Aug. 6, 2020 Two researchers from Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Mnica de Mier and Stephan Mohr, have created a new spin-off, Nextmol (Bytelab Solutions SL), which develops tools for atomistic simulation and data analysis to accelerate the design of new chemicals.

Using these tools,Nextmolcharacterizes the behavior of chemical molecules, predicts their performance and identifies the best candidate molecules to meet certain physicochemical properties, by means of the computer and without the need to synthesize the molecule.

In this way, Nextmol shortens the path of innovation and makes chemical R&D more efficient compared to the traditional approach based exclusively on the laboratory, indicates Mnica de Mier, director of the company. De Mier adds that Nextmols mission is to democratize the computational techniques in the chemical industry, accompanying it in its digital transformation, and thus contribute to its competitiveness.

Nextmol markets these tools through its software-as-a-service platform, which enables the creation of the molecules and the system to be studied, build workflows with the sequence of calculations to be carried out, execute the calculation on a supercomputer and analyze the results. It is a collaborative, easy-to-use and cloud-based web platform, which enables computing resources to be immediately scaled to the volume of calculations required by users. Thanks to the catalog of preconfigured workflows, the platform can be used by non-experts in computational chemistry, says Stephan Mohr, scientific director of Nextmol.

BSC is the main partner of this spin-off, which has been founded by researcher Stephan Mohr and by Mnica de Mier, previously head of business development in the CASE department of BSC. The team currently consists of five people. Nextmol also has the support of the Repsol Foundation through its startup acceleration programEntrepeneurs Fund. In addition, it has obtained theStartup Capital grant from ACCI.

Nextmol leads the projectBigDFT4CHEMthat won the call for Spin-off Initiatives (SPI) launched by the EXDCI-2 consortium, has been one of the five startups finalists of theEntrepreneur Awards XXIorganized by Caixabank and Enisa, has obtained the Seal of Excellence in theEIC Acceleratorcall, has been awarded with the Tech Transfer Award granted by the European Network on High-performance Embedded Architecture and Compilation (HiPEAC) and aEurolab4HPC Business Prototyping project.

About BSC

Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputacin (BSC-CNS) is the national supercomputing centre in Spain. The center is specialised in high performance computing (HPC) and manage MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, located in the Torre Girona chapel. BSC is involved in a number of projects to design and develop energy efficient and high performance chips, based on open architectures like RISC-V, for use within future exascale supercomputers and other high performance domains. The centre leads the pillar of the European Processor Project (EPI), creating a high performance accelerator based on RISC-V. More information:www.bsc.es

Source: Barcelona Supercomputing Center

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BSC Researchers Create Spin-Off Platform to Accelerate the Development of New Chemicals - HPCwire