At the National Academy of Engineering’s 2025 Regional Meeting, hosted at Georgia Tech, leaders in science and industry gathered to address one of the most urgent challenges of our time: accelerating clean energy manufacturing. Representing NC State’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Aram Amassian brought crucial expertise to a high-impact panel on the transformative role of artificial intelligence in manufacturing.
Held at the Historic Academy of Medicine, the event centered around converging innovations in battery technology, decarbonization, and AI. Professor Amassian joined panelists from Georgia Tech and industry to examine how AI is changing the landscape of production: not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a method for capturing the tacit knowledge of expert technicians, enabling smarter systems, and reshaping the labor dynamic in ethically responsible ways.
“AI isn’t just about automation,” Amassian noted. “It’s about elevating human skill, democratizing knowledge, and accelerating innovation across the supply chain, especially for small and mid-sized manufacturers.”
The panel also proposed the creation of federated university labs: collaborative spaces for industry and academia to develop open, high-quality data and test new technologies without the barrier of intellectual property restrictions. This, they argued, is critical to supporting the smaller firms that make up the backbone of U.S. manufacturing.
NC State MSE’s participation in this national dialogue underscores its commitment to cross-disciplinary research, ethical innovation, and industry partnerships that drive scalable change. As clean energy goals push toward 2050, engineers like Amassian are helping to shape a future where technology and sustainability grow hand-in-hand.
Learn more about how NC State MSE is powering the future.
This article was originally published on NAE.