DP Technology raises $114 million to accelerate AI for China's scientific industry

Beijing-based startup DP Technology Co. Ltd. today outlined plans to use its artificial intelligence tools to accelerate scientific research in everything from battery design to drug development, after raising 800 million yuan ($114 million) in funding.

The Series C round was led by Fortune Venture Capital and Beijing Jingguozui Equity Investment Fund, with participation from Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Beijing Pharmaceutical and Health Industry Investment Fund, Lenovo Capital, Incubator Group, and Oryza Hua.

Unlike many Chinese AI startups that have recently attracted multi-million funding rounds, DP Technology is actually something of an industry veteran, founded in 2018 by two Peking University graduates. The startup is pioneering what it calls the “AI for science” industry, developing a variety of tools that leverage large-scale language models to accelerate research in areas such as molecular simulation and laboratory automation.

DP Technology's tools span many aspects of the scientific research process, and one of its main products is an AI model system for simulation called Particle Universe. Other products include the laboratory operating system Uni-Lab, the cloud-based research hub Bohrium, and a computer-aided drug discovery platform called Hermite.

We have also built a research and development platform called RiDYMO that focuses on “undruggable” biological targets. Piloteye is for designing batteries. SciMaster, a general purpose scientific AI agent. Lebesgue Intelligent Computing for controlling network traffic.

Zhang Linfeng, co-founder and principal researcher at DP Technology, told the South China Morning Post that the company's tools are used by more than 1,000 universities and research institutes and 150 corporate customers around the world, the largest of which include PetroChina Corporation and BYD Automobile Co., Ltd. “AI for science is not just an emerging field, but a fundamental infrastructure project for scientific discovery for decades to come,” Zhang argued.

Zhang is a recipient of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize, also known as the “Nobel Prize” of supercomputing. He received that award in 2020 for his work on machine learning algorithms that dramatically enhance molecular dynamics simulations. He founded the company with CEO Sun Weijie and said the long-term plan is to train “AI scientists” who can automate scientific discoveries.

DP Technology will use the funding to accelerate research and hire new talent to build more scientific discovery tools.

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