At the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the global battery manufacturing leader, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), was honored with the prestigious MINDS Award. The accolade recognizes CATL’s groundbreaking project, “Augmented Intelligence Leading Next-Generation Lithium-ion Battery Design,” marking it as a global benchmark for artificial intelligence (AI) application in industrial research and development.
The MINDS (Meaningful, Intelligent, Novel, Deployable Solutions) program, overseen by the WEF’s Centre for AI Excellence, rigorously evaluates initiatives across strategy, talent, data, technology, and governance. Only 15 organizations worldwide were selected for the 2026 cohort, underscoring the significance of CATL’s achievement. The award highlights the company’s successful transformation of a vast proprietary data repository into a sustained competitive advantage through physics-informed machine learning.
CATL’s award-winning Intelligent Cell Design platform represents a paradigm shift in lithium-ion battery development. Traditionally, the industry has relied heavily on manual experimentation, individual engineer expertise, and costly trial-and-error prototyping, leading to prolonged evaluation cycles. This traditional approach has become increasingly inadequate as electric vehicle (EV) development timelines compress to approximately 18 months and new energy vehicle (NEV) penetration exceeds 50% in key markets. Automakers now demand batteries that meet highly customized performance, safety, and cost requirements with unprecedented speed.
To address this challenge, CATL’s platform moves the industry from reactive “reverse design” to proactive “forward design and prediction.” It integrates physics-based electrochemical models with advanced machine learning algorithms, functioning as a “digital engineer.” The system is powered by an immense data foundation: over 50 million data records, approximately 600 terabytes of test data, insights from more than 100,000 historical battery design cases, and real-world aftermarket performance data from a broad fleet of NEVs.
Operating on a secure, on-premises private cloud, the platform leverages this data to generate scientifically reliable virtual battery cell designs within minutes, with a prediction accuracy of up to 95%. It can dynamically evaluate electrochemical constraints and produce optimized design recommendations in seconds, allowing engineers to prioritize key parameters—be it performance, safety, or cost—before any physical prototype is built. This data-driven, closed-loop process significantly accelerates development while enhancing the reliability and efficiency of the final product.
In accepting the award, Ni Jun, CATL’s Chief Manufacturing Officer and Co-President of the Engineering Manufacturing System, emphasized the philosophy of “Augmented Intelligence” over “Artificial Intelligence” alone. He noted that in complex industrial fields like battery manufacturing, AI cannot solve core problems in isolation. True innovation, he stated, comes from strengthening the human-AI partnership—integrating the intelligent design system with engineers’ deep understanding of material properties, process principles, and systems engineering to ensure consistent and superior product quality.
The company has stated it will continue to advance AI from a mere enabling tool to a creative force, exploring new frontiers to build a stronger cornerstone for sustainable transportation and energy systems worldwide.
