Promoting the establishment of a national research data center
Early acquisition of 4.2 million new material R&D data
Support for exploration and design, process development, and measurement and analysis services


A plan is being promoted to integrate data and AI into materials research to minimize trial and error through experiments and theories and shorten the period of new material development.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 14th that it held the 5th Materials, Components, and Equipment Competitiveness Enhancement Committee and finalized the 'Data-based Materials Research Innovation Hub Construction and Utilization Plan' and will be fully promoting it.

This plan focuses on establishing a system to systematically collect and manage scattered material research data and directly utilizing it for material R&D.

In addition, starting with the approximately KRW 8 billion secured through the Digital New Deal supplementary budget, we will invest KRW 59.8 billion by 2027 to first begin building a research data collection and sharing platform.


Building a data-driven materials research innovation hub
Securing 4.2 million data points / First, establish a system for collecting, managing, and utilizing material research data. In order to build high-quality data, we plan to establish the structure and specifications of data entry standard templates by 2021 and secure 4.2 million pieces of metadata that AI can learn.

The collection target is all data generated through R&D, and will be gradually expanded from R&D projects located at the Ministry of Science and ICT to projects of other ministries and basic research. In addition to government R&D-linked registration, the collection method will be diversified, including extracting papers and patents, re-standardizing existing data, and creating new data.

By 2026, we will build an ultra-high-performance computing (3,000 cores, 8PB storage, 100 GPUs) environment dedicated to materials research data for stable management of large amounts of data, and by utilizing the collected data and AI for materials research, we will provide three major services (exploration and design, process development, measurement and analysis) from 2022 to shorten the period from new material exploration and design to process development and mass production.

Establishment of a foundation for activating data-based new material research / A single system will be established by consolidating the capabilities of materials research institutes such as KISTI, KIST, and the Korea Institute of Materials Science, centered around the Standards Institute. A national materials research data center will be designated and operated to systematically manage data, and specialized centers for each material application field such as energy/environment, smart/IT (information and communication), and structure (safety) will also be established.

To ensure that the data collection and utilization system can be successfully established, guidelines will be prepared that include mandatory data registration for government R&D projects, access qualifications according to data hierarchy, and a security system. In order to cultivate human resources with both material and data literacy, we also support customized specialized training for each target group, including university students, material researchers, and corporate employees.


Providing three major services utilizing data and AI
To enable materials researchers or companies to conveniently utilize data and AI throughout the entire process from exploration and design → synthesis and implementation → mass production, ▲exploration and design ▲process development ▲measurement and analysis services are provided within the innovation hub.

The exploration and design service develops and provides AI that predicts and implements composition-structure-property correlations (forward) or designs the composition of materials with desired properties (reverse).

Process development services provide process development and process optimization solutions that utilize data, simulation, and modeling to ensure that the excellent properties of materials developed in the laboratory can be quickly implemented in the scale-up process.

Measurement and analysis services are key elements that determine the accuracy of materials research, and we also support services that collect and share advanced know-how possessed only by some researchers and provide interpretation guidelines and equipment information.


Promoting a leading project to accelerate materials research
Materials Research Innovation Hub and 3 Major Services Materials R&AWe are promoting a pioneering project that reduces the time and cost of developing new materials by half by utilizing mp;D throughout the entire cycle.

We plan to create a successful model early by conducting large-scale new R&D (mid- to long-term) and pilot projects (short-term) in conjunction with small business items (338+a).

Minister of Science and ICT Choi Ki-young said, “I hope that new materials such as LEDs and carbon fibers will be secured domestically through the use of research data,” and added, “We will pursue policies with a long-term perspective to create a research environment that is open, shared, and collaborative.”