The government award recognises the potential of Polaron's AI tools to speed up materials optimisation for climate-critical technologies.
Imperial spinout Polaron has won the very first Manchester Prize, a government-run competition supporting breakthroughs in artificial intelligence for the public good. The company will receive £1 million in funding to continue developing AI tools that promise to accelerate the design of advanced materials for applications such as batteries and high-performance alloys.
Polaron's success using AI to create advanced materials is a reminder that AI is not only about data on a screen, but is set to dramatically transform our physical world. Professor Mary Ryan Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise), Imperial College London
"Polaron exemplifies the promise of AI and shows how, through our Plan for Change, we are putting AI innovation at the forefront," said Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science, technology and innovation, announcing the award.
The technology will help manufacturers create stronger, lighter and more efficient components for clean energy, transport and key infrastructure, which contribute to the UK meeting its net zero targets.
Professor Mary Ryan, Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial College London, said: "Polaron's success using AI to create advanced materials is a reminder that AI is not only about data on a screen, but is set to dramatically transform our physical world.
"With the UK Government driving a resurgence in sustainable industrial growth, it is great to see our spinout receive major recognition and funding to make better wind turbine blades, batteries for electric vehicles, and metal alloys for bridges and skyscrapers. At Imperial, we're providing ever more support to turn research into the deep technologies and companies that will change the world."
Nearly 300 companies applied for the award, with ten finalists selected last year. "We are thrilled to have won the first ever Manchester Prize," said Dr Sam Cooper, co-founder and chief scientist of Polaron and Reader in Machine Learning for Materials Design at Imperial's Dyson School of Design Engineering. "It has been an extraordinary team effort."
Optimising materials
The conventional approach to improving materials design involves a mix of engineering instinct and rules-of-thumb about what works. However, this trial-and-error approach can take years to complete.
Polaron's approach is much faster. Its algorithms learn the relationship between the microscopic structure of a material and the way it is made, directly from image data. These models enable a rapid exploration of the possible designs, taking the design cycle down from hundreds of weeks to hundreds of hours.
Because this optimisation is applied to products that a manufacturer can already make with its existing production line and materials, the results can be implemented much quicker than switching to a completely novel material.
A further advantage is that Polaron's models are relatively small, and can start work with a modest amount of information about a process. The level of data collection that most companies are already doing for quality control purposes is often enough.
From Moonshot to Manchester
Polaron was set up in 2024 by a team working in the Dyson School of Design Engineering. Working closely with Imperial Enterprise, a plan to spin the company out developed.
Dr Laura Cabo-Fernandez, Commercialisation Executive for the Faculty of Engineering, said: "We supported Polaron through the spinout process, working with them to identify an optimal IP strategy to support their route to commercialisation, including liaising with the Faraday Institution, which funded the project from which the technology developed."
Its business plan was honed in the Venture Catalyst Challenge (VCC), Imperial's flagship entrepreneurial competition for students, alumni and early career researchers.
In the last year, we have turned the research we pursued at Imperial into a commercial product, using our AI to reduce years of materials development into days. Dr Isaac Squires CEO and co-founder of Polaron and Imperial PhD graduate
Run by the Enterprise Lab, the VCC it takes 25 teams of aspiring company founders through an intensive programme that supports the development of their innovative ideas and their entrepreneurial skills. During the 2024 final, Polaron took home one of two Moonshot prizes, recognising teams who are pushing innovation to the limit.
Being shortlisted for the Manchester Prize brought the company an injection of £100,000 to continue work on its system, plus further business and technical support. Additional recognition came when co-founder and chief technology officer Dr Steve Kench won the 2024 Faraday Institution Community Award for Innovation.
Meanwhile, Polaron has continued to benefit from Imperial's enterprise ecosystem, for example by taking part in a Venture Trek delegation of AI startups to Singapore. This programme gives Imperial founders the opportunity to visit global startup hubs and take part in a series of meetings and events to gain vital skills for growing their business outside of the UK.
"In the last year, we have turned the research we pursued at Imperial into a commercial product, using our AI to reduce years of materials development into days," said Dr Isaac Squires, a PhD graduate from Imperial's Dyson School of Design Engineering, and the third co-founder and chief executive of Polaron. "We are now working with our first manufacturing customers in the electric vehicle and battery space to apply Polaron to extend the life of batteries and improve the performance of EVs."
This is just the beginning, he explained. "While these have been our core markets to date, Polaron is material agnostic, and we are already bringing our rapid design capabilities to industrial manufacturing more widely."
