Accelerating adoption of AI in materials and chemicals to deliver net zero goals faster

Intellegens seek support to create a consortium to accelerate the adoption and trustworthiness of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies in the materials and chemicals industries in the UK. Intellegens is a provider of advanced machine learning software, Alchemite(tm), with an international network of existing customers, partners, academic collaborators, and real-time operating systems in the materials and chemicals sectors. This network places Intellegens in the ideal position to bring together the key parties in the UK, and globally, to address the challenges of AI and ML adoption.

It is critical for the materials and chemicals industries to adopt AI and ML to hit net zero targets to address climate change. Intellegens has proven its ML technology Alchemite(tm) can optimize production processes to reduce energy consumption and emissions, while also improving efficiency and productivity. Moreover, AI and ML can be used to develop materials and chemicals compositions that are more sustainable and have a lower environmental impact.

Materials and chemicals industries struggle to adopt AI due to a number of factors:

1. The industries are highly regulated making it difficult to implement new technologies.
2. Products produced are customised to specific customer needs, which can make it difficult to standardise processes across different production lines.
3. Cost of implementing new technologies can be high, and benefits may not be immediately apparent.
4. These industries are resistant to change, preferring to stick with traditional methods.

Alchemite(tm) enables existing data to be uploaded and configured, offers a simple yet powerful ML model building interface, a rich set of analytics, predictive & design capabilities, and the ability to deploy models to non-expert end users. Easy-to-understand analytics are key to addressing issues (2) and (4) above -- which in turn will drive solutions to points (1) and (3), fundamental to deliver 'explainable AI'.

The long-term vision is to accelerate the adoption of AI in the materials and chemicals industries. During the first phase, the consortium will assess aspects of trustworthy AI with respect to the industry, review key aspects such as transparency, fairness, bias detection, safety, robustness, auditing and monitoring, compliance, and the role / need for human oversight. The output will be a technical report opening a trusted and responsible solution that benefits the UK material and chemical industries.