MI2I Letter

Vol.1, Issue 1, February, 2018

MI2I: Materials research by Information-Integration InitiativeOverview

The Center for “Materials research by Information Integration” (CMI2) of MaDIS, NIMS has
been entrusted with a Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) project called “Materials
research by Information Integration” Initiative (MI2I), which started in July 2015 and will lastfor five years. MI2I creates a system of industry–academia–government collaboration over awide range of areas, from materials science to information and mathematical sciences. It
also promotes the participation of companies from various fields to create an open
innovation hub for data-driven (information-integrated) materials research, so called“materials informatics”.
The basic idea of the innovation hub is described below as quoted from the JST homepage.

Figure-1, Overview of Innovation Hub Program of JST(Copyright of the original version in Japanese belongs to JST)1

MI2I Letter

Vol.1, Issue 1, February, 2018

Objectives

 Rapidly develop and provide effective solutions by using data-driven materials science
to meet the materials research challenges of industry and academia.
 Develop the tools needed for new materials development packages by using AItechnologies, leading to innovations in materials research and development.
 Develop and improve a database available to both industry and academia andconstruct a data platform(DPF) for a new materials development approach, which will
be Japan’s potential intellectual assets in conjunction with the above-mentioned tools.

Figure-2, Three-Layer Structure and Functions of MI2I-Hub

Major Participating Institutions

Figure-3, Participating Institutions

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MI2I Letter

Vol.1, Issue 1, February, 2018

Research Organization

The research organization of MI2I is shown below in Fig.4. The basic idea behind thisorganization lies in its three-layer structure. Three important themes of materials science,
rechargeable battery materials, magnet materials and thermal management materials,
all of which are related to energy and environmental problems, are set in the top layer.
The characteristic aspect of MI2I is that these targets are pursued not only with thetraditional approaches, experiment, theory and computational science, but also withdata science, the fourth paradigm, which is located in the middle layer. Materials
descriptor platform is obviously related to data science. Topological analysis is a new
powerful approach for characterizing complex materials structure, and materials
exploration is a task common to the three themes in the top layer. The first layer
activities form columns and those in the second layer form rows, so that their crossing
parts represent collaboration.
Through these activities, we are creating Data Platform, an information-integrated
system for materials discovery and development that is available to researchers andengineers from industry, academia, and government. The materials database that NIMS
has been developing and improving over the years plays an important role in this work,
and we intend to enrich the database and improve its usability.

Goal

Figure-4, Three-Layer Research Organization and Goal Settings
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Vol.1, Issue 1, February, 2018

Personnel

Executives and Advisor

Project Leader
S. Itoh
NIMS

Program Manager Sub Proj. Leader Sub Proj. Leader
A. Manabe
N. Kihara
T. Chikyo
NIMS
JSTNIMS

Sub Proj. Leader
M. Okada
Tokyo Univ.

Executive Advisor
K. Terakura
NIMS

Research Group Leaders

Battery
Materials
M. Nakayama
Nagoya I. T.

MagnetMaterials
T. Miyake
AISTThermal Manag. Data Science& Data Platform
K. Tsuda
Y. Xu
Tokyo Univ.
NIMS

Topological Mater. Descriptor Materials
Platform
Analysis
Exploration
R. Yoshida
H. Hiraoka
T. Oguchi
ISM
Tohoku Univ.
Osaka Univ.

EventsThe 6th MI2I Forum will be held on Feb 21st, 2018 at Hitotsubashi-hall in Tokyo.
The progress of MI2I activities will be reported and more than 20 poster presentations
will be provided. Dr. K. Terakuka of MI2I EA and Dr. T. Shoji of TOYOTA MOTOR Corp. will
also give lectures.
 MI2I Letter will provide News and Report of MI2I activities in the coming issues.
Particularly, method and software developed in MI2I will be explained. They include
1) “COMBO: COMmon Bayesian Optimization (efficient Bayesian optimization)”,2) “qspr and iqspr for molecules (Bayes theorem + natural language processing)” ,3) “MDTS (Materials Design by Monte Carlo Tree Search)”,and so on.
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MI I Letter Head Editor: Dr. Kiyoyuki Terakura, Executive Advisor(EA) at MI2I
MI2I Letter Editing Coordinator: Junichi Kasai, Managing Director at MI2I
E-Mail: CMI2@nims.go.jp
Website: http://www.nims.go.jp/MII-I/en/

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