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No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

AI for Atoms: How Periodic Labs is Revolutionizing Materials Engineering with Co-Founder Liam Fedus

Apr 3, 2026 · 29m

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What happens when you apply the scaling laws of large language models to the physical work of atoms? Elad Gil sits down with Liam Fedus, co-founder at Periodic Labs, which is pioneering an AI foundation lab for atoms. Liam discusses how he pivoted from dark matter physics research to the front lines of artificial intelligence, including stints at Google Brain and working on ChatGPT at OpenAI. He talks about how Periodic is connecting massive language models to the physical world to overcome data bottlenecks in material science. Liam also shares how they use language models as an orchestration layer operating alongside specialized neural nets to run closed-loop physical experiments. They…