CuspAI Launches Global AI Network to Discover New Materials
The Cambridge startup has enlisted Nvidia, Meta and Samsung among more than 45 partners as a $450 million funding round lifts its valuation to $2.6 billion.
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CuspAI has brought together Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Samsung Electronics and more than 40 other partners in a global network aimed at accelerating the discovery of materials for semiconductors, clean energy and advanced manufacturing.
The Cambridge-based startup said on Monday, 20 July, that its AI Materials Foundry combines laboratories, technology companies and data providers across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
The foundry combines computing capacity, scientific data, laboratory facilities and materials expertise across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It is intended to help researchers design, simulate and test new materials without relying on a single laboratory.
Nvidia is supplying accelerated computing infrastructure, while Meta’s Fundamental AI Research team is contributing its Universal Model for Atoms.
The model predicts how atoms and molecules behave, allowing researchers to screen potential materials digitally before conducting laboratory tests.
CuspAI’s MIRA platform coordinates the discovery process, from generating possible materials and running simulations to planning how they could be made and tested.
The company said partners can operate in private environments to protect proprietary research data.
The launch came as CuspAI announced a $450 million Series B funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates.
The round valued the company at $2.6 billion and took its total funding to more than $650 million.
Other investors included the UK’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures and the Netherlands’ Invest-NL.
CuspAI was founded in 2024 by Chief Executive Officer Chad Edwards and machine-learning researcher Max Welling.
It plans to use the funding to expand across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
“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,” Edwards and Welling said.
