Advanced materials underpin every facet of modern life - from metal alloys that support infrastructure to lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles. Despite their importance, traditional methods for designing these materials are slow, costly, and inefficient due to complex manufacturing processes.
Polaron is the first-ever winner of the Manchester Prize. Launched in 2023, the first year of the Manchester Prize called upon the innovators, academics, entrepreneurs, and disruptors in the UK to enter AI solutions that would deliver public good, receiving nearly 300 entries.
Polaron has developed state-of-the-art generative AI that leverages microstructural image data - showing the features of a material only visible under a microscope - to bridge the gap between the way materials are made and their performance. The technology empowers engineers to characterise materials, quantify microstructural variation, and optimise microstructural designs faster than ever before. Polaron has published scientific papers that demonstrate a more than 10% improvement in energy density of batteries is possible, roughly equivalent to adding 20 extra miles of range to a typical electric vehicle.
Polaron was founded by Dr Isaac Squires, Dr Steve Kench and Dr Sam Cooper, spinning out their research at Imperial College London in November 2023. The growing start-up unites AI, engineering, and materials science, paving the way for material innovations in batteries and beyond.
Its AI models can explore thousands of material designs in under a day - a task that would take current state-of-the-art physics-based simulations around 50 years.
What the Polaron model can explore in a matter of seconds, takes simulations 12-48 hours. Therefore, exploring 20,000 variations would take Polaron’s models around 1 day, and simulations around 50 years. SOURCE: Kench S et al (4 December 2024), Li-ion battery design through microstructural optimization using generative AI, Matter, Volume 7, Issue 12, pp. 4260-4269. Available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590238524004466
Dr Isaac Squires, CEO of Polaron, winner of the first Manchester Prize, said: “We are thrilled to have won the first ever Manchester Prize - it has been an extraordinary team effort. In the last year, we have turned the research we pursued at Imperial College London into a commercial product, using our AI to reduce years of materials development into a matter of days. We are now working with our first customers in the battery manufacturing sector to apply Polaron to improve the performance of EVs by extending range and reducing charge times. While this has been our core market to date, Polaron is material agnostic, and we are already bringing our rapid design capabilities to industrial manufacturing more widely, including alloys, composites and catalysts.”
About the first Manchester Prize
The Manchester Prize is a multi-million-pound, multi-year challenge prize from the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to reward UK-led breakthroughs in artificial intelligence for public good. It is rewarding innovations that will help to transform the lives of the people across the UK and continue to secure the UK’s place as a global leader in cutting edge innovation. In its first year, the Manchester Prize sought innovations from UK-led teams that overcome challenges in the fields of energy, environment and infrastructure.
Feryal Clark, Minister for AI said: “The Manchester Prize shows how we’re putting AI to work for people all over the country – supporting breakthroughs and innovations which will unlock so much positive change in our lives.”
Nick Jennings, chair of the judging panel for the Manchester Prize and Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University, added: “Choosing a winner of the inaugural Manchester Prize was an incredibly tough decision. Polaron stood out because of its highly innovative approach to revolutionising a process that will unlock a multitude of possibilities for industry. Advanced materials play an extraordinarily important role across our lives; Polaron’s capacity to transform the pace of materials research and development is truly exciting and is a great example of AI being used for social good.”
