Smart Brains, Big Money: AI Meets Science in a New Way

A group of very smart people from OpenAI and Google Brain decided to start a new company called Periodic Labs. They want to use AI to discover new materials, like super conductors. They got a lot of money, $300 million, from investors to do this. The idea started when two friends, Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, talked about how AI could help in science. They thought that AI could help find new materials by mixing things together and testing them. They also thought that even if the experiments didn't work, the data from them could be useful for AI. Periodic Labs is not the only one trying to use AI for science. OpenAI is also working on something similar. But Periodic Labs has a team of experts from different fields, and they are already working on experiments. They are trying to find new superconductor materials, which could be a big deal for technology. The company got a lot of attention from investors. One investor even wrote a love letter to try to get them to take their money. But in the end, they chose Felicis, a top-tier seed firm, to lead the investment. They also got money from other big investors like Andreessen Horowitz, DST, and even Jeff Bezos. But it's not all easy. The robots they want to use for mixing materials are not ready yet. And science is not always fast or predictable. But the team is hopeful and excited about what they can discover.