We have been collecting materials data for many years and have built a databases suite called MatNavi. AtomWork-Adv, an inorganic materials database, contains more than 360,000 crystal structures, and PoLyInfo, a polymer database, contains more than 29,000 unique polymer structures. These are curated from academic papers. Another database, KINZOKU, are based on datasheets that we ourselves have tested to investigate the reliability of metallic materials for more than 40 years.

The data era is upon us. Data-driven research based on large amounts of data is expected to bring innovation to materials development. MatNavi is a promising data source, and we need to promote its utilization in response to the data age.

It is also important to collect data generated from daily research activities. The data that can be collected from papers is limited to data that is fit for purpose and does not contain so-called negative data. Raw measurement data and details of measurement conditions are also generally difficult to collect from papers. Therefore, we have been working since 2017 on the development and application of fundamental technologies to collect daily research data. After various trials and errors, it became clear that it is effective to implement structuring and registration of data on the spot as they are generated, which led us to develop a data structuring and registration system named RDE for this purpose. Currently, research data are accumulated daily from 140 devices pf experimental equipment in NIMS.

Based on the above practices at NIMS, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has launched the Materials DX Platform Initiatives throughout Japan around 2022 as illustrated in Figure 1. The initiatives consists of the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Materials and Nanotechnology (ARIM), which promotes the sharing of facilities and data, the Materials Data Platform (DICE), which provides the infrastructure for accumulating and utilizing data, and the Data creation & utilization-type MaTerial R&D project (DxMT), which promotes data-driven materials research. The ARIM, DxMT, and DxMT plan to collaborate with each other to promote DX in the materials field.

The presentation will outline the efforts of the Materials DX Platform in Japan, with a focus on the NIMS initiatives.

Figure 1. The concept of Materials DX Platform in Japan consisting of three programs to generate, accumulate and (re)use materials data.