Alán is one of the world’s leading AI and advanced materials researchers. Learn more about him and the AC team.
Materials and molecules are the foundation of virtually every major advancement in human history, from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, to the semiconductors that propelled the Information Age. They are also critical to solving nearly all the world’s major challenges, such as climate change, plastics pollution, and cancer. By convening experts across disciplines, sectors, and geographies, the AC aims to expedite research translation and commercialization that will drive the Age of Materials on Demand.
We build self-driving labs—that combine material science with the power of artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced computing—to rapidly design and test new materials. These autonomous labs reduce the time and cost of bringing advanced materials to market, from an average of 20 years and $100 million to as little as one year and $1 million.
To accelerate materials discovery, while making fundamental breakthroughs in related fields like AI, robotics, materials science, and informed by ethics, economics, and Indigenous science and technology studies
To train today’s researchers with the skills they need to advance the emerging field of accelerated science
To connect key players in the value chain to expedite the design and commercialization of sustainable materials and molecules addressing a wide range of needs and applications
To ensure that all materials and technologies are ethically designed to benefit society and the planet by engaging with community and Indigenous knowledges
A robotic lab then uses these predictions to autonomously synthesize and test it for said properties. This data is then fed back into the AI system, so that it can learn from the results to generate a new, better slate of candidates. After rounds of predictions, syntheses, and tests, a winner emerges. By inverting the usual discovery process, this closed-loop technology allows scientists to first define the desired properties and then work backwards to develop whole families of new materials without tedious hours of trial and experiments in the lab.
AC members are a diverse group, hailing from a wide variety of disciplines, including AI, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, mechatronics, biology, pharmacology, robotics, techno-economics, and more.
Government support and investment is helping to create a new market for advanced materials. The AC is already working with the National Research Council of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the Vector Institute and CIFAR.
The AC’s industry members have the opportunity to consult and collaborate with leading researchers, access a growing talent pool, and gain professional training and upskill technicians in the design and operation of self-driving labs.