Prof. Max Welling and Dr Chad Edwards, co-founders of CuspAI

Announcing the CuspAI Advisory Board

Prof. Yann LeCun, Prof. Kristin Persson and Verity Harding join Nobel Laureate Prof. Geoffrey Hinton as advisors as we build our AI-powered search engine for discovering breakthrough materials.

When we started CuspAI last year, we knew we were tackling a challenge that could fundamentally transform how humanity addresses its most pressing problems. The stark reality is that the materials we need to solve such challenges simply don’t exist. From making carbon capture economically viable to creating next-generation computing materials, breakthroughs remain bottlenecked by a materials discovery process that takes decades, costs billions, and fails >90% of the time.

This disconnect became impossible to ignore. While generative AI was transforming entire industries, materials discovery remained largely untouched by such developments. That’s when we recognised our opportunity to build something truly transformative — combining frontier AI with deep materials expertise to fundamentally reimagine how humanity discovers and creates materials.

We knew from day one that the journey ahead would require not just breakthrough technology, but the guidance of people whose vision extends beyond the horizon of what most consider possible. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the pioneers who’ll be joining Nobel Laureate and Turing Prize winner Professor Geoffrey Hinton on our Advisory Board:

• Professor Yann LeCun, Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, NYU Professor, and Turing Prize Laureate;
• Professor Kristin Persson, director of the Materials Project and UC Berkeley Professor, who was named Distinguished Scientist Fellow by the U.S. Department of Energy last year; and
• Verity Harding, AI policy expert, author, director of the AI and Geopolitics Project at the University of Cambridge, and one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI.

Yann says:

“The application of machine learning and modern AI to material science is one of the most promising approaches to addressing the biggest challenges faced by humanity. CuspAI’s combination of frontier AI and materials expertise is exactly what’s needed to tackle these challenges.”

This validation from one of AI’s foremost pioneers underscores what we’ve believed from the start — that we’re working at the intersection of two fields with extraordinary potential for impact. Their collective decision to join us isn’t just an endorsement — it’s practical support and a signal that the global community recognises the urgency of our mission.

At CuspAI, we’re building something that’s never existed before — a materials discovery engine that combines frontier AI with deep materials expertise to compress decades of traditional discovery into months. Our first focus areas span carbon capture, semiconductors and energy storage.

It’s why we’re delighted to welcome Kristin, the director and founder of the Materials Project, whose pioneering work aims to drastically reduce the time needed to invent new materials to serve societal needs.

Kristin says:

“I am thrilled to join the advisory board of CuspAI and collaborate with its outstanding team to advance AI-driven discovery and develop materials that support a sustainable future for our world.”

Any breakthrough on this scale needs careful consideration and engaging with relevant communities — just one of the reasons we wanted to engage Verity’s significant policy expertise from her work at DeepMind, the University of Cambridge and in government.

Verity says:

“For me, the true promise of AI has always been its ability to help humanity tackle our most difficult challenges. When I met Chad and Max, I immediately recognised that they had not only the talent but the clarity of purpose needed to put AI to work for that end. The potential for Cusp to revolutionise material design with AI is enormous and I’m delighted to support such brilliant and thoughtful founders with their mission.”

Since incorporating less than a year ago, we’ve assembled a world-class team of 27 experts across four jurisdictions, with collective scientific citations exceeding 2 million. We’ve secured $30 million in seed funding from leading European and US funds. And we’re already working with Meta on direct air capture, with more partnerships in the pipeline that we’ll announce soon.

We want to thank Jeremy Kahn at Fortune for covering this announcement, you can read his article here.

The road ahead is challenging but clear: we’re building the engine that will discover the materials humanity needs to thrive. What large language models did for AI, our engine will do for materials science: fundamentally transform what’s possible. With advisors of this calibre guiding us, we’ve never been more confident in our ability to deliver on that promise.

— Chad Edwards & Max Welling Co-founders, CuspAI