Panasonic Corp. (TYO:6752) aims to increase the efficiency of its new materials development efforts by using the materials informatics (MI) technology of Citrine Informatics Inc., a Silicon Valley venture firm.
By optimizing its use of enormous volumes of accumulated proprietary data, Panasonic expects to be able to halve development time and complement its scarce development resources.
Part of a company-wide strategy aimed at future growth, the MI digitization project will also deepen Panasonic’s involvement in the concentration of world-class technologies in the Silicon Valley area.
Optimized for materials development, the MI tools of Citrine Informatics also provide full access to the potentially useful publicly disclosed experimental results and other data held by other companies. Also included are features that recommend materials with characteristics that meet the client’s needs.
The key to exploiting such information is access to massive volumes of data not just on successes, but also on efforts that have failed. Panasonic’s long history of involvement in the materials industry gives it an advantage in this field.
Citrine Informatics offers its development tools in the form of software as a service, providing users with just the functions they need. After adopting the tools, Panasonic will determine the degree to which they are effective and consistent with its existing systems.
Source: Japan Chemical Daily