PCL-test bed: purdue intelligent codesign cloud lab for non-equilibrium and low-dimensional materials (ICON-PCL)

The National Science Foundation awarded Purdue University a $4.998 million cooperative agreement on August 1, 2026, to establish the Purdue Intelligent Codesign Cloud Lab for Non-Equilibrium and Low-Dimensional Materials (ICON-PCL), a national user facility providing remote access to integrated physical and digital research tools that accelerate materials discovery and integration into aerospace, energy, and electronics applications.

ICON-PCL will coordinate nanotechnology and materials manufacturing instruments into discovery engines by deploying automated labs, standardized data capture, and AI integration across academia's largest collection of such tools. The facility will reduce duplicative resource use, maximize equipment utilization, establish modular training pathways, and expand the national talent pool capable of producing trustworthy results and accelerating prototyping. By collapsing discovery and development processes from months or years to days or hours, the work addresses the gap between rapid materials discovery and slow commercial product insertion. The award funds work to be performed in West Lafayette, Indiana, with a performance period extending from August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2030.

The funding derives from NSF's Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships directorate (CFDA 47.084), which supports science and engineering research and innovation addressing breakthrough technologies and national challenges. The Cooperative Agreement is NSF's assistance mechanism on this award.

Abstract

PCL-test bed: purdue intelligent codesign cloud lab for non-equilibrium and low-dimensional materials (ICON-PCL) the purdue university-led intelligent codesign cloud lab for non-equilibrium and low-dimensional materials (ICON PCL) will provide a national user community with remote access to powerful physical and digital tools that accelerate the discovery and integration of new materials into next-generation aerospace, energy, and electronics technologies. The ICON PCL node will transform isolated instruments into coordinated discovery engines by unleashing the power of automated labs, standardized data capture, and use of AI with the largest collection of nanotechnology and materials manufacturing tools in academia to fundamentally redefine how research facilities operate to serve their communities of users. ICON PCL will reduce duplicative resourcing, maximize equipment utilization, build modular training pathways, and grow the national pool of talent capable of discovering and generating trustworthy results, accelerating prototyping, and CO-optimizing material, device, fabrication, and manufacturing. These innovations will have a strong impact on US competitiveness as processes that take months to years today will be reduced to days or hours. Industry partners will gain results ready to scale and benefit society. The accelerated discovery of new materials with attractive intrinsic properties has not yet been matched by an increase in the rate of insertion into commercial products that benefit society and grow the US economy. Potential use cases of new materials remain speculative, long after their discovery. The design of advanced devices or alloys today largely relies on a menu of established materials. While AI and self-driving labs have advanced material discovery and streamlined fabrication and manufacturing, resources remain siloed even as rapid material-product codesign cycles are critical for accelerating validation and deployment. The ICON PCL will build on extensive physical and computational assets to provide remote users with cloud access to a set of cutting-edge equipment for the synthesis of 2D materials, fabrication of nanodevices and non-equilibrium alloys with low-dimensional precipitates, annealing and post fabrication treatments, characterization, and testing. Expert technical staff will work closely with external users from industry, academia, and national laboratories for research ideation, onboarding, planning, execution and metadata management, and analysis. An AI research assistant and digital twins will support users in the design of optimal research and prototyping workflows. With a set of discoverable and programmable physical and digital assets and with interoperability across the NSF PCL network, the scalable ICON PCL will remove barriers for collaboration and workforce development across institutions and strengthen the nation?S research, development, and prototyping ecosystem. This will grow the national pool of talent for open innovation and accelerate validation and deployment of new advanced alloys and electronic devices. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.