Startup Launches Foundry to Develop Materials for Chips

A U.K. startup looking to become a "search engine" for rare materials used in AI chips has completed a $450 million Series B funding round.The round values Cambridge-based CuspAI at $2.6 billion and follows a $100 million Series A in 2025.At the same time, the vendor launched the AI Materials Foundry, a global network consisting of nearly 50 founding members that brings together data, labs, compute and scientific expertise with the purpose of using AI to design new materials.The funding round was led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and NEA, with participation from Jeff Bezos' investment arm Bezos Expeditions."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," Chad Edwards, CEO and co-founder of CuspAI, said in a statement. "That's what we're on a mission to solve."The foundry is a key element of the undertaking, with founding members that include Nvidia, Meta, Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, Henkel, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and Lam Research.Related:As AI Spending Climbs, Enterprises Get Serious About Token CostsNvidia will provide the computer architecture for the enterprise and will also use Meta's Universal Models for Atoms, a frontier atomistic chemistry platform for materials science.At its heart, though, is CuspAI's proprietary AI platform, Mira, which the vendor said will enable partners to design, create and validate materials, underpinned by what the company claims is "the largest curated experimental materials datasets in the world."Specific goals include reducing or eliminating the use of rare metals such as iridium and ruthenium in chipmakers' supply chains.CuspAI stated that, in the short term, it will use the new capital to expand its team, with a new office opening in Singapore while adding to its staff in Cambridge, Berlin, Tokyo and the U.S.About the AuthorContributing WriterGraham Hope has worked in automotive journalism in the U.K. for 26 years, including spells as editor of leading consumer news website and weekly Auto Express and respected buying guide CarBuyer.