The 2024 Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) Challenges

Access to advanced materials is critical to sectors as diverse as healthcare, communications, energy, transportation, and defense. Accelerating the design and use of new materials will  advance U.S. economic competitiveness and ensure national security. As described in its 2021 Strategic Plan, the MGI will utilize challenges to help unify and promote adoption of the Materials Innovation Infrastructure—through the expansion and integration of capabilities including autonomy, artificial intelligence, and robotics—to realize solutions to challenges of national interest.

The first round of MGI challenges released today are described briefly below, additional details are available on www.MGI.gov.

·         MGI Challenge: Point of Care Tissue-Mimetic Materials for Biomedical Devices and Implants

Currently, women needing implants after breast cancer surgery or soldiers suffering injuries resulting in muscle volume loss face disfigurement from inadequate materials that don’t match the properties of the surrounding tissue, have the potential for leaching, and can trigger immune response.  

Imagine if a new soft biomaterial—addressing the need for void-filling materials that are personalized to each patient’s needs—can be designed and delivered at the bedside in a hospital anywhere in the world.

·         MGI Challenge: Agile Manufacturing of Affordable Multi-Functional Composites

Currently, opportunities to reduce cost, emissions, and weight in critical sectors such as transportation, aerospace, and energy is hampered by a limited use of composite materials due to insufficient approaches to affordably design and manufacture safety-critical components with predicted performance, service life, and circularity.

Imagine if the time and cost of composite design and manufacturing was dramatically reduced, enabling industries to innovate faster and create lightweight, high-performance, multi-functional structures to drive the next generation of technology platforms.

·         MGI Challenge: Quantum Position, Navigation, and Timing on a Chip

Currently, position, navigation, and timing functions, which are ubiquitous to modern life for everything from texting to the world-wide financial system, depends on the global positioning system (GPS) infrastructure which is aging and increasingly susceptible to disruption.

Imagine if every device could synchronize flawlessly without reliance on satellites, enhancing everything from precision agriculture, emergency response, vehicle navigation, to global commerce and national security.

·         MGI Challenge: High Performance, Low Carbon Cementitious Materials

Currently, cement used in concrete structures, from buildings to roads and bridges, is made with techniques that have changed little in 150 years and its production generates 8% of global CO₂ emissions.

Imagine if novel cementitious materials could be rapidly designed using locally-sourced feedstocks enabling durable and strong structures, while decreasing cost and vastly reducing their carbon footprint.

·         MGI Challenge: Sustainable Materials Design for Semiconductor Applications

The MGI can help realize a future where artificial intelligence-powered autonomous experimentation (AI/AE) can accelerate the design and deployment of new materials that meet semiconductor industry targets, while also building in sustainability requirements from the outset.  On October 30, 2024, the CHIPS R&D Program announced The CHIPS AI/AE for Rapid, Industry-informed Sustainable Semiconductor Materials and Processes (CARISSMA) funding opportunity.

Imagine if the design and insertion of new materials into semiconductor manufacturing could occur in less than 5 years, instead of the usual 25 years, while meeting industry performance targets, and also designing for sustainability.

 

For more details or information, please review: 2024 MGI Challenges

Call to Action

These five challenges were informed by considerable input from the MGI community.[1] Addressing each of these challenges will require the MGI community to help identify key research gaps and the required elements of the MII to drive forward solutions. This call requires innovative actions from federal agencies, researchers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and others along the entire technology development pathway. Communities of research[2] will bring together the innovation, tools, and knowledge to meet these challenges. Building on the series of MGI events this summer,[3] the community is encouraged to join the conversation and bring transformative approaches to leverage resources and expand the MII to make the imagined future tomorrow’s reality.  To join the conversation head over to the MaRDA Alliance MGI Challenge Page.