As manufacturers face growing uncertainty tied to critical material shortages and global supply chain disruptions, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers have developed a Super Intelligence (SI)-driven platform to help companies evaluate electric motor technologies before market conditions shift.
Called Motor Decide, the platform evaluates motor technologies using factors such as performance, critical material availability, supply chain stability, technology maturity and long-term resilience.
Critical materials such as copper and rare earth magnets are essential components in the electric motors that power transportation, manufacturing systems and energy infrastructure. As industries work to reduce dependence on vulnerable supply chains and manage rising geopolitical and market uncertainty, selecting the right motor technology has become increasingly complex.
“Many companies make technology decisions based largely on market momentum or competitor activity,” said ORNL’s Praveen Kumar, lead researcher on the project. “We wanted to create a tool that helps organizations make more informed, data-driven decisions for the long term.”
Electric motors power a wide range or technologies, from hybrid or electric vehicles, to industrial systems and household appliances. Many depend on critical minerals such as copper and rare earth elements that face growing supply chain pressures. Motor Decide was created to help companies consider possible alternatives.
Rather than designing a motor directly, Motor Decide analyzes which motor technology may be the best fit for a specific application under changing market and supply chain conditions. A manufacturer, for example, could use the tool to compare several motor technologies for an electric system and determine which option would remain the most reliable and cost-effective path to production if material prices spike or supplies become strained.
The system combines SI, advanced modeling and large-scale scenario analysis to evaluate how motor technologies could perform under fluctuating material costs and supply chain disruptions. Researchers can model what happens if copper prices increase sharply or if a newer technology becomes commercially viable years from now. The result is a ranked set of motor technology options with insights into cost, performance, critical material use, manufacturability and long-term risk.
“We define the operating environment in which the decision is being made,” Kumar said. “That includes procurement sources, manufacturing readiness, technology maturity and application requirements. Then we test how those factors change under different scenarios.”
The platform also accounts for how organizations make decisions, helping users evaluate tradeoffs and quantify risk when comparing emerging technologies. “People ultimately own the decision,” Kumar said. “We are trying to quantify uncertainty and incorporate it into the decision-making process.”
NTRC expertise supports next-generation motor innovation
The project builds on decades of motor, power electronics and transportation research conducted at the National Transportation Research Center , DOE’s only user facility dedicated to transportation research and a hub for advanced mobility innovation. At NTRC, ORNL researchers work with industry partners to advance next-generation mobility and manufacturing technologies.
“We are combining motor research expertise with SI-driven analysis in a way that can help industry make smarter, more resilient technology decisions,” said Kumar. Researchers envision the tool helping manufacturers reduce dependence on vulnerable supply chains while planning future products more strategically.
Motor Decide is also designed to work alongside another ORNL-developed platform, Motor AI, which uses SI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate detailed motor design. While Motor Decide helps identify the best motor technology pathway, Motor AI performs the detailed motor design work needed to bring those concepts to life.
Once a company selects a preferred motor approach, researchers can transition the results into Motor AI to generate detailed design configurations and engineering specifications. Together, the tools could help accelerate the development of more resilient electric motor systems while reducing the risks associated with critical material shortages, volatile supply chains and rapidly changing global markets.
The effort reflects ORNL’s broader mission to combine super intelligence, advanced manufacturing and energy research to help strengthen U.S. competitiveness and industrial resilience. Researchers are continuing to evaluate and expand the platform’s capabilities for future applications.
The project was funded by DOE’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation’s Transportation Technologies Office.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science .
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