Enhanced Battery Designs possible with AI and HPC

The combination of AI and HPC (high-performance computing) is helping to develop new battery chemistries that go beyond traditional lithium-ion batteries.

Today, lithium-ion batteries increasingly run our world, from phones to medical devices to electric vehicles to satellites. Lithium demand is expected to rise five to ten times by 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Lithium is already relatively scarce, and thus expensive. Traditional lithium-ion batteries also pose safety issues, with the potential to catch fire or explode.

Many researchers are looking for alternatives, both for lithium and for the materials used as electrolytes. Solid-state electrolytes show promise for their stability and safety.

A recent report says, by combining artificial intelligence with high-performance computing (HPC) is a powerful one-two punch for revolutionizing battery design. This dynamic duo is accelerating the discovery of new materials, optimizing existing designs, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in terms of battery performance, safety, and sustainability.

AI can sift through vast databases of known materials and identify promising candidates for battery electrodes and electrolytes. This is like having a super-powered chemist who can analyze millions of possibilities in a fraction of the time.

HPC largely centers around high precise simulation. But, before you can get to work, you first need to identify the ideal candidate or hypothesis to test. So, rather than deploying HPC resources to test hypothesis after hypothesis until you find the perfect recipe, you instead use speedy low precision AI models to help sort through all the possibilities for the ideal candidates.

Scientists at PNNL are testing a new battery material that was found in a matter of weeks, not years, as part of the collaboration with Microsoft to use to advanced AI and high-performance computing (HPC), a type of cloud-based computing that combines large numbers of computers to solve complex scientific and mathematical tasks.

Today, Microsoft supports a chemistry-specific co-pilot and AI tools that together act like a magnet that pulls possible needles out of the haystack, trimming the number of candidates for further exploration so scientists know where to focus.