The establishment of material databases has enabled the acquisition of big data on material properties. With the advent of deep learning, we are now able to process vast volumes of data, which requires significant computational resources, such as GPUs. Additionally, material development is closely linked to business opportunities, including the creation of new drugs, battery materials, and catalysts. Consequently, major corporations with digital technology expertise, such as Google, Meta, Samsung, and Preferred Networks, are increasingly entering this field.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to researchers at Google DeepMind for developing AlphaFold, which uses machine learning to predict protein structures with high precision. This trend is expected to accelerate even further in the future.