Born-Qualified: An Autonomous Framework for Deploying Advanced Energy and Electronic Materials
Abstract
Autonomous science is transforming how we discover materials and chemical systems for advanced energy technologies. However, many initially promising systems never reach deployment. This "valley of death" stems from optimization that prioritizes laboratory metrics over industrial viability. We propose a new strategy: "born-qualified" autonomous development, which embeds manufacturability, cost, and durability constraints from the outset. This approach is enabled by four pillars, including the development of multi-objective metrics, causal models, a modular infrastructure, and embedding manufacturing in the discovery loop. Realizing this vision will require sustained, community-wide commitment, but the potential return on that investment is commensurate with the scale of the challenge.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.00639,
title = {Born-Qualified: An Autonomous Framework for Deploying Advanced Energy and Electronic Materials},
author = {Steven R. Spurgeon and Milad Abolhasani and Frederick Baddour and Ryan B. Comes and Vinayak P. Dravid and Hilary Egan and Patrick Emami and Robert W. Epps and Davi M. Fébba and Renae Gannon and E. Ashley Gaulding and Ayana Ghosh and Kenny Gruchalla and Grace Guinan and Taro Hitosugi and Michael Holden and Sergei V. Kalinin and Yangang Liang and John S. Mangum and Matthew J. Olszta and Nathaniel H. Park and Axel Palmstrom and Michelle A. Smeaton and Brooks Tellekamp and Nicholas E. Thornburg and Raymond R. Unocic and Daniela Ushizima and Rama K. Vasudevan and Robert White and Andrew Young and Andriy Zakutayev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.00639},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
14 pages, 2 figures