The opportunity
Enable the design and fabrication of materials with enhanced performance characteristics at the atomic and molecular level, revolutionizing industries from medicine to manufacturing.
From “The BIG Future: New Materials Science” (February 2023)
The list goes on. Essentially, this aspect of science affects virtually every industry - power and telecommunications, aerospace, construction, biomedical, energy, healthcare, automotive, and sustainable development. Even the acceleration of brain science - in that new materials might help lower the risk of infection for new probes that might be used in brain surgery and the acceleration of computer-to-brain technology (discussed in one of my other BIG Future trends - The Acceleration of Brain Science .) “These bioactive polymer- based electrodes can enable the conformal contact with irregular tissue and result in low inflammation when compared to conventional rigid inorganic electrodes. In this review, we focus on the use of silk fibroin and cellulose biopolymers as well as certain synthetic polymers to offer the desired flexibility for constructing electrode substrates for a conformal neural interface.
Which leads to the idea of ‘bioinspired’ materials. The researchers, who come from three countries, delve into the promise and challenges behind “bioinspired nanocomposites.” These materials mix together different kinds of proteins and other molecules at incredibly small scales to achieve properties that may not be possible with traditional metals or plastics. Researchers often design them using advanced computer simulations or models. Examples include thin films that resist wear and tear by incorporating proteins from silkworm cocoons; new kinds of laminates made from polymers and clay materials; carbon fibers produced using bioinspired principles; and panes of glass that don’t easily crack because they include nacre-the iridescent lining inside many mollusk shells.
Nanotubes. Why are they important? Because they have two properties that are hard for most materials to achieve: Most of the existing energy storage and structural materials have only one property between high strength or high energy storage capacity. By using carbon nanotube fiber that is light, strong, and has excellent electrical conductivity, the material developed by the two research teams has both properties simultaneously.
From “Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #16 Material Science Breakthroughs: “We are moving beyond static objects to a world of living materials that heal, think, and reshape our reality.”” (July 2025)
To get a sense of this megatrend, read what I wrote back then: We all use materials. We never really think about it too much, though: the science behind their discovery, the acceleration of that science, and what it leads to in terms of new opportunities. That’s what this post is about – and it’s part of my BIG Future series.
Things become interesting once you dive into what is called ” the advent of malleable reality, ” which involves ” programmable matter. ” While self-healing materials react to damage to restore a fixed state, programmable matter represents a far more radical concept: materials whose fundamental physical properties can be actively and reversibly changed on command.
First formally articulated in 1991 by Toffoli and Margolus, who envisioned a computing substrate composed of fine-grained computational nodes arranged in space. The convergence of advances in semiconductor technology, nanotechnology, robotics, and self-assembly is now making it possible to fabricate physical ensembles that can be programmed to change their properties.
From “AI Megatrends - AI In Manufacturing: Further Accelerating the Automation of Everything - and going from $6.2 billion to $181 billion in 8 years!” (April 2023)
Consider the trends which have already led to a massive acceleration of everything having to do with the world of manufacturing. As I describe in my keynote description: Collapsing product lifecycles. Mass customization. Digitization, robotics, and the cloud. Design based on crowd thinking. Build to demand, as opposed to building to inventory, business models. The role of the Internet of Things in product innovation as well as manufacturing process innovation. Spatial innovation with advanced manufacturing robotics. New materials and substances that allow for a change in product development. Rapid prototyping, sketch to scale, and agility-based business models…. are you ready for the new world of manufacturing?
Digital twin technology : it’s one of the most exciting developments to have come into manufacturing in the last few years - virtualized replicas that we can examine and interact with at a lower cost than a real physical item. Essentially, during the product design and development phase, we can use a ‘digital twin’ of the product to virtually enhance, redesign and develop the product in an iterative process. We can also use ‘digital twin’ concepts to design a factory process before committing to the physical components and the associated cost. In both cases, Not only that, but
New materials: AI can help discover and create new materials that have novel properties or functions, using data mining, machine learning, and computational chemistry12. For example, AI can help design and synthesize new drugs, catalysts, or alloys2.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
The BIG Future: New Materials Science
Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #16 Material Science Breakthroughs: “We are moving beyond static objects to a world of living materials that heal, think, and reshape our reality.”
AI Megatrends - AI In Manufacturing: Further Accelerating the Automation of Everything - and going from $6.2 billion to $181 billion in 8 years!