IIT Kanpur collaborates with TCS to establish a world-class educational and research ecosystem for ICME

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have collaborated to establish a world-class educational and research ecosystem for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) at the campus.

This National Hub has materialised under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two organisations in November 2015.

The primary aim was to foster cutting edge research on ICME-based materials and technology of national importance, strengthening research in related topics, training professionals through different pedagogy and research projects as well as developing open-source tools for facilitating development of materials and teaching solutions.

The centre would be inaugurated on Thursdayt in the presence of IIT Kanpur Director Prof Indranil Manna and TCS Chief Technology Officer (CTO) K Ananth Krishnan. At this Hub, academic and industry collaborations will also be a key focus area.

IIT Madras, IISc Bangalore, IIT Bombay, DRDO, National Metallurgical Laboratory, Georgia Tech and Purdue are some academic institutions and labs with which the Hub will be collaborating.

ICME is an emerging discipline with huge potential in materials development by integrating varied disciplines to cut down on time and cost required in development and manufacturing.

For instance, an automobile, which needs several years for development, could be developed in a much shorter time span with ICME. Besides, ICME-based solutions have huge potential in government sectors such as defence, atomic energy and railways as well as public and private industries working in the area of steel, aluminium and automotive.

The Hub will work on providing ICME-based solutions for these sectors. The current focus areas for research comprise structural materials such as high strength steel and aluminium, engineering polymers, composites and additive manufacturing.