Digital materials ecosystem: from databases to AI agents for autonomous discovery

The concept of a digital materials ecosystem represents a new paradigm in materials research, where data, theory, and automation are integrated into a unified and iterative framework. By combining reliable databases, physical frameworks, and intelligent data analysis, materials discovery is evolving from empirical exploration toward a systematic and predictive science. The rapid growth of data and artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled the identification of complex structure-property relationships, while advances in automated synthesis and high-throughput characterization are closing the loop between prediction and validation. Looking forward, the field must focus on building trustworthy and benchmarked…