Building the materials foundation for AI

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The AI boom is becoming a materials challenge. As AI pushes computing into new territory, the materials behind that infrastructure are becoming just as crucial as the algorithms running on it. Semiconductors and data centers are approaching physical limits around performance, thermal management, electrical efficiency, and reliability, creating new demands for materials that can do more at once. At the same time, AI is giving materials scientists new ways to search the enormous universe of possible molecules and accelerate the development of solutions. For Mike Finelli, chief technology and innovation officer and chief North America officer at Syensqo, that convergence is transforming what advanced materials can enable. “AI is now, from a material standpoint, really pushing semiconductors and the data centers to their physical limits,” he says. As requirements accumulate, including high temperature, purity, electrical performance, chemical resistance, plasma resistance, and long-term stability, materials move toward what Finelli calls the “top of the pyramid.” Beyond supporting AI innovation, he contends that advanced materials are “actually increasingly defining what’s going to be possible.” That challenge is playing out across the infrastructure powering the AI surge. Syensqo is developing materials for high-voltage data center architectures, advanced sealing materials for semiconductor manufacturing, and thermal-management solutions including fluids for direct immersion cooling. Some of those innovations can also cross industry boundaries. Materials developed for electric vehicles, for example, can help address the higher voltage and energy-density demands that are emerging in data centers. The definition of performance is also changing. More customers are expecting materials to meet technical requirements while reducing environmental impact. “Our goal is to remove the trade-off between performance and sustainability,” Finelli says. That means considering sustainability at the beginning of the research process instead of treating it as an additional requirement once a material has been developed. AI is changing how those materials are discovered, too. Syensqo is using AI agents to digitally synthesize millions of potential molecular combinations, predict their performance and sustainability characteristics, and narrow them to a much smaller group for laboratory testing. The result, Finelli says, is the ability to go “broader, deeper, and faster” while giving scientists more time to solve complex engineering problems. Looking to the future, Finelli sees the possibility of a reinforcing cycle: AI helps develop materials that improve AI infrastructure, which in turn enables better AI to accelerate materials discovery. That feedback loop could create a cycle of innovation and expand what future technologies can achieve. “You end up in this accelerated materials, innovative cycle of materials innovation,” says Finelli. “That really excites me, and it gives us the opportunity to continue enabling technologies that will shape the future.” This episode of Business Lab is produced in partnership with Syensqo. Full Transcript: Megan Tatum: From MIT Technology Review, I’m Megan Tatum, and this is Business Lab, the show that helps business leaders make sense of new technologies coming out of the lab and into the marketplace. This episode is produced in partnership with Syensqo. Now asked to name the key enablers to AI advancement, many of us might list algorithms, data centers, or even computing power, but just as critical to the performance are the advanced materials that underpin each layer of that innovation. As AI continues to evolve, it’s pushing the likes of semiconductors and data centers to new physical limits, putting new pressure on the advanced material sector to keep pace. But the relationship goes both ways. As the sector rises to this challenge, AI is also emerging as a powerful tool for accelerating materials discovery and development, significantly shortening development timelines for new solutions. Two words for you: materials innovation. My guest today is Mike Finelli, chief technology and innovation officer and chief North America officer at Syensqo. Welcome, Mike. Mike Finelli: Thank you, Megan. Nice to be here. Megan: Thank you so much for joining us. Mike, can I start by asking you to tell us a little bit more about Syensqo and the role it plays in developing advanced materials? Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Syensqo is a global leader in specialty materials. Our job is to help customers solve their toughest technology challenges. We serve a lot of different markets, but the way I like to say it simply is if it flies, we’re on it. If it drives, we’re in it. In healthcare, our products literally are saving lives every day. And if you like your mobile devices, if you like AI, it’s our products that are actually enabling the advanced semiconductor chips that are required to produce all of this. Our role is to enable innovation through advanced chemistry. We develop materials that deliver higher performances, greater reliability, and increasingly more sustainable solutions. The way I would say this, it’s at the heart of our business. Actually, it’s in our name, Syensqo. And to put some numbers around it, 20% of our annual revenues come from new products and applications that we’ve launched in the last five years, which is really evidence of a really strong innovation engine. Megan: Yeah, absolutely. And as you sort of described there, you’re in all sorts of different industries with an emphasis perhaps on electronics and semiconductors. Can you talk a bit more about that work and where those industries are headed perhaps? Mike: Sure. So look, electronics and semiconductors have been strategic markets for Syensqo for literally decades. I don’t want to date myself, but 33 years ago when I started in the company, semiconductors were one of the first industries that I worked in. And we’ve supported successive waves of innovation from enabling smaller, more powerful mobile devices, helping the industry get to the smaller and smaller profiles and the chips. We’ve helped to advance hyperconnectivity, supporting increasingly sophisticated semiconductor manufacturing. And today we’re helping to advance the AI era. We have one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of high performance polymers and advanced materials. We support applications across the entire electronics value chain from semiconductor fabrication, electronic components, to smart devices and telecommunications, even hyperconnectivity. And our materials are helping customers solve increasingly demanding challenges around miniaturization, thermal management, electrical performance, chemical resistance, higher and higher purities, and long-term reliability and sustainability. And today we work with leading semiconductor manufacturers and electronics companies all around the world. Megan: Fantastic. And as you alluded to there in the last 30 years, we’ve seen huge evolutions in those sectors. Mike: Oh my God, yes. Megan: And now AI is putting these new demands on semiconductors and data centers. What does that mean for the materials they’re built from and to what extent will AI innovation be constrained or enabled by materials science finding a solution? Mike: Yeah, so I mean, you’re absolutely right. But AI is now, from a material standpoint, really pushing semiconductors and the data centers to their physical limits, and materials are becoming a key enabler of that continued progress. The way I try to describe it, think of a pyramid, I call it the performance pyramid. You have commodity materials at the bottom of the pyramid and you have high performing specialty materials at the top of the pyramid. At Syensqo, all we do is we operate at the top of the pyramid and we’re continually trying to raise the top of that pyramid by bringing newer and newer and more higher performing materials out. Now y

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