Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the UK government have invested £2 billion in a British artificial intelligence start-up that aims to become the “search engine for rare materials” that will fuel the next wave of technological innovation.
Cambridge-based CuspAI has raised $450m (£330m) from investors including Mr Bezos and the government’s Sovereign AI Fund, valuing the two-year-old business at $2.6bn.
The company launched the AI Materials Foundry, a coalition of more than 48 high-tech companies, industrial companies, and research facilities to build artificial intelligence-powered software to discover and develop new materials for chipmakers and other industries.
CuspAI wants to significantly reduce research time and reduce or eliminate the use of rare metals such as iridium and ruthenium in chip manufacturers’ supply chains.
The coalition, which includes chipmaker Nvidia, Facebook and Instagram owner Metaplatforms, and carmaker Hyundai, aims to use Frontier AI, a cutting-edge general-purpose artificial intelligence model, to discover new materials that will improve the efficiency of energy networks and batteries, and improve the capabilities of semiconductors to support the AI revolution.
“If we don’t progress quickly, industrial progress over the next 50 years will be constrained by one challenge: the world needs materials that don’t yet exist,” said CuspAI co-founders Dr. Chad Edwards and Professor Max Welling. “Combining frontier agent AI with deep domain expertise, exclusive data access, and deep customer partnerships, this is the mission we solve. The world cannot make the progress it needs with known materials. That’s clear.”
The company said the Series B round of funding will enable it to expand internationally, opening a new office in Singapore and increasing staff numbers in Cambridge, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo and the United States.
Josh Coyne, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, who co-led the latest round of funding, said: “Most big leaps in technology come from materials, from cheaper carbon capture to semiconductors to cleaner water, and the next step is waiting for materials that no one has discovered yet. CuspAI has built a search engine to change that.”
The latest funding follows last year’s $100 million Series A investment.
CuspAI is the fourth company to receive funding from a government fund aimed at investing in early-stage AI companies in the UK, helping them scale up to compete on the global stage. The government has not disclosed the size of the investment.
Criteria for receiving funding from the Sovereign AI Fund include being headquartered in the UK and having a British founder.
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Science and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “Caspai is harnessing the power of AI to help tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the UK and the world today, including energy and climate change. By supporting British companies like these, we are paving the way for breakthroughs that will grow the economy, protect the natural world and improve the lives of all people.”
CuspAI has former Apple and Google executive John Gianandrea on its board to help launch its U.S. operations.
The company is also working with Abi Talwalkar, board member of chipmaker AMD and chairman of Lam Research.
