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License of Harvard Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence Platform for OLED development announced

August 16, 2016

Kyulux Inc announced that it has a license with Harvard University's Molecular Space Shuttle deep learning system to develop new display and lighting application materials, according to a news release. Kyulux is an advanced materials start-up company that commercializes thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) OLED display and lighting technology. The Molecular Space Shuttle is an artificial intelligence platform designed by Alán Aspuru-Guzik's group at Harvard's chemistry and chemical biology department, where Aspuru-Guzik is a professor. 

In the Nature Materials publication last week, Aspuru-Guzik and his group showed how the system can rapidly screen millions of molecules for the stability and other characteristics needed to produce light that can be used to make cell phone and TV displays, according to the release. The published research was co-authored by co-authored by researchers at Harvard, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and MIT. 

"By developing a sophisticated molecular builder, using state-of-the-art quantum chemistry and machine learning, in addition to drawing on the expertise of experimentalists, we discovered a large set of high-performing blue OLED materials," Aspuru-Guzik said. "Following that validation, I am extremely excited to see this platform adopted for commercial development, utilizing its capabilities for the rapid screening of TADF materials."

The license agreement coordinated by Harvard's Office of Technology Development provides Kyulux with rights to the copyrighted software. The algorithms dramatically reduce the computational cost of testing candidate molecules for new technologies, according to the release.

In addition to Kyulux's licensing of the software, three researchers in Aspuru-Guzik's group, who co-authored the Nature Materials article are now joining Kyulux's computational chemistry group in Boston. Aspuru-Guzik will also join the company as a part-time scientific adviser. Aspuru-Guzik will be among three other TADF academic research leaders, including Chihaya Adachi and Hajime Nakanotani from Kyushu University and Hironori Kaji from the University of Kyoto, who join Kyulux's team of scientific advisors.

"Kyulux is excited to be able to incorporate the capabilities of these researchers. Kyulux has assembled one of the finest teams of organic chemists and device physicists in the OLED field in the world. Adding the incoming team and the Molecular Space Shuttle will allow us to rapidly accelerate our discovery and commercialization of the next generation of OLED materials," said Dr. Christopher Savoie, CEO of Kyulux.