AI4Materials: A Manifesto for AI-Driven Scientific Discovery in Materials Science

The field of material science is greatly benefitting from the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in research. In this context, we present the AI4Materials (AI4M) laboratory within the Intelligo network at the University of Verona, a multidisciplinary team for the development of AI in material science and related fields, with the final aim of speeding up research and make it more sustainable. The idea is to adopt a new research approach where AI and machine learning (ML) directly aid in determining crucial chemical properties and pinpointing bottlenecks in materials discovery and optimization, implementing them in real world cases thanks to a strong connection with industrial realities. While just in its infancy, the group is already involved in several projects, which are here presented and discussed in terms of challenges and results we reached so far, with the idea of sharing our vision on the current and future tasks.