From microscale transport to data-driven intelligence: The convergence of microfluidics and machine learning

Microfluidics at its core is a multidisciplinary field that combines fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, and precision microfabrication to control fluid flows at the micrometer scale. Advances in design and fabrication, including soft lithography, photolithography, and advanced manufacturing techniques, have enabled highly integrated platforms for manipulating droplets, particles, and cells with remarkable precision, enabling quantitative characterization of microscale hydrodynamics, interfacial physics, and multiphase transport phenomena. In parallel, machine learning (ML) has emerged as a computational paradigm capable of extracting patterns, optimizing nonlinear systems, and performing predictive modeling on complex datasets. ML efficiently navigates the high-dimensional, multiphysics parameter spaces inherent to microfluidics, capturing couplings between flow and transport processes. This review highlights the fundamental convergence of microfluidics and ML, including physics-informed approaches that enable optimization grounded in physical principles, and presents recent advances connecting microscale transport phenomena with practical applications. ML-driven microfluidics enhances control across diverse systems, enabling systematic optimization of processes such as droplet generation, sorting, and mixing, while supporting diagnostic and therapeutic platforms. Predictive models further enable optimization of device operation and performance through the integration of mechanistic understanding with data-driven learning. We critically synthesize these advances, highlight emerging trends, and provide insights into future directions. While significant challenges remain, the convergence of microfluidics and ML is poised to enable self-optimizing devices, integrated closed-loop control, and adaptive operational strategies, transforming microfluidics into an intelligent, adaptive technology that bridges fundamental fluid mechanics and microscale transport phenomena with biomedical and engineering applications.