The Rest Is Money 232. How British AI is inventing new materials
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Dec 8, 2025 Dr. Chad Edwards, a chemist and deep-tech entrepreneur, co-founded Cusp AI to leverage artificial intelligence in material design for clean energy and water purification. He reveals how AI enables ‘materials on demand’ and discusses collaborations with major companies like Hyundai. Chad also dives into the unique challenges of UK startups securing funding abroad and highlights the importance of real-world lab partnerships. Exploring the future, he reflects on AI's transformative potential and the need for safeguards in this rapidly evolving field.
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AI Generates Candidates, Simulates Reality
- Cusp's engine acts like a search/generative system that outputs candidate materials from property prompts.
- Edwards stresses you cannot judge materials by appearance; you must predict physical properties computationally.
Lab Partnerships Power Validation
- Cusp partners with commercial, academic and government labs to synthesize and test AI-generated materials.
- Edwards describes an iterative loop where experiments feed data back into models to improve them.
Real Partnerships With Big Corporates
- Cusp co-engineers prompts with partners like Hyundai for hydrogen fuel cells and Meta for carbon-capture datasets.
- They also work on membranes to remove PFAS forever chemicals from water with a Finnish firm.