Neural Operators for Accelerating Scientific Simulations and Design
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Abstract (arXiv)
Scientific discovery and engineering design are currently limited by the time and cost of physical experiments, selected mostly through trial-and-error and intuition that require deep domain expertise. Numerical simulations present an alternative to physical experiments but are usually infeasible for complex real-world domains due to the computational requirements of existing numerical methods. Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a potential paradigm shift by developing fast data-driven surrogate models. In particular, an AI framework, known as Neural Operators, presents a principled framework for learning mappings between functions defined on continuous domains, e.g., spatiotemporal processes and partial differential equations (PDE). They can extrapolate and predict solutions at new locations unseen during training, i.e., perform zero-shot super-resolution. Neural Operators can augment or even replace existing simulators in many applications, such as computational fluid dynamics, weather forecasting, and material modeling, while being 4-5 orders of magnitude faster. Further, Neural Operators can be integrated with physics and other domain constraints enforced at finer resolutions to obtain high-fidelity solutions and good generalization. Since Neural Operators are differentiable, they can directly optimize parameters for inverse design and other inverse problems. We believe that Neural Operators present a transformative approach to simulation and design, enabling rapid research and development.
Key facts. Cited by 218 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 75 of its 137 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 27 Sep 2023.
Builds on
75 of 137 references.
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50 most cited of 75 All 75 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 50; 2025: 84; 2026: 84.
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