Cahill 'excited' to co-lead IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute

10/19/2021 Emily Jankauski

David Cahill outlines his hopes as co-director of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute at its launch.

Written by Emily Jankauski

David Cahill, right, is all smiles alongside Anthony Annunziata, director of IBM's Accelerated Discovery, during the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute at the U of I's National Center for Supercomputing Applications' auditorium in Urbana, Ill. on Oct. 19.
David Cahill, right, is all smiles alongside Anthony Annunziata, director of IBM's Accelerated Discovery, during the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute at the U of I's National Center for Supercomputing Applications' auditorium in Urbana, Ill. on Oct. 19.

URBANA — IBM and The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign launched the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute earlier today at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

The institute is a 10-year collaboration between IBM, the state of Illinois and the U of I funded by a $200 million investment.

The private-public partnership offers leading technology education and aims to accelerate solutions to societal challenges like climate change, sustainable energy, cloud storage and much more.

“This new partnership leverages the U of I’s unique strengths in the science foundation of engineering technologies and IBM’s real-world translational expertise, to deliver the workforce needed to catalyze new and emerging fields that drive economic growth,” said Rashid Bashir, dean of The Grainger College of Engineering.

David Cahill, a U of I Department of Materials Science and Engineering professor and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering, will serve as co-director of the institute alongside Daby Sow, IBM Research’s hybrid cloud services research director.

“We’re excited,” Cahill said. “The materials discovery effort is built on the idea that computing and artificial intelligence can help accelerate the discovery of materials — both their automated synthesis as well as predicting their properties.”

The institute builds on the success of the IBM-Illinois Center for Cognitive Computing Systems Research, or C3SR, initiative beginning in 2016.

“It (C3SR) was purely computing,” Cahill said. “So this is what I think is exciting for materials, this is an expansion of that engagement with IBM basically doubling its size.”

In addition to computing, the institute will explore quantum computing, materials discovery and sustainability.

That’s where MatSE faculty Andre Schleife and Charles Schroeder, associate professor and James Economy Professor, respectively, come into play.

“I am really looking forward to this launch because it could mean the beginning of a completely new way of doing science,” Schleife said. “My main goal is to explore the use of quantum embedding techniques and quantum computing hardware for predictive computational studies of defects in materials.”

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of their efforts?

“Grad students,” Cahill said. “(Those) who are involved and funded in the project also kind of have a unique opportunity to work very closely with the scientists at IBM.”

Grad students will be co-mentored by IBM scientists while working on their Ph.D., thesis or other post-doctoral work at the IBM sites.

Undergraduate students will also have top-notch entrepreneurial training working alongside each other to develop technology through their academic years.

“The goal (is) having a sort of intellectual property come out at the end,” Cahill said. “Right now it’s still mostly computing, (but) I’m hoping that could move into thinking about it as a design project - a much beefed-up design experience.”

That notion is something MatSE’s department head Nancy Sottos couldn’t be more excited about.

“The new (institute) will serve as a catalyst for collaborative research,” said Nancy Sottos, MatSE’s department head. “It’s exciting to have professor David Cahill co-leading the institute, providing our faculty and graduate students a unique opportunity to engage in this academic-industry partnership.”

Leaders from IBM, the University of Illinois, The Grainger College of Engineering and the state of Illinois pose for a photo at the launch of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute was held at the U of I's National Center for Supercomputing Applications' auditorium in Urbana, Ill. on Oct. 19.
Leaders from IBM, the University of Illinois, The Grainger College of Engineering and the state of Illinois pose for a photo at the launch of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute was held at the U of I's National Center for Supercomputing Applications' auditorium in Urbana, Ill. on Oct. 19.

 

 

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The IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute is a private-public partnership spurring breakthroughs in the transformative areas of hybrid cloud and AI, quantum computing, materials discovery and sustainability.


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This story was published October 19, 2021.