Merck plans data analytics platform to streamline chip industry

Overview of Athinia [MERCK KOREA]

Science and technology company Merck joined forces with Denver, Colorado-based Palantir Technologies to build a data analytics platform to help connect semiconductor manufacturers and materials suppliers.

Merck says the platform, dubbed Athinia, can contribute to solving the ongoing chip shortage problem by bringing semiconductor manufacturers and materials suppliers together to share, aggregate, and analyze data. Using artificial intelligence and big data, Athinia will enable advanced data analytics in order to increase efficiency and help suppliers avoid large unnecessary expenses that occur in the process.

Merck believes the platform will help people to understand on a deeper level the interaction between materials and processes at semiconductor fabrication plants, allowing companies to solve ongoing challenges in the semiconductor industry such as the shortage of chips and improvement of supply chain transparency.

Laura Matz, Chief Science and Technology Officer of Merck, will lead the partnership.

“The semiconductor industry is facing unprecedented disruption," said Kai Beckmann, a member of the executive board at Merck, through a press release. "This has created a critical need for a secure data collaboration platform that can provide the transparency and data intelligence companies need to solve challenges such as chip shortages and supply chain issues. Partnering with Palantir, we’ve combined our collective expertise in materials science, data analytics and security to increase our customers’ efficiencies and time to innovation.”

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]