Chelsea Williams discusses how in deep-tech the important breakthroughs don’t just happen over night.
Growing up, Chelsea Williams, the co-founder and CTO of deep-tech thermoelectric materials start-up Mater-AI, always had an interest in maths and science, which quickly led her to study physics in college.
After college, she moved into the quantitative finance space, which involved applying machine learning principles to investment banking, but, having committed a number of years to the role, she realised that she had begun to miss the scientific side of modern-day problem solving.
“Around that time, I started exploring quantum computing,” Williams told SiliconRepublic.com. “This was a technology I believed could transform entire industries, which inspired me to pursue a PhD in quantum physics.”
During this time of professional reinvention, Williams joined venture capital and science fellowships to deepen her knowledge of how deep-tech ventures scale. What she discovered is that opportunity in this area was not limited only to people who had specifically entered via an education in business.
“I discovered that scientists like me could also be entrepreneurs. That realisation eventually led me to co-found Mater-AI, where I combine my background in physics, algorithmic development and AI to tackle complex materials science challenges,” she said.
And a significant challenge, one Williams’ company aims to address, is how thermoelectric materials, that is materials that can convert heat into electricity or electricity in to heating and cooling are discovered, as well as the impact they have on the environment. Often, thermoelectrics can be toxic, inefficient, costly and rely too much on rare earth metals.
Creative alternatives
“At Mater-AI, we’re developing a physics-informed and AI-accelerated materials discovery engine focused on thermoelectric materials. These are maintenance-free materials that can convert waste heat into clean electricity.”
The goal is to drastically shorten the discovery timeline of new materials by combining data, physics and predictive models to identify promising alternatives, much quicker than the traditional, tried and tested methods.
“Although we’re at an early stage, at just over a year old, the potential impact is huge. Around 70pc of the world’s generated energy is lost as waste heat and our technology could help industries, from manufacturing to data centres, recover some of that lost energy and reduce their emissions,” she explained.
She added, because these materials are both modular and scaleable, there is huge potential for novel devices to answer the problems that arise in specific industries. For example, she is of the belief that Mater-AI’s discovery engine could be fine tuned to search for materials best suited to differing conditions such as temperature range or regulatory constraints.
“Over time, our goal is to build a suite of high-performance thermoelectric materials designed for diverse use cases, allowing industries to convert their waste heat into clean energy.”
As we move inch by inch closer to a world in which the common mindset is one that sees a future with clean energy as the standard, Williams stated, “Addressing climate change requires long-term innovation which starts with sustained global investment in deep-tech”.
It is her opinion that by combining artificial intelligence with materials science, much can be discovered about how efficient and commercially viable materials can reuse lost energy. But, these breakthroughs, she explained, can not happen overnight and global teams will have to focus on building capital, utilising time and collaborating across disciplines.
“Real progress will come from a global effort that connects expertise, shares data and gives breakthrough ideas the support they need to achieve real-world impact,” she said.
Her hope is that experts within the clean tech space can learn to fully harness the research, expertise and technology that is already developed in the materials science community, translating it into commercially viable solutions that address the issues of today.
“The potential is there but we just need to align the innovation with specific problems.”
Having always leaned on her feelings of curiosity, persistence and courage, to brave unconventional paths, Williams noted she by no means has all of the answers. But if you can allow yourself to reconsider the limits of what is possible, you have the potential to shatter old conventions and build something entirely new, capable of creating its own legacy.
“I hope my journey demonstrates that it’s possible to combine deep technical work with entrepreneurship and that determination matters more than having all the answers.”
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