In the past decade, different sectors have been disrupted by entry of platform businesses. Consider Google and Facebook entry into advertising, Amazon into retail, Apple and Spotify into music, Uber and Lyft into mobility. Initially the first sectors targeted for disruption were B2C. However, of late, we’re seeing the emergency of B2B platforms, in traditional sectors such as construction and steel. Although platforms have re-shaped industry after industry, one industry that seemed to have escaped is the chemical industry. Not for long, though. Early signals of potential disruption along three areas of the chemical value chain are on the horizon: 1. R&D: the rise of open platforms in informatics The process for discovering and developing chemicals has not changed for centuries. It still requires tedious and costly lab experiments, which is inefficient and slow. To address this issue, new start-ups at the intersection of material science and computer science (material informatics) are envisioning open platforms. These platforms aim to aggregate huge material knowledge from different sources into a single, consistent, searchable format, and use machine-learning AI algorithms to come up with unexpected innovations quickly and efficiently. 2. Formulation and marketing: the potential of material selection and recommendation engines The trend […] read more