Commercialisation of MatCloud High-throughput Materials Intelligent Computing Platform: Experiences and Implications

Xiaoyu Yang

Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences 

Abstract: MatCloud+ is a Cloud-based computational infrastructure for the integrated management of materials simulation, data and computing resources, which is directly connected to a computing cluster and a materials simulation database, integrating the computing facilities, data, various scripts, and simulation code together to automatically manage the creation and running of simulation jobs, the subsequent extraction of core output information, and the longer-term archival of materials properties data. One of important novelties of MatCloud+ is it integrates the high-throughput multiscale materials simulations (e.g. Quantum Espresso, Lammps) together with machine learning on the Cloud. Once simulation completes, the required materials properties have been acquired and preserved in the material property database. The more users use MatCloud+, the more simulation data in MatCloud+ will be accumulated. If users do not wish their data open to public, they can set their data not searchable by others. Currently, MatCloud has been successfully commercialised and spined off a company.
In order to better solve the science and technology bottleneck, scientific and technological innovation in universities and institutes must be combined with industry and commercialization and take collaborative innovation approach. However, the transfer and transformation of achievements of universities and research institutes often face many problems such as intellectual property rights, funds, teams, markets, operations, and management. This report shares with you the experience and enlightenment of the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements that occurred in universities and research institutes. 

Brief Introduction of Speaker
Prof. Xiaoyu Yang

Prof. Xiaoyu Yang is currently working at Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He joined CAS in 2012, and awarded the "100 Talent Program" fellowship of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof Yang's research interests currently focus on Material Genome Initiative, which includes: materials informatics, materials genome initiative informatics, materials simulation and data infrastructure etc.
Prof. Yang completed his post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, UK in 2008. He was previously a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Sciences and affiliated software engineer in Cambridge e-Science Centre, at the University of Cambridge. He joined School of Electronics and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, UK in 2008, as a Research Engineer. In 2010, he worked in Reading e-Science Center, University of Reading. Prof. Yang has earned an MSc degree in IT (2001) and a PhD degree in Systems Engineering (2006) from "Faculty of Computing Science and Engineering" at the De Montfort University, UK.