For a long time, research and discovery have been hindered by human limitations coupled with advancing technological capabilities.
Over the last decade, for instance, supercomputers have been able to accumulate a vast amount of data, all of which can be spread across several sectors of an organization.
But keeping up with that data has become an almost impossible task – especially when it comes to processing it, analyzing it, and then applying it to everyday processes.
Similarly, while the digital age has assisted in material discovery, the cost and time between targeting the performance of a material and then evaluating a selected candidate remain high.
This is why the increasing role that LIMs and materials informatics has in the field of science is so important. With these technological advancements, the process of research and discovery can be advanced, leading to lower costs, faster processing, and more time spent on secularly human areas.
So How Is Integration Advancing Research?
To understand what these technologies mean for research, it’s first important to define each one. For instance, if a vast amount of data is already available, what is lims offering that speeds up processes?
Well, LIMs is a laboratory data management software that assimilates the data accumulated over everyday operations and then consolidates it into one system.
For organizations with a large amount of data spread over multiple networks, this is the only way to keep track of every piece of knowledge, with an easy way to access it and manage it into something practical.
So far, the software is being utilized by nearly 50% of labs across the world – with an estimated 44% wanting to integrate it into their labs over the next two years.
Materials informatics, on the other hand, takes the data management of LIMs and brings it to another level. It’s a well-known fact that AI is changing science as we know it, not least in its ability to transform research. This technology has the ability to not only consolidate data but learn from it to create insights into operations and extract knowledge that would not have been extracted before.
Why Is This Important For Researchers?
For researchers in 2023, utilizing LIMs and materials informatics is a must if you want to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive field. As mentioned before, more and more labs are integrating these technologies into their processes, helping them to move ahead at a rapid pace. To stay competitive, then, it’s important to join the pack and implement all the latest scientific technologies that are designed to accelerate productivity and success across the research and discovery landscape.
When it comes to material design, specifically, technology like materials informatics offers several new ways to go from the starting point to the endpoint, helping researchers to tackle both the common and the unique challenges.
Furthermore, because it is an ML technology, progress will only become more and more accelerated to the point where, in the future, researchers may be able to determine the properties before they find the optimal materials.
Research is all about innovation and discovery, and both LIMs and materials informatics open the door for researchers to become more innovative and ultimately get to the discovery part far more quickly and cost-effectively.