Sumitomo Rubber Industries and NEC Build Globally Competitive R&D Infrastructure - AI-based Material Composition Prediction and New Material Exploration -
Nov. 26. 2025
In recent years, global competition in manufacturing has intensified, making it even more important to accelerate R&D to build sustainable competitive advantages. SRI and NEC have been engaged in co-creation activities since 2022, advancing the development of an AI platform to enhance tire development capabilities. This includes the digital transformation (*2) of expert engineering and design knowledge to strengthen the development of material science technology systems and improve the transfer of expert knowledge within SRI.
This strategic partnership will continue to promote co-creation activities and the integration of advanced AI agents that incorporate the knowledge of SRI’s researchers and engineers, thereby advancing SRI’s long-term corporate strategy, “R.I.S.E. 2035.”
About the demonstrations
As an initiative toward enhancing R&D, two demonstrations were conducted in the field of tire materials. The results confirmed the potential of AI to improve the sophistication and efficiency of tire material development.
1. Tire Material Compound Prediction Using Pseudo-Quantum Annealing Technology
It is necessary to optimize the mixing ratios for a wide variety of materials when developing rubber compounds for premium tires.
In this demonstration, patterns from SRI’s past experimental data were analyzed, revealing how the type and amount of material affects the properties of rubber. Based on the results, NEC and SRI investigated candidate material types and blend ratios that could meet the target properties. Matching materials were discovered using NEC's pseudo-quantum annealing technology, which can rapidly derive optimal solutions from vast and complex combinations.
SRI confirmed that, by comparing the characteristics of their previously developed compounds for premium rubber tires with compounds predicted using pseudo-quantum annealing, over 90% of targeted tire material properties could be developed. Furthermore, SRI confirmed that this approach reduces the time required for nonexperts to design equivalent compounds by approximately 95%.
By utilizing NEC’s pseudo-quantum annealing technology, SRI expects to improve the development of rubber compounds for all categories of tires, from standard to premium tires, regardless of the level of design or engineering expertise needed for their development.
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Tire Material Compound Prediction Using Pseudo-Quantum Annealing Technology |
2. Exploration of New Materials Using AI Agents and the NEC Material Discovery Solution
Exploring new and advanced materials requires investigating vast amounts of literature across multiple scientific fields, which makes the discovery of useful new materials time consuming and expensive.
NEC researchers collaborated with SRI’s material researchers to implement a proof-of-concept, generative -and graph AI-based (*3) material discovery solution that identifies new materials for high-performance tires. Applying agentic AI technology, SRI researchers identify broad samples of molecular candidates which can be quickly narrowed for the precise targeting of rubber requirements. Using the NEC Material Discovery Solution designed by NEC Laboratories Europe, SRI developed rubber material for premium tires that softens upon contact with water, which would have been difficult to develop based solely on conventional knowledge. The results showed that the hybrid generative and agentic AI technology not only aggregated and analyzed material development insights from publicly available literature in multiple languages, but also autonomously gathered additional information, such as related data. This capability significantly broadened the scope of candidate material exploration. Furthermore, the manual research and development of new rubber compounds often requires revisiting due to unmet critical requirements or limited search scope. With the help of the NEC Material Discovery Solution, material exploration time was reduced by 60-70%. The new AI-centric approach improves the accuracy of material discovery, while making it more comprehensive, enabling new material candidates to be found more efficiently when compared to conventional methods.
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Going forward, the two companies aim to establish an AI-enhanced R&D framework by 2030 while also creating new businesses and innovations that address social challenges.
Under its long-term corporate strategy R.I.S.E. 2035, Sumitomo Rubber aims to "continue providing new experiential value created from rubber to everyone." As part of this strategy, it is advancing into new domains. Through this strategic partnership with NEC, it will generate innovation, putting into practice its purpose: "Creating the ultimate peace of mind and joy through innovation that opens the future."
NEC promotes new business development collaborating with startups and partner companies under the “NEC Open Innovation” (*4) initiative. Through its strategic partnership with Sumitomo Rubber, NEC aims to develop material science solutions that create closer synergies between R&D and critical business functions underpinned AI data-centric approaches.
Notes:
(*1) Pseudo-quantum annealing: Technology that imitates the mechanism of quantum computers to efficiently solve complex optimization problems on conventional computers.
(*2) Digital Transformation: The integration of digital technology into all areas of an organization as part of creating new or modifying existing processes, improving efficiency, and delivering greater value.
(*3) Graph-based AI: AI technology that is equipped with a link prediction function that learns from graph data and can predict new connections between pieces of data.
(*4) NEC Open Innovation. https://www.nec.com/en/global/innovation/index.html