In recent years, while the importance of device and material is increasing, research and development (R&D) of device/material becomes more and more sophisticated and complicated, and, thus, required time and cost are on a rising trend. Because of a such background, efficient R&D is strongly expected. Advanced materials analysis and simulation are important to understand things and phenomena essentially. In addition, use of the simulation is becoming indispensable to reduce the number of experimental trials and design reworks. However, these are not enough now and it is inevitable to incorporate the data science called the fourth science, that is, Materials Informatics (MI) into devices and materials R&D.
Here, after showing perspective of MI, we will look over overseas trends and discuss what we should do to make MI more useful not only for R&D but also for manufacturing.