Abstract A chemistry reduction approach based on machine learning is proposed and applied to direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a turbulent non-premixed syngas oxy-flame interacting with a cooled wall. The training and the subsequent application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) rely on the processing of ‘thermochemical vectors’ composed of species mass fractions and temperature (ANN input), to predict the corresponding chemical sources (ANN output). The training of the ANN is performed aside from any flow simulation, using a turbulent non-adiabatic non-premixed micro-mixing based canonical problem with a reference detailed chemistry. Heat-loss effects are thus included in the ANN training. The performance of the ANN chemistry is then tested a-posteriori in a two-dimensional DNS against the detailed mechanism and a reduced mechanism specifically developed for the operating conditions considered. Then, three-dimensional DNS are performed either with the ANN or the reduced chemistry for additional a-posteriori tests. The ANN reduced chemistry achieves good agreement with the Arrhenius-based detailed and reduced mechanisms, while being in terms of CPU cost 25 times faster than the detailed mechanism and 3 times faster than the reduced mechanism when coupled with DNS. The major potential of the method lies both in its data driven character and in the handling of the stiff chemical sources. The former allows for easy implementation in the context of automated generation of case-specific reduced chemistry. The latter avoids the Arrhenius rates calculation and also the direct integration of stiff chemistry, both leading to a significant CPU time reduction.