New centre delivers digital revolution T
he multi-million pound Innovation Centre in Digital Molecular Technologies (iDMT) was officially opened in the Department on Friday the 26th of November.
Professors Alexei Lapkin (left) and Matthew Gaunt in the new centre’s High Throughput Chemical Synthesis Laboratory.
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he new centre’s goal is to create a digital transformation in the chemical industry by helping companies make the transition to automated discovery processes and machine learning.
“Up to now, one of the barriers to digitalisation has been the absence of a central location with the instrumentation and multi-disciplinary team that can help companies develop the right solutions for their particular services,” says iDMT Director Alexei Lapkin, who is based in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. “The iDMT fills this gap.”
Using AI to make molecules “Despite tremendous advances in chemistry, we still cannot always make all of the molecules we need on demand – to do this, we need to change the way chemical synthesis is approached. One way this could be achieved is by automating largely routine procedures that could be enabled by adopting artificial intelligence methods, so that the chemists’ creative minds are freed to invent solutions to new problems,” says iDMT co-Director Matthew Gaunt, who holds the 1702 Hamied Chair in Chemistry here.
Making molecules more economically The iDMT helps small to medium enterprises (SMEs) learn about and adopt new digital tools and processes, which will enable them to make molecules more quickly and economically, and with fewer negative effects on the environment.
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