Battery technology Artificial intelligence is making its way into Asia's battery industry

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Battery manufacturers in Asia are just discovering the potential of artificial intelligence. LG New Energy has started using AI in battery design for its customers. And CATL is focusing primarily on the field of AI for the sciences in its new research and development center in Hong Kong.

Henrik Bork, long-time China correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau, is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a Beijing-based consulting agency specializing in China.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the battery industry in Asia is still very much in the early stages. However, these first steps have great significance for the future of renewable energy, as they combine the transformative power of AI for scientific research with application-oriented development in Asia. In other words, an explosive cocktail of modern basic research and the greatest strength of Chinese and large Asian corporations, their pragmatism, is currently being created.

Material sciences in focus

The founder, CEO and chairman of CATL stated publicly for the first time in media interviews this March that the new CATL research and development center in Hong Kong is focusing primarily on the application of artificial intelligence for scientific research. "AI studying materials, systems, and applied solutions for renewable energy is what we need to focus on," explained Zeng Yuqun, who is also known as Robin Zeng in English media.

Chris Bishop, the director of "Microsoft AI4Science", explained at the Microsoft Research Forum in March how promising AI is specifically for materials science and the development of new electrolytes for batteries. Bishop presented the result of an AI-driven search for a replacement material for lithium conducted by the Azure Quantum lab. 32.6 million candidates were sifted through in various computational steps using artificial intelligence, allowing scientists to isolate the most promising material from 150 remaining favorites.

New materials as key

The screening process for an innovative battery material was shortened in this trial from "several years" to "just 80 hours", said Bishop in his presentation. Microsoft's partners built a test battery from the material that contained 70 percent less lithium than ordinary lithium-ion batteries and used it to power a small digital clock for demonstration purposes.

The benefit of AI for the development of the next generations of batteries, for example solid-state batteries, for which CATL and other manufacturers in Asia are spending a lot of money, is evident. One of the hurdles for the development of solid-state batteries, which are safer and more powerful than lithium-ion, is the search for stable electrochemical material combinations.

AI has triggered a new round of the industrial revolution in which materials science plays a special role. Wu Kai, the chief scientist of CATL, speaks of a "new technological revolution" and calls the future of his industry, which his company is currently seeking, "battery extreme manufacturing". "AI technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, cloud computing and big data are the keys to improving the extreme manufacturing system," Chinese trade media quote the CATL research director.

LG Energy in South Korea has developed its own AI model that can deliver tailored battery designs to its industrial customers within a single day. This "Optimal Cell Design AI Recommendation Model" can not only significantly shorten the previous design process of around two weeks, but also make it independent of the knowledge level of the designers used, reports the newspaper Business Korea.

In South Korea as well as in China, AI has begun to modernize the entire process of battery manufacturing from the search for new materials, to the design of battery cells, to manufacturing processes, quality control, and battery management.

Opportunity and risk at the same time

However, for battery manufacturers in Asia, this development is not only an opportunity but also a challenge they must face. Particularly smaller battery producers in China often do not have the financial resources and trained staff to be able to experiment with new AI processes. “For lithium battery manufacturers, especially tier-2 companies that are currently caught in the knock-out phase of the industry, landing new orders and survival are the first priority. They cannot think long term and invest heavily in new technologies that could trigger changes five years from now,” the technology portal 36kr reports on AI in the Chinese battery industry.

Conversely, these realities represent a new opportunity for battery manufacturers in Europe and the USA, which have lost their previous shares of the global market to large manufacturers in China and Asia. With the help of AI and new products, the cards could be reshuffled - provided the potentials of AI for battery manufacturing are recognized as early as they were at CATL or LG Energy. (se)

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