CuspAI, a UK based AI startup, announced the launch of AI Materials Foundry, a coalition of more than 45 tech giants and research groups including the likes of NVIDIA, Meta, Samsung and Hyundai Motors with an aim to build a global network of data, labs, compute and scientific expertise in order to avoid the raw materials bottleneck.
The launch of AI Materials Foundry comes alongside CuspAI receiving $450 million in Series B fundraising round led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA, with significant participation from Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, putting the total valuation of the 2024 AI startup at $2.6 billion.
Over 45 organizations have joined AI Materials Foundry as founding members including NVIDIA that will provide compute infrastructure and META’s Fundamental AI Research Team to develop the Universal Model for Atoms (UMA), informed CuspAI.
“If we don’t make progress fast, the next 50 years of industrial progress will be constrained by a single challenge: the world needs materials that don’t yet exist. That’s what we’re on a mission to solve – combining frontier agentic AI with deep domain expertise, exclusive data access and close customer partnerships. We’re delighted to be joined by more than 45 leaders in their fields to advance materials discovery,” said Dr Chad Edwards, CEO and Co-founder CuspAI.
According to CuspAI, the AI Materials Foundry will assemble high-quality training data at scale, with powerful compute capabilities, synthesis infrastructure and domain expertise.
Rather than relying on the physical constraints of a single, isolated laboratory, CuspAI’s ecosystem approach creates a compounding intelligence loop: breakthroughs achieved within the network have potential to accelerate discovery timelines across the entire global value chain,” read a statement from CuspAI.
Founded in Cambridge UK in 2024, CuspAI’s core mission is to solve the materials bottleneck limiting progress in AI hardware, clean energy, climate tech, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing, by using inverse design.
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