Assertion Supported
Krause: AI models cannot qualify new aerospace alloys without physical experiments
“A model can't figure out your way through the qualification pipeline for a new alloy for a jet turbine. You have to do experiments to do that”
Insight
Krause: Materials industry is constrained by experiments, not compute
“We're not compute constraint in the materials industry. We're experiment constraint.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Krause: China will beat the US in R&D without automated self-driving labs
“That's how I think we can compete. That's the only way we can compete. I think if we want to move forward, if we do not do that, then they will continue to win because they will outpace us on cost and they will outpace us on people.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Krause: Most AI models will be open source in five years
“We actually think in five years, most models will be open source.”
Opinion
Krause: AI models are not a moat in science, experiments are
“However, we think in science, models aren't remote, experiments are.”
Insight
Krause: No AI model can one-shot materials for iPhones or Starship
“And this is what's so hard is there is no one model that can one shot a new material that ends up in your iPhone or that ends up on Starship.”
Insight
Krause: Physical synthesis and testing are the only ground truth in materials
“In materials, the ground truth is the material itself. You have to be able to make it, you have to be able to test it and characterize it, and then you have to really, at one point, be able to see if it can go into a real application if you're going to have it…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Krause: Radical AI made 1,200 alloys in six months, with 300 novel
“We probably made 1200 alloys in the last five or six months. 300 of those alloys are new novel, never before seen in literature. And I'd say probably 10 of those alloys had performance that Has got us very excited on where they're going to be in the industry.”
Disclosure
Major instrument vendors previously refused to give Radical AI data access
“A few very big tool vendors were Not too excited about self-driving labs two years ago. They were not jumping to give us, even with payment, access to the software and pulling the data. That tone has now changed.”
Assertion Supported
DeepMind, Microsoft, and Meta are building or using physical science labs
“You see people like Google DeepMind, Microsoft, other places like Meta, either building their own lab or running experiments at someone else's lab to get that data back.”
Insight
Krause: Automated Labs Run Experiments, Self-Driving Labs Run Entire Campaigns
“There's a difference between an automated lab and a self-driving lab, right? An automated lab does experiments for you, automated, without humans, and that high throughput, and that, that can be very effective. A self-driving lab runs research campaigns for yo…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Krause: Radical AI models explore previously unpublished alloy families
“And then we have a second overlay on that chart of where our AI scientist has gone. And it's moved into elemental families or alloy families. No one has ever published on before.”
Opinion
Krause: Lab synthesis is not material discovery until deployed in products
“The second you synthesize it, milestone.
The second you characterize it, milestone.
That is not a new discovery.
We count a new discovery when you pick up your phone and there's a new material sitting inside of it.
That I think is a fair claim on new discovery…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Krause: Large Alloy Manufacturers Are Bearish on AI for Science Hype
“We do talk to a lot of companies in our field who make materials at scale in, in the alloy space who are thinking about this, and they look at it from a different lens. You know, they're not all hype on AI for science, and actually I'd say a lot of them are ki…”
Insight
Krause: Autonomous Labs Require Deep Integration, Not Just Robotic Arms
“It's not about a robot in front of a tool. Go ahead, put a robotic arm in front of a tool and then watch what happens. Everything else I just talked about will come the second you do that. Now we feel so much farther ahead from the industry on really running s…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Krause: Radical AI enables one PhD to run 10 simultaneous alloy campaigns
“We can have one PhD in metallurgy or alloys run 10 campaigns at a time. When I was in a PhD, we had 10 scientists focused on one campaign. One research problem at a time.”
Opinion
Krause: Scientific tool makers should rebuild their stacks for robots
“Their tools are built for humans. They should build them for agents and robots.”
Insight
Krause: ML engineers in science should specialize instead of switching fields
“Bring the specialization and lean into your expertise. Don't shy away from it. Don't try to become a material scientist. Be an MLE that works in material science.”
Insight
Krause: Alloy performance is primarily determined by manufacturing and post-processing
“So much of what dictates the performance of those alloys is actually in processing. How do you manufacture it? What techniques are you using post processing and manufacturing that push performance or change performance?”
Opinion
Krause: The real opportunity in materials AI is closed-loop manufacturing integration
“That is what we think the true opportunity is for AI and autonomy in materials is linking those two together in a fully closed loop system.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Krause: Heavy industries have used the same alloys for 50 years
“And there has been, you know, for the past 50 years, the same alloys used in all these industries. And the reason why is these long discovery timelines we talked about.”
Assertion Supported
Krause: Commercial airplanes still use alloys from the 1950s to 1970s
“The alloys that are in the plane I flew here on, the 19 fifties, 19 sixties, 19 seventies, they might be coated with some CMZs from the late 19 nineties.”
Assertion Supported
Krause: Hafnium prices surged 10x to 15x due to Chinese supply dominance
“Hafnium, 10 to 15 X in price, because China owns a majority of the supply chain, things like refractories, tampium, niobium.”
Disclosure
Krause: Radical AI developed a hafnium-free alternative to C-103 aerospace alloy
“We've worked on that problem specifically, and we have successfully done that.”
