Welcome to the AI4SD Network+ (Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Intelligence for Automated Investigations for Scientific Discovery). The Network+ is funded by EPSRC and hosted by the University of Southampton and aims to bring together researchers looking to show how cutting edge artificial and augmented intelligence technologies can be used to push the boundaries of scientific discovery.
We have chosen Design and Synthesis of Chemicals and Materials (including property prediction, synthesis and manufacture) as the inter-related areas for the initial cutting-edge exemplars on which to focus the landscape for the Network+’s activities. These areas are critical to meeting the majority of the UN sustainability goals, and are at the top of the UK Industrial Strategy. The complexity of the relationships between chemical/molecular structure, physical properties and material performance renders many of these problems intractable by conventional approaches to computation. AI techniques hold great promise in revolutionising research in these areas.