Sep 17, 2024

SES AI Collaborates with NVIDIA, Crusoe, and Supermicro on AI for Science Initiative to Accelerate Material Discovery in Electric Transportation

SES, NVIDIA, and Industry Leaders Collaborate to Accelerate Li-Metal Battery Innovations for Electric Vehicles (Photo: Business Wire)

SES, NVIDIA, and Industry Leaders Collaborate to Accelerate Li-Metal Battery Innovations for Electric Vehicles (Photo: Business Wire)

WOBURN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SES AI Corporation (“SES AI”) (NYSE: SES), a global leader in the development and manufacturing of high-performance Li-Metal batteries, today announced a groundbreaking initiative to accelerate material discovery in electric transportation. By mapping the universe of small molecules using a cutting-edge supercomputer optimized for artificial intelligence (“AI”), this pioneering project aims to revolutionize the understanding of battery chemistry, enhance energy storage solutions, and advance energy efficient technology. The initiative will leverage Crusoe’s innovative and purpose-built AI cloud platform, powered by NVIDIA and Supermicro, showcasing a unique collaboration at the intersection of science, computing, and sustainable computing.

The Untapped Potential in Battery Chemistry

Optimizing electrolytes--composed of small molecules--is critical to unlocking the full potential of lithium-metal batteries. Over the past 30 years, the battery industry has studied roughly 1,000 (103) organic molecules and achieved a coulombic efficiency of over 99.6%. However, there are an estimated 1012 organic molecules under 20 atoms and 1060 organic molecules under 30 atoms, indicating vast untapped potential for discovering new molecules that could revolutionize battery technology and have significant implications for all of science.

Revolutionizing Battery Innovation with AI

SES AI, known for its cutting-edge lithium-metal batteries used in electric vehicles (“EV”) and urban air mobility (“UAM”), has been at the forefront of battery technology since its founding in 2012. SES AI has continually pushed the envelope in battery safety and performance, leveraging AI to accelerate innovation. SES AI’s AI-driven initiatives include:

  • AI for Manufacturing:

    Analysing manufacturing data to ensure quality and safety.

  • AI for Safety:

    Predicting battery incidents to ensure nearly 100% battery safety in the field.

  • AI for Science:

    Mapping the molecular universe to discover next-generation materials.

"AI is changing everything. Our AI for Manufacturing, AI for Safety, and AI for Science models are accelerating the commercialization, time to revenue, and profitability of Li-Metal for EV and UAM," said Qichao Hu, CEO of SES AI.

Harnessing the Power of AI

The AI for Science initiative begins with the use of NVIDIA HGX H100 GPU clusters to generate a comprehensive database, predicting the electronic structures and properties of each molecule. This database will be the foundation for the construction, pre-training, and fine-tuning of physics-informed machine learning (“ML”) models leveraging Crusoe Cloud H100 virtualized instances built with NVIDIA HGX technology." Expanding upon the capabilities of the foundation model, SES AI will next construct, train, and fine-tune an advanced generative model. These efforts are uniquely supported by Crusoe’s sustainable computing infrastructure, helping ensure that the intensive computational tasks are carried out efficiently and with minimal environmental impact.

The final phase will involve the creation of a multimodal large language model (LLM) and AI agent, training a 70-billion-parameter Llama 3 model on approximately 200 billion tokens from various battery-related texts and literature. This is enabled by the NVIDIA accelerated computing platform and Supermicro’s high-performance hardware, significantly broadening the scope and accuracy of SES AI’s predictive capabilities. The most promising candidates from this AI-driven analysis will undergo rigorous laboratory testing in SES AI’s Electrolyte Foundry, where the candidates will be synthesized, evaluated in battery cells, and assessed for real-world performance.

“With access to more NVIDIA GPUs, we expect to map a large enough molecular universe that our AI model training will reach sufficient accuracy. Once we have this map, we believe we can accelerate material discovery for any battery problem. This includes not just Li-Metal for EVs and UAMs, but also Li-ion batteries for consumer electronics, grid storage, automotive, and other applications,” added Hu.

Powering AI for Science with Crusoe

Crusoe® Cloud is a purpose-built AI-cloud platform that offers the latest NVIDIA GPUs, high-performance networking and storage solutions. Crusoe powers its cloud platform by developing, building, and utilizing a differentiated portfolio of clean energy solutions to minimize the environmental impacts of both energy production and computing.

This project will leverage Crusoe’s climate-aligned cloud platform, powered by NVIDIA and Supermicro.

“By collaborating with Crusoe, NVIDIA, and Supermicro, we combine cutting-edge AI with sustainable computing infrastructure to drive breakthroughs in battery innovation. This project embodies our commitment to sustainability and technological advancement,” noted Hu.

Statements from Key Partners

Chase Lochmiller, CEO, Crusoe: “Crusoe is dedicated to aligning the future of computing with the future of the climate. By providing a sustainable and cost-effective AI cloud platform, we are supporting SES AI’s vision to map the molecular universe and create ground-breaking AI models that could accelerate a sustainable future. This collaboration showcases how advanced computing can drive scientific progress while minimizing environmental impact.”

Matt McGrigg, Director of Global Business Development for Cloud Partners, NVIDIA: “Energy efficiency and minimal environmental impact are crucial in advancing computational workflows. As part of its collaboration with Crusoe, SES AI is using NVIDIA’s GPUs and AI technology to harness powerful compute capabilities that will help unlock new potential in battery innovation and energy storage solutions.”

Cenly Chen, Chief Growth Officer, Supermicro: “Supermicro’s high-performance computing solutions are designed to support intensive workloads and innovative projects like SES AI’s initiative in AI for Science. We are excited to contribute to this effort with our advanced and energy-efficient hardware.”

A Vision for the Future

SES AI’s initiative to map the molecular universe represents a significant leap forward in battery technology. By harnessing the power of AI and sustainable computing, the project is set to uncover significant breakthroughs in battery technology, helping drive widespread adoption of clean, sustainable electric transport, and innovation and industrial applications across materials science, technology, and pharmaceuticals.

For more information about SES AI and its initiatives, please visit the SES AI website.

About SES AI:

SES AI Corp. (NYSE: SES) is powering the future of global electric transportation on land and in the air with the world’s most advanced Li-Metal batteries. SES AI is the first battery company in the world to accelerate its pace of innovation by utilizing superintelligent AI across the spectrum of its business, from research and development; materials sourcing; cell design; engineering and manufacturing; to battery health and safety monitoring. Founded in 2012, SES AI is an Li-Metal battery developer and manufacturer headquartered in Boston and with operations in Singapore, Shanghai, and Seoul. Learn more at SES.AI.

SES AI may use its website as a distribution channel of material company information. Financial and other important information regarding SES AI is routinely posted on and accessible through the Company’s website at www.ses.ai. Accordingly, investors should monitor this channel, in addition to following SES AI’s press releases, Securities and Exchange Commission filings and public conference calls and webcasts.

For the full release, visit SES.


Liked what you just read? Share it

Relevant Articles

View all