Pioneering the Future of AI-driven Manufacturing

The AI and Manufacturing (AIM) Center at the University of Toronto is a Global Industrial Technology Cooperation Center (GITCC) dedicated to revolutionizing the industrial landscape. As the global manufacturing sector shifts away from low-cost labor models toward high-tech, autonomous solutions, AIM serves as the bridge between cutting-edge AI research and practical industrial application.

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Our Vision

Our ultimate goal is the realization of AI-driven manufacturing. By integrating Advanced Artificial Intelligence as a foundational tool, we aim to solve the complex manufacturing problems while maximizing efficiency in critical sectors such as semiconductors, batteries, future mobility, and bio-technology.

What We Do

The center operates at the intersection of Canada’s world-leading AI ecosystem and Korea’s industrial excellence. We focus on three holistic stages:

  1. Materials synthesis and processing: Using "Self-Driving Labs" to accelerate the development of next-generation materials.
  2. Automation and robotics: Developing robots that can perceive and act in complex, cluttered industrial environments.
  3. System monitoring and control: Utilizing Reinforcement Learning and Explainable AI to monitor, predict, and control large-scale manufacturing systems with unprecedented precision.
New name: Ma Moosh Ka Win Valley Trail (2023)
January 26, 2023 - General views of the University of Toronto St. George campus (photo by Polina Teif)

Why UofT?

The University of Toronto is the birthplace of modern AI, home to pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton and a top-tier engineering faculty. Our center leverages this unique environment, offering flexible intellectual property (IP) policies and a reduced indirect cost structure to foster seamless R&D collaboration between Korean SMEs, global industry leaders, and academic researchers.

Our Commitment

Through the GITCC program, we provide more than just research; we

provide a gateway for Korean technology companies to access the North American innovation ecosystem, facilitating technology transfer, researcher exchange, and the commercialization of AI-driven manufacturing solutions.

Professor and Director

Chi-Guhn Lee is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. in the area of Industrial & Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and joined the University of Toronto faculty in 2001. Prior to his Ph.D. studies, he spent over three years at Samsung SDS in Seoul, Korea, leading a project of re-usable OOP library for fast prototyping of system integration software. Professor Lee has done both theoretical and applied research in dynamic optimization under uncertainty. His theoretical works involve accelerated value iteration algorithm for Markov decision processes, progressive basis-function approximation for value function space, multi-variate Bayesian control chart optimization, and optimal learning using Multi-armed Bandit Model. His interest in application is diverse from supply chain optimization to financial engineering, to dynamic pricing and to healthcare optimization. In the past years, he and his team have actively adopted machine learning algorithms into their research portfolio. In particular, he is currently active in reinforcement learning, inverse reinforcement learning, and deep reinforcement learning.

Professor Lee holds positions as associate editor – Enterprise Information System and International Journal of Industrial Engineering – and serves as a member in a few editorial boards.

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Affiliated institutes

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