Teaching computers to intelligently design 'billions' of possible materials

Discovering how atoms—such as a single layer of carbon atoms found in graphene, one of the world's strongest materials—work to create a solid material is currently a major research topic in the field of materials science, or the design and discovery of new materials. At the University of Missouri, researchers in the College of Engineering are applying one of the first uses of deep learning—the technology computers use to intelligently perform tasks such as recognizing language and driving autonomous vehicles—to the field of materials science.