Applying machine learning to accelerate new materials development

Materials are not only the foundation of the national economy, but also the carrier of high technology. It has become a research hotspot in the world to overcome the conventional methods and apply new methods to accelerate the development of new materials. Propelled by the great success in other fields, data-driven informatics methods begin to emerge as a new technique in material science. Machine learning, as a representative of data-driven methods, has received extensive attention in various fields. Machine learning is an interdisciplinary science that combines computer science, statistics, computational mathematics and engineering. In the field of materials science, machine learning methods show faster calculation speed and higher prediction accuracy compared with conventional theoretical computational simulations based on solving physical or chemical fundamental equations. Machine learning is an effective addition to the existing theoretical calculation methods and significantly increases the efficiency of materials computational simulation work. Furthermore, it also works for some systems or problems that the traditional theoretical calculation methods fail to solve. This approach could also enable targeted material design and development. This review would provide a brief overview on the fundamentals of machine learning, several typical algorithms in machine learning and the applications in materials science, and discuss the future challenges in this field.