Periodic Labs
Periodic Labs is a company applying artificial intelligence to scientific research, co-founded by Liam FedusLiam FedusLiam Fedus (William Fedus) is an artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur who served as OpenAI’s vice president of research in charge of post-training, and in 2025 co-founded Periodic Labs with Ekin Dogus Cubuk to accelerate scientific discovery with AI.Open the full entry and Ekin Dogus CubukEkin Dogus CubukPeriodic Labs cofounder and co-CEO, working at the intersection of machine learning and physics.Open the full entry; it aims to build an “AI scientist” and autonomous labs, with a first goal of finding more practical superconductors that work at higher temperatures.
Contents6 sections
Key facts
March 2025Liam Fedus Leaves OpenAI to Start a New Company
According to Maginative, Liam Fedus, then OpenAI’s vice president of research for post-training, announced he was leaving to start a company applying AI to materials science; OpenAI confirmed it would invest in and collaborate with the new company.[1]
September 30, 2025Public Launch and $300 Million Seed Round
Periodic Labs, co-founded by Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, came out of stealth. According to Wilson SonsiniWilson Sonsini Goodrich & RosatiWilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (known as Wilson Sonsini) is a law firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California, founded in 1961 and known for serving technology, life sciences, and other growth companies and their investors; it served as counsel on the initial public offerings of companies including Apple, Netscape, Google, and Tesla. As of December 2025 the firm had more than 1,000 lawyers, and its 2025 revenue was $1.4 billion.Open the full entry, which advised on the deal, the company announced a $300 million seed round led by Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, with participation from Felicis, DST GlobalDST GlobalDST Global is a technology investment firm founded by Yuri Milner in 2009 that focuses on growth-stage investments in internet companies worldwide; it has invested in companies including Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba, JD.com, Airbnb and Spotify, and in 2026 led the US$400 million Series B round of the AI visual content company Higgsfield.Open the full entry, NVIDIA and Accel, and from individual investors including Elad Gil, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean and Jeff Bezos.[2][3]
The same announcement says Cubuk led the materials and chemistry team at Google Brain and DeepMindGoogle DeepMindGoogle DeepMind is Google’s artificial intelligence research organization, formed in April 2023 by merging DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, with the Brain team from Google Research, and led by CEO Demis Hassabis. It developed AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and the Gemini family of models, and Hassabis and John Jumper received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold’s protein structure prediction work.Open the full entry, and that Fedus is a former vice president of research at OpenAI and one of the co-creators of ChatGPT.[3]
In its launch post, the company said its goal is to create an “AI scientist,” that its first target is discovering superconductors that are more practical and work at higher temperatures, and that autonomous labs, which generate large volumes of high-quality data, are central to its strategy.[4]
September 15, 2026Release of the Periodic Neon Model
The company introduced Periodic Neon, a 1-trillion-parameter model post-trained to analyze experimental results; the company said it had built high-throughput labs in Menlo Park that run around the clock.[5]
As of October 2026: Team and Backers
The company’s website describes it as an AI research and deployment company building models and autonomous labs to accelerate science, lists 23 founding team members, and says team members co-created ChatGPT, DeepMind’s GNoME and OpenAI’s Operator, among other work.[6]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Periodic Labs: Official website: https://periodic.com/ (opens in a new window)[6]
X: Official account: https://x.com/periodiclabs (opens in a new window)[6]
Sources
- OpenAI’s Post-Training Head Liam Fedus Departs to Launch AI-Powered Materials Science Startup (opens in a new window)
- Periodic Labs launches with $300M to build an “AI scientist” (opens in a new window)
- Wilson Sonsini Advises Periodic Labs on $300 Million Seed Round (opens in a new window)
- Introducing Periodic Labs – Periodic Labs (opens in a new window)
- Building Labs that Learn (opens in a new window)
- Periodic Labs (opens in a new window)