LG forms consortium studying materials using AI tech

LG Group, South Korea's fourth-largest conglomerate, said Sunday it has formed a research consortium with global partners to discover high-performance materials with artificial intelligence (AI) and robot technologies.

LG Science Park, the research and development (R&D) hub of LG Group in Seoul, joined hands with French energy firm Total S.A., Canada's McMaster University and the University of Toronto, and the National Research Council of Canada to launch the Alliance for AI-Accelerated Materials Discovery (A3MD).

LG said the A3MD is the world's first academia-industry alliance to discover materials using AI solutions.

The consortium will search for environment-friendly catalysts and advanced optical materials, according to LG.

LG said the use of AI will significantly reduce the time of finding new materials with precise analysis of data compared with the traditional research method involving many tests.

The members of the consortium will share their data and algorithms for projects through online meetings and will hold AI education, expert forums and internship programs to expand their partnership.

LG Science Park, whose R&D field ranges from electronics to bio technology, has been trying to collaborate with other global institutes to bolster its AI capability.

In July 2019, the R&D center joined forces with the University of Toronto to develop AI technologies for business-to-business applications and set up a research center for enterprise AI solutions. (Yonhap)