As it builds a global community to accelerate the discovery of materials for a healthier, more sustainable future, the Acceleration Consortium at the University of Toronto recently welcomed a visit from one of its new industry partners: Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
The collaboration aims to advance the emerging field of accelerated discovery using self-driving labs, which combine artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced computing to rapidly design new materials and molecules.
Self-driving labs can reduce the time and cost associated with bringing advanced materials to market from an average of 20 years and $100 million to as little as one year and $1 million.
“The materials that will power our society in this century need to be circular economy-friendly, sustainable, inexpensive, and high-performance,” said Alán Aspuru-Guzik, director of the Acceleration Consortium and a professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Computer Science in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science.
“To find these materials as quickly as possible, this work cannot just be done at a single lab, or a single university, and not just in universities or government labs, but together with leading industry partners like Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.”