Discovered Materials raises $9M to speed chip innovation

Discovered Materials just raised $9 million to build a better chip-finding machine. The Boston-based startup uses AI to spot new materials that can make semiconductors faster, cooler, and more efficient—cutting power waste in data centers and phones. Its tools cut the decade-long hunt for new chip ingredients down to months, giving chip makers a way to dodge today’s overheating crisis.

The chip industry is stuck. Moore’s Law is slowing. Silicon is hitting limits. Extra speed now comes from cramming chips tighter, which makes them run hotter and burn more energy. Data centers already gobbled up 1% of global electricity in 2022, and that share is climbing. Discovered Materials targets the thermal bottleneck: better materials can pull heat away faster, so chips can run faster without melting. Its founders spun out of MIT’s materials lab, where they spent years training AI models on decades of lab notebooks and published papers to predict which compounds might work as transistors or heat spreaders.

The new cash comes from Playground Global, a hardware-focused VC that’s betting on the next wave of chip innovation. Discovered Materials will use the money to expand its lab, hire more chemists, and refine its algorithms. It’s already working with undisclosed chipmakers, but the company won’t name them. Early tests show its AI-picked materials can cut peak chip temperatures by up to 15°C in some cases, which can translate to double-digit power savings. That matters for everything from cloud servers to electric cars, where heat is a roadblock.

What’s next: Discovered Materials plans to license its materials to foundries and fabless chip designers within two years. If it succeeds, it could speed up the post-silicon era and give the chip industry a fresh playbook for staying cool while growing faster.