Geoffrey Hinton joins climate tech startup CuspAI

'Godfather of AI' quit Google last year to speak out on AI risk

Geoffrey Hinton, the "godfather of AI", has joined the advisory board of Cambridge-based startup CuspAI.

CuspAI is developing a search engine to discover new materials to help tackle climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The startup was founded by Professor Max Welling, who formerly worked at Microsoft and Qualcomm, and Dr Chad Edwards, a chemist who was previously employed by Google and quantum computing firm Quantinuum.

CuspAI has just raised $30 million in a seed funding round led by Hoxton Ventures, with additional funding from Basis Set Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Hinton is a pioneer of deep learning and neural networks, which paved the way for today's AI chatbots. Last year the 76-year-old unexpectedly quit Google, in order, he said, to be able to speak more freely about the risks posed by AI to humanity, including its potential for creating disinformation and disrupting the labour market.

However, he said he also recognises the potential for AI to solve some of the world's most urgent problems, such as climate change.

"Humanity will face many challenges in the coming decade. Some will be caused by AI while others can be solved by AI," Hinton said in a statement.

"I've been very impressed by CuspAI and its mission to accelerate the design process of new materials using AI to curb one of humanity's most urgent challenges—climate change."

CuspAI's platform acts as a search engine for materials. Researchers can input the desired properties of a material - for example the ability to bind carbon dioxide under certain conditions - and CuspAI will generate potential chemical compositions that could achieve them. Its utility is not limited to carbon capture, but that is where CuspAI is focused, given the urgency of the problem.

"The AI revolution is itself creating new challenges, including rapidly increasing energy consumption and carbon emissions from datacentres," Edwards said in a statement. "Our technology can help mitigate this impact by designing materials that efficiently capture carbon dioxide."