The AI lab is an initiative to promote the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques in Materials Science and Technology, specially among ICMM researchers. It is part of the CSIC AI-HUB.
The IA-Lab Steering Committee is formed by:
- Eduardo Hernández - Coordinator (@email)
- Gloria Platero
- Cefe López
- José Ignacio Martínez
- Andreas Mavrantonakis
The IA lab has as associated personnel:
- Roberto Muñoz (Scientific facilities staff)
- Abigail Tetigen (postdoc CSIC AI Hub)
The main objectives of the AI lab are:
1- Fostering expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applied to Materials Science research.
2- Promotion of in-house collaboration through AI and ML, as a catalyst of new synergic approaches to the materials research conducted at ICMM
3- Development of new, more energy efficient platforms for AI and ML, based on synergic Materials Science developments at ICMM.
To fulfil these objectives the AI lab will organize regularly short courses and workshops on programming and fundamentals of ML.
NEXT ACTIONS:
Hands-on workshop on Python programming and introduction to ML techniques, to be held in May.
AI @ ICMM, a one-day event showcasing applications of AI/ML in Materials Science by researchers at ICMM, to be held in May 2025 (date to be announced soon).
Why is this important?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are having an ever increasing impact in our society. This impact is also felt across all scientific disciplines, not least Materials Science, where AI & ML are rapidly becoming established as new research tools, complementary to other, more traditional methods. In particular AI & ML have great potential to guide the search for new materials with desirable properties through the use of e.g. generative ML, process optimisation or laboratory automatisation.
To remain at the forefront of research in Materials Science, it is necessary to embrace these new techniques and exploit them to their full potential. Therefore, the objective of the AI-Lab @ ICMM is threefold. Firstly, we have the strategic aim of fostering new expertise in AI & ML, particularly among our younger members, as applied to Materials Science research. This will be achieved through the celebration of short courses and workshops on programming and fundamentals of ML to be held on a regular basis (see below). Secondly, we aim to foster a greater level of in-house collaboration through ML: as AI & ML skills become more widely available among our members, the use of those skills will serve as a catalyst of new synergic approaches to research conducted at ICMM. Our final objective is perhaps even more ambitious: current implementations of AI & ML rely on silicon-based information technology (IT), and its growing use is resulting in a huge carbon footprint. It is urgent to develop new, more efficient, less energy-hungry forms of IT. Whatever forms these new ITs take, they will result from research in Materials Science, and at ICMM we have several research groups actively contributing to this effort.
The effects of this strategic/transversal initiative at ICMM are already being felt. Several of our research groups participate in AI-HUB https://aihub.csic.es/en/, a CSIC-wide initiative, sharing the aims of the AI-Lab @ ICMM on a broader scale. Thanks to AI-HUB we have secured the attraction of new talent at the level of short term predoctoral studentships and post-doctoral contracts to work on AI/ML applied to Materials Science. New collaborations between different research groups are materialising through the use of ML, and this is likely to increase further in the future.
