Evonik extended its collaboration with IBM in the field of digitalization until 2025 and became the first chemical company in the world to participate in the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab for Artificial Intelligence research and development.
Evonik has extended its strategic partnership with technology firm IBM until 2025. Making this decision early creates more opportunities for longer-term projects. Additionally, Evonik will be part of the R&D project for artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), becoming the world's first chemical company to join.
Artificial intelligence is a critical tool for innovation and improvement in the chemical industry and Evonik is looking forward to joining the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and its advisory board to help with its ideas and applications through materials discovery, formulation technology, knowledge management and market analysis to advance general applications of AI in the chemical industry. At the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, experts are studying the potential uses and effects of AI. “Bright minds from science and business are working jointly together on digital progress. We are delighted to be part of it,” says Henrik Hahn, chief digital officer (CDO) of Evonik.
"The work on artificial intelligence is also a litmus test of what digital systems can do: for example, we are looking at how decisions can be made better, more systematically and faster with the help of algorithms," says Hahn. "Ultimately, it's about the value AI can add to the company," he says.
Hahn has a positive view of the strategic partnership with IBM, which has been in place since 2017: “The joint work has helped to drive forward digital transformation in a targeted manner. Evonik sees itself as a pioneer in digitization in the chemical industry. Our partnership with IBM and our new commitment to the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab further substantiate this claim”.
During these years, Evonik and IBM have already studied new opportunities to create collaborative intelligence between humans and machines, in pilot projects. Experts now have the ability to access and analyse valuable information in an easy and intuitive way. New connections between data can now be found and chemist can intuitively explore and compare formulations and their related properties to find ideas for new products.
Evonik and IBM have also managed to build Artificial Intelligence that will further accelerate the research for new materials. Working in close collaboration with IBM Research, a Deep Neural Network that predicts properties or new formations for high-performance polymers was also developed and trained. These forecasts support researchers in their search for new products and solutions.