Google Alum Using AI to Help Find Clean Tech Materials (1)

Ever since ChatGPT went viral last fall, companies have touted many ways artificial intelligence can make our lives easier. They’ve promised superhuman virtual assistants, tutors, lawyers and doctors.

What about a superhuman chemical engineer?

London-based startup Orbital Materials would like to create just that. The startup is working to apply generative AI — the method behind tools like ChatGPT — expressly for accelerating the development of clean energy technologies. Essentially, the idea is to make computer models powerful and sharp enough to identify the best formulas for products like sustainable jet fuel or batteries free of rare-earth minerals.

Jonathan Godwin, an Orbital Materials co-founder, imagines a system that’s ...