September 2, 2015

A New Materials Research Hub Established for Promoting Research from the Perspective of Data Science


A schematic of the “Materials research by Information Integration” Initiative (MI2I).
Conventionally, materials research was carried out with combinations of experiment,
theory and computational science. Meanwhile, independently of the advancement
in materials science, progress has been made in the field of information integration
technology, which uses basic technology for artificial intelligence research (e.g. big data
analysis and machine learning), starting a new trend of data science. The “Materials
research by Information Integration” Initiative is a strategy to incorporate such data science
methodology into materials science and thereby accelerate the development of new materials
and stimulate industrial innovation. To make this new challenge a success, we will devise
packages of tools for retrieving the data necessary for the design and development of new
materials effectively from a massive amount of data, and evolve them into more user-friendly
packages through their use. The “Materials research by Information Integration” Initiative is
expected to demonstrate a model for solving social issues in various areas including social
infrastructure, energy and environment, information and communication, and life science.

“Materials research by Information Integration” Initiative (MI2I)

(September 2, 2015)  An open innovation hub for promoting research on new materials was set up at NIMS under the name of “Materials research by Information Integration” Initiative (MI2I).

Abstract

1.  NIMS (Sukekatsu Ushioda, President) worked out a strategy to incorporate data science methodology into materials science and thereby accelerate the development of new materials and stimulate industrial innovation. This project was selected for the Support program for starting up innovation hub sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). On July 1, an open innovation hub for promoting research for materials development was set up at NIMS under the name of “Materials research by Information Integration” Initiative (MI2I).

2.  There is currently a trend toward evolving materials science into the fourth field of science — information-integrated science. Companies that have successfully implemented this change in new materials design ahead of others will have an overwhelming advantage in patent races and international competition. To achieve such evolution, it is necessary to devise venturous new methods and develop a dataplatform integrating a massive amount of data in materials science as databases, the cutting-edge data science, information science and mathematics. There is a call for intensive actions being taken through concerted efforts among the industry, academia, and society.

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