The Molecular Universe with SES AI
5/18/202644 min
What if you could know which batteries are worth building before you actually build them? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Dr. Qichao Hu, founder of SES AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping battery discovery and his experience in the field. From his decision to ditch solid state electrolytes and double down on liquid, to building a suite of simulation tools that map molecules all the way up to full cell performance. Dr. Hu lays out how SES went from lithium metal battery startup to offering their hard-won design tools as a platform for the rest of...
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First 90 secondsRichard Feynman· Soundbite0:02
I would like to describe a field in which little has been done, but in which an enormous amount can be done. This field is not quite the same as the others in that it will tell us little of fundamental physics, but it will tell us much about the strange phenomena that occur just below our perception. In contrast to the natural philosophers of the past, the scientists of this field delve into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding places. Their quest is to understand and create the imperceptible. After all, there is plenty of room at the bottom.
Taylor Sparks· Host0:32
Hello and welcome to the Materialism Podcast, an exploration of the past, present, and future of material science. My name is Taylor Sparks, a professor of material science and engineering at the University of Utah, and I'm joined, as always, by Andrew Falkowski, my co-host. And today we've got a special guest. We have Qichao Hu from SES AI. Qichao, how you doing?
Qichao Hu· Guest0:51
Good. How are you all?
Taylor Sparks· Host0:54
So SES AI is a battery company, and people who have been listening to this podcast, uh, know that we are interested in batteries. We've talked about it before, and we get a lot of requests for an update. They wanna know about the latest and greatest on solid state, on lithium air, on, on metal, right? They wanna know what's the current state of art, and we figured who better to bring in than an expert who's actually working in this area. And I just realized that Qichao and I were actually both PhDs from Harvard at the same time. [laughs] We somehow crossed, like, ships in the night and didn't know that each other were there. I think you were over at the MIT campus, uh, around the time that I arrived, but we both got our degrees basically from the same