-based materials science company Ilika.
Ilika is one of the rare British newcomers in electrochemistry and a spin out from the University of Southampton, having developed a solidstate lithium-ion battery.
TRI is also in ongoing discussions with additional research partners.
“This represents a fantastic opportunity to drastically advance the use of databases and machine learning methods in materials discovery,” said Jens Norskov, Professor at Stanford University and director of the SUNCAT center.
“The partnership combines theory, computation and experiment in an unprecedented, concerted effort. Research will merge advanced computational materials modeling, new sources of experimental data, machine learning and artificial intelligence in an effort to reduce the time scale for new materials development from a period that has historically been measured in decades.”
Research programs will follow parallel paths, working to identify new materials for use in future energy systems as well as to develop tools and processes that can accelerate the design and development of new materials more broadly.