AI Could Help Bridge Valley of Death for New Materials - CleanTechnica

The article from CleanTechnica discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to accelerate the discovery and development of new materials by enabling autonomous science—an approach that combines AI, robotics, and advanced computing to design and execute experiments faster and at larger scales than human researchers alone. In May 2025, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) hosted the Autonomous Research for Real-World Science (ARROWS) workshop, gathering over 50 experts from materials science, chemistry, AI, and robotics to explore how autonomous systems could overcome persistent bottlenecks in translating laboratory discoveries into industrial applications. A central challenge identified is bridging the “valley of death,” the gap where promising lab findings fail to scale or be deployed effectively due to complexities in cost, scalability, and real-world performance. Current lab workflows, optimized for human operation, limit the speed and precision autonomous systems can achieve. Workshop participants emphasized the need to redesign research processes so that materials are “born qualified” for industrial use from the