As AI chips become more powerful, managing the heat they generate has emerged as a key challenge for the semiconductor industry. Finding materials that can withstand high temperatures and improve the performance of smaller electronic components is crucial, but the discovery process can be slow.
IIT Madras alumnus Akash Ramdas is looking to speed up that process through his AI startup, Discovered Materials, which uses AI agents and computational models to identify promising materials. Ramdas co-founded the company with Advaith Sridhar, whom he met at IIT Madras more than a decade ago. While Ramdas specialised in materials science, Sridhar focused on artificial intelligence.
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Discovered Materials has raised $9 million in seed funding in a round led by Lightspeed India Partners. The round also saw participation from Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners and angel investors Paul Graham, Gokul Rajaram and Thariq Shihipar.
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How AI Can Help Solve The Chip Heat Problem
Modern computer chips, particularly those designed for artificial intelligence workloads, generate significant amounts of heat. As computing requirements increase, managing this heat becomes more challenging. Data centres also consume substantial amounts of electricity to power servers and cooling systems.
Discovered Materials aims to address this challenge by using AI agents to identify and evaluate potential materials. These systems can help researchers narrow down candidates by analysing their properties through computer simulations and scientific models.
According to the company, its AI agents can explore thousands of potential materials in a single day. This marks a significant increase from the roughly 20 candidates Ramdas examined daily during his doctoral research.
The startup has also introduced Material Discovery Bench, a benchmark designed to evaluate how effectively AI systems tackle real-world materials discovery problems related to semiconductor chips. The initiative aims to assess the capabilities of AI in accelerating scientific research.
From IIT Madras To Stanford University
Ramdas completed his BTech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at IIT Madras in 2019. He then moved to Stanford University, where he pursued a master's degree in Materials Science and Engineering followed by his PhD in Materials Engineering in June 2025.
His doctoral research focused on computational approaches to discovering materials for nanoscale electronic devices. After completing his PhD, he continued at Stanford as a postdoctoral researcher before co-founding Discovered Materials.
His professional experience also includes a product supply internship at Procter & Gamble and a brief stint as a programme manager in healthcare at The ePlane Company.
His co-founder, Advaith Sridhar, studied at IIT Madras and Carnegie Mellon University, where he developed expertise in artificial intelligence. He also worked on AI systems at Persona AI and Luma Labs.
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