Material Matters: Fast Tracking Sustainability – Accelerating Innovation with Computation and Automation

Abstract

As climate change and global competition intensify, so does the pressure to innovate faster. In response, researchers are increasingly combining computational tools for rapid decision-making with robotics that interact directly with the physical world. These approaches span from partially automated workflows to fully autonomous, self-driving laboratories.

While the promise of accelerated discovery is attracting growing interest and investment, realizing meaningful progress demands a strategic, long-term perspective — one that integrates infrastructure, research, and education in a coordinated way. This will be the central focus of the talk, viewed through the lens of sustainability.

Along the way, Tonio Buonassisi will share examples from his group's research, including the discovery of new perovskite-inspired materials and the optimization of existing ones.

Biography

Tonio Buonassisi is Vice President of Sustainable Energy at CSEM, a distinguished public–private research and technology organization in Switzerland. He is a renowned expert in photovoltaics and AI-driven energy innovation, pioneering the application of AI to develop new materials for societally beneficial applications. 
As a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, his research in solar photovoltaics and technoeconomic analysis has already assisted technology developments in dozens of companies and earned him the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
From 2018 to 2021, he served as founding director of the Accelerated Materials Development for Manufacturing (AMDM) program in Singapore — an initiative that demonstrated more than a 10× acceleration in materials development by integrating ML, automation, and simulation.
He served as the director of the ADDEPT Center, a U.S. Department of Energy-funded effort for developing durable perovskite-based tandem photovoltaic modules, founded the MIT PVLab, and co-founded the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems in Boston, USA.