Periodic Labs

Periodic Labs is building what it calls an AI scientist: AI systems paired with autonomous laboratories that run physical experiments and generate original data, on the argument that models trained only on what already exists on the internet cannot discover anything new. Its first domain is materials science, including a search for superconductors that work at higher temperatures than current materials, alongside custom agents for industrial partners such as semiconductor makers analysing experimental data on chip heat dissipation. The founding team includes contributors to ChatGPT, DeepMind's GNoME, OpenAI's Operator and the neural attention mechanism, with a scientific advisory board drawn from Stanford and Northwestern. Backers include a16z, Felicis, DST, NVIDIA Ventures and Accel, plus Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Elad Gil and Jeff Dean.