The Pulse
Sovereign AI Fund Invests in Potential Sciences’ Physics-Based Approach to AI Chemical Design
Potential Sciences is developing an AI approach to chemical design based on the laws of physics. The UK government’s Sovereign AI fund is backing the startup with investment and compute through the AI Research Resource.
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
The government says the approach of Potential Sciences could make the AI calculations needed to design chemicals 100 times cheaper than at present. The British startup secured backing from the UK Government’s Sovereign AI venture fund as part of an eight-figure funding round announced on Thursday, 5 November. The package of support includes investment and compute.
Physics instead of experimental records
AI systems used to design chemicals and discover medicines usually rely on data from real-world laboratory experiments, which the government says are slow and costly. The release says Potential Sciences is taking a new approach: its model focuses on the fundamental laws of physics rather than previous experimental data.
That approach could unlock a wave of new discoveries in fields that are currently uneconomical to focus on, the government’s announcement says. The release says using AI for the design of new chemicals is opening up new possibilities for tackling diseases like cancer and Parkinson’s. AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said solving chemistry’s “data bottleneck” could allow researchers to explore new treatments for diseases that are currently deemed too rare or expensive to focus on.
Hatem Helal, founder and CEO of Potential Sciences, described the company’s premise this way:
AI for drug discovery has learned almost everything the existing experimental record can teach it. The next leap needs new data, and the laws of physics can supply it, as long as your software can use modern hardware.
Hatem Helal, founder and CEO of Potential Sciences
Investment and access to Isambard-AI
Sovereign AI is an investor in the funding round, alongside Twin Path Ventures, Odyssey, Portfolio Ventures, Blue Wire Capital, rule30, Nauta Capital and Lightfield Equity. Angel investors include Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe, and Chris Gibson, co-founder and former CEO of Recursion. AI engineer Andrew Fitzgibbon and entrepreneur James Hawkins will support Potential Sciences as advisers.
Sovereign AI is also making compute available through the AI Research Resource, the UK’s national suite of advanced supercomputers. That resource includes the Isambard-AI supercomputer in Bristol. Helal said the company rebuilt quantum chemistry for GPUs so that “gold-standard accuracy” is affordable at the scale AI needs.
Budget backing and focus areas for the government fund
The fund will invest directly in promising UK AI companies to help them scale in the UK, focusing on companies at the early and growth stage. The fund says typical equity investments will be worth around £1-10 million, though every company’s circumstances will be different.
The news comes a week after the Budget, where the Chancellor confirmed a further £140 million backing for Sovereign AI: an additional £60 million to support the fund’s investments, plus £80 million for its R&D Procurement Scheme. The Chancellor also announced that Sovereign AI would expand into a new focus area of Physical and Industrial AI, building on the UK’s leading research base and growing strengths in areas such as robotics, autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing.