One of the central elements of the second phase of development of the MIL campus of the University of Montreal, a three-year project which will begin this summer, is the creation of the Courtois Institute. This building will bring together researchers from different disciplines such as physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer science.
If the research and student communities are already formed and important chairs have been obtained, the physical installation of the Courtois Institute will allow it to reach its full potential, according to Frédéric Bouchard, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at UdeM.
“Research is above all a human adventure,” he explains. It starts with everything that makes the exchange of ideas and chance discussions possible. Then, the physical integration of research platforms is essential at the Courtois Institute, which offers a new approach to material discovery supported by artificial intelligence.”
From artisanal to AI
It is thanks to simulation, synthesis, characterization and analysis platforms, all supported by robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), that the Courtois Institute will revolutionize the way it creates new materials. At the moment, research is carried out in an artisanal manner. “We use lasers to excite the properties of a sample and we examine the result with a very powerful microscope,” mentions Frédéric Bouchard. Each step takes a lot of time. With the new platforms, AI will be able to designate, among all possible molecular arrangements, those which are most likely to have interesting properties.
Then, the (human!) team will be able to make its choices and program the robots to carry out the next steps. “All the data will be analyzed and will make it possible to choose the directions in which we want to move forward,” indicates the dean. Moreover, the Courtois Institute will have its own computing capacity to produce secure AI, which is very important in terms of scientific sovereignty.”
A revolution in the organization of research
By setting foot in the Courtois Institute, which will rise on the east side of the MIL campus, we will discover a whole new way of conducting research. And this will be reflected in the organization of the space. Indeed, we forget the traditional laboratory of a professor. In this new building, we will find several platforms used by different teams. In these laboratories, glass-walled modules – think of a box the size of a small car – will have a hood to vacuum up vapors and chemical reactions as well as robot manipulators. Other platforms will be built on a huge concrete slab to avoid vibrations which could alter the precision of the lasers and the measurements obtained.
“Technically, these platforms are extremely complex to build and they are designed to be used on an assembly line,” says Frédéric Bouchard. A team will be able to use, say, three platforms to carry out an experiment whereas before, it was difficult because they had to have all the required instruments in their laboratory or negotiate with different organizations for the processing and analysis of samples.