Self-driving Labs: From ~20 years and $100M to ~10 months and $1M!



Definition: Self-driving labs combine robotics, AI and advanced computing to design, make, test and analyze potential new materials in a loop guided by AI that learns from the experiments it has run and makes decisions about what to do next.

Importance: It currently takes 20 years and $100 million on average to go from the discovery of a new material to high-volume advanced manufacturing of it. Self-driving labs could accelerate the process 100 to 1,000 times, potentially bringing a 10-plus-year operation down to less than a few months and cutting the cost from $100 million to less than $1 million.

Only a few: This is a fairly embryonic concept. The list of countries with the trifecta of AI, robotics and advanced computing capabilities is small.

Source: AXIOS Science, Aug. 08, 2024.


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