7 May 2026

Mapping the artificial intelligence opportunity for UK’s advanced materials sector

Digital Catapult and Innovate UK identify advanced materials as a priority area where the UK could build global leadership.

A conceptual digital landscape of rolling hills in a virtual space — © satoshi takahata / Shutterstock

The UK at the AI Frontier: Challenges and Opportunities report draws on engagement with more than 200 stakeholders across academia, industry, infrastructure and research. It highlights the UK’s existing strengths in structural materials, including metals, composites and ceramics, as well as graphene, coatings and smart materials.

The Henry Royce Institute supported the advanced materials workstream, convening engagement activity and workshops that explored how artificial intelligence (AI) could accelerate materials discovery, improve manufacturing processes and support the development of high-performance materials systems.

The report identifies several barriers to progress, including fragmented and inaccessible materials data, limited computer access, gaps in model validation and benchmarking, underreporting of failure data, and lack of a common language for encoding materials processes, microstructures and component-level performance.

It also points to opportunities in federated learning, automated laboratories, AI tools for interpreting non-standard experimental data, and national data infrastructure to support collaboration across the materials lifecycle.

Professor Ian Kinloch, Chief Scientific Officer at the Henry Royce Institute, says the report highlights a ‘significant opportunity’ for the UK to lead at the intersection of AI and advanced materials.