Polaron wins £1m Manchester Prize for transforming advanced materials with generative AI

The company has developed generative AI that utilises microstructural image data to bridge the gap between the way materials are made and their performance.

The technology allows engineers to characterise materials, quantify microstructural variation, and optimise microstructural designs faster than previously possible. Consequently, this new approach will help in the creation of stronger, lighter and more efficient materials for clean energy, transport and infrastructure. 

For battery electrodes, Polaron has shown that its approach enables accelerated parameterisation, accurate measurement of electrode degradation, and streamlined optimisation of manufacturing processes. In a recent study, its technology achieved a more than 10 per cent improvement in energy density which was made possible by evaluating thousands of material designs in under a day, a task that would take current advanced physics-based simulations approximately 50 years.

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In a statement, Polaron CEO Dr Isaac Squires, said: “In the last year, we have turned the research we pursued at Imperial College London into a commercial product, using our AI to reduce years of materials development into a matter of days. We are now working with our first customers in the battery manufacturing sector to apply Polaron to improve the performance of EVs by extending range and reducing charge times. While this has been our core market to date, Polaron is material agnostic, and we are already bringing our rapid design capabilities to industrial manufacturing more widely, including alloys, composites and catalysts.”