Scale and durability

Area: definition. Apply the shared measurement protocol.

Estimated progress toward AI-managed materials

30% complete — judgment-based estimate as of November 7, 2026. Confidence: low. The scale starts at 0% before ChatGPT's public release in 2022 and ends at 100% when AI manages the field's continuing advancement without human participation. This rates the outcome's contribution to that transition, not the percentage of tasks solved, a measured fraction of the field, or time remaining.

The shared scoring rubric uses five equally weighted dimensions: execution, breadth, agenda-setting, validation, and sustained autonomous improvement. Points for this outcome are 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 30/100, in that order; each dimension has a maximum of 20. These component judgments make the estimate inspectable, but are not independently measured scores.

Reason for the estimate: Mini-module and stability testing provide real engineering progress. They do not yet establish autonomous scaling with representative manufacturing yield and field durability. The dated baseline below supplies the findings and source links used for this assessment. Unmeasured components receive no demonstrated-progress credit; missing evidence does not prove a missing capability.

What would move the score: Track device-specific test conditions and sample counts; scale production while measuring yield, variability, outdoor degradation and retained performance. Higher autonomy scores additionally require AI to select worthwhile work, validate results and improve the process over repeated cycles without human research management, repair or adjudication. Lower the score if replication fails, quality regresses or previously hidden human assistance is found. Preserve this dated estimate when adding future assessments.

Measurement and acceptance rule

Yield, batch variability, degradation, and property retention when production scale increases.

Evidence requirements

Provide raw characterization data, uncertainty, synthesis records, impurity analysis, and application tests. Require an independent laboratory to reproduce synthesis and functional performance. Count novelty and usefulness separately: a new phase can have no practical advantage, and a useful processing improvement can involve a known material.

Related milestones

See the area's proposed milestones. Proposed targets are distinct from the dated evidence below.

Baseline as of November 7 2026

Status: Measured scale and stability demonstrations. Sources accessed November 7, 2026. This is a documentary baseline, not an independent replication or an assertion of the worldwide best result. An unknown measurement is not zero.

Dated findings

April 14, 2026: The study reports 23.49% efficiency on a 21.4 cm² mini-module and 98.7% retention after 1,200 hours under ISOS-L-1I testing. Autonomous perovskite optimization, Nature.

Interpretation and tracking value

Do not assume the durability test and mini-module refer to identical specimens. Laboratory accelerated testing is not a decades-long field lifetime.

Next comparable measurement

Track device-specific test conditions and sample counts; scale production while measuring yield, variability, outdoor degradation and retained performance. Preserve this dated observation; append future results with their model/system version, denominator, budget and evidence level rather than overwriting it.