{"id":108805,"title":"83 Sciences: Materials discovery from the ~90% of experimental data that never gets published","tagline":"We train materials discovery models on experimental data to help industry improve manufacturing performance at scale and help academics publish more. ","body":"History’s greatest ages are named after materials (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Silicon Age, etc.). The next great age is ours to make together.\\\n\\\n\u003chttps://youtu.be/ysIdrc7mowM\u003e\n\\\n**TL;DR:** We are a team of Stanford, MIT, and Harvard researchers discovering breakthrough materials by training frontier models on decades of unpublished experimental data. **We've already discovered a novel material and drafted a manuscript for publication.**\n\nIndustrial R\u0026amp;D teams use us to find scalable application-specific materials that frontier models can't predict. Academic labs turn decades of unpublished data into new papers, citations, and commercialization revenue with us.\n\n**What we do**\n\nWe are uncovering novel materials that help industry improve performance at scale and stay top of new regulations. Examples include replacements for PFAS, the \"forever chemicals\" that are being banned worldwide, and finding a binder for silicon anodes that can survive charging and drop into existing battery manufacturing processes (our cofounder Ian’s work at Sila Nanotechnologies).\n\n**Why we're different**\n\nThe materials performance that matters to industry can only be measured in real experiments, but \u003e85% of experimental research is never published. Frontier models train on papers and simulations and miss all the failures sitting in file drawers. We train on that unpublished data through partnerships with labs across the country, and it’s already working: we've already discovered a novel material and drafted a manuscript for publication.\n\n**Who we are**\n\nWe are Eric, Ian, and Yankang, collaborators for years on everything from superconductors to cooling textiles, and we lead a team of world-class researchers and commercialization experts.\n\nEric developed one of the early generative AI approaches for analyzing experimental data (MIT PhD), Ian has brought multiple climate technologies to market, and Yankang led Boston Consulting Group’s AI program, scaling frontier technology to 30,000+ users globally. Advisors: Simon Billinge (UCSB), Mingda Li (MIT), Ashwin Sreenivas (Decagon).\n\n**Our ask**\n\nIf you need better materials to drive performance and cost, especially in batteries, semis, membranes, catalysts or pharma, or know an academic lab sitting on experimental data, we'd love an intro: [hello@83sciences.ai](mailto:hello@83sciences.ai)","slug":"SIv-83-sciences-materials-discovery-from-the-90-of-experimental-data-that-never-gets-published","created_at":"2026-08-03T22:41:26.834Z","updated_at":"2026-09-18T23:41:33.767Z","total_vote_count":16,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SIv-83-sciences-materials-discovery-from-the-90-of-experimental-data-that-never-gets-published","share_image_url":"//bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/yc-og-image-c440a0ad1dacfb86eeeb343717479cc54d256614449b4ef719977a0a451f8bc8.png","company":{"id":33056,"name":"83 Sciences","slug":"83-sciences","url":"https://83sciences.ai","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/08c94ab9737bf76c36b1cbac477c55b5067788ed.png","batch":"Summer 2026","industry":"Industrials","tags":["Hard Tech","Advanced Materials","AI"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/33056"}}