TU/e has been awarded 1.5 million euros as part of the European Horizon Europe project SimuLingua, a 6-million-euro initiative that aims to create a next-generation artificial intelligence platform for materials discovery. TU/e is the largest academic partner in the consortium, receiving 25 percent of the total budget, and will use the funding to recruit five post-doctoral researchers in Eindhoven.
The SimuLingua project, led by Flowphys AS (Norway), brings together partners from the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Lithuania and Ukraine. It has been ranked second out of 47 proposals in a highly competitive European call, receiving an almost perfect score of 14 out of 15. This success reflects the project's potential to reshape how materials are designed and developed in Europe.
A new way of doing engineering
SimuLingua aims to transform the way engineers and scientists develop materials by creating an AI system that can move seamlessly between natural language, physics-based simulations, images and experimental data. The project will develop an open, multimodal 'scientific foundation model' that supports a closed design loop: design → simulate → validate.
This means researchers can explore new materials through natural-language interaction while AI-accelerated models verify whether the proposed designs are physically feasible. The platform is expected to speed up the discovery of advanced materials by allowing experts to test ideas quickly and efficiently using computer-based simulations.
"This project brings together two revolutions: foundation models from AI and simulations based on first principles from engineering", says Victorita Dolean , professor at TU/e and the university's point of contact for the project.
SimuLingua will allow researchers to 'talk' to materials models, explore ideas interactively, and rapidly test them in silico (through computer simulations rather than in a physical laboratory). For TU/e, this is a major step toward AI-driven engineering science.
Strategic importance for Europe
SimuLingua is expected to have broad significance beyond academia. An industrial partner in the consortium highlights that AI tools have already transformed software development, and expects SimuLingua to have a similarly disruptive impact on engineering and science. The project aims to establish a European blueprint for scientific foundation models, opening the door to more efficient, scalable materials research across industries.
From early research to practical applications
The project is structured as a 48-month Research & Innovation Action, aiming to progress from Technology Readiness Level TRL-1 to TRL-4 (a scale used to measure the maturity of a technology). Moving from TRL-1 to TRL-4 means the project will develop the technology from the earliest research stage (basic principles) to validated prototypes in a laboratory environment.
This timeline reflects SimuLingua's ambitious goal: not only to build an AI model but also to demonstrate its real-world potential for materials discovery.
Strengthening the regional AI ecosystem
For TU/e, the funding strengthens the university's strategic position at the intersection of AI, computational science and engineering. The five post-doctoral positions in Eindhoven will be recruited by the TU/e team led by Prof. Victorita Dolean with Wil Schilders , Björn Baumeier , Lisa Kusch and Michael Abdelmalik as core team members.
These positions will focus on machine learning for physics, high-performance computing, and trustworthy AI for critical engineering applications. This also connects closely with initiatives from the Brainport high-tech ecosystem, reinforcing the region's role as a hub for advanced technology and innovation.
Written by Martijn Luyk.
