Scientists have found that the same technique Amazon.com uses to suggest books or music you may like based on previous purchases can also help determine the likely chemical structure (and properties) of new materials.
The article is pretty interesting. As computers get larger, and databases of existing chemical structures are organized and made searchable, materials can be designed and implemented in record time. No more combining chemicals from scratch and then doing months of analysis to see what you have, now you can design the material in advance and use computational physics to determine it's properties. Lighter aircraft wings, stronger plastics and many other materials are possible now faster than ever before.
Designing Materials
