Perovskite silicon tandem solar cell technology is a mouthful, but it’s basically perovskite crystals layered on top of silicon cells. The combination captures energy from the sun more efficiently than traditional silicon cells, creating powerful solar panels. That sounds simple enough, but designing an efficient perovskite silicon tandem solar cell isn’t easy because of its multi-layer architecture. A Singapore-based company called Cosmos Innovation is making the process more efficient by using AI to optimize the design of perovskite silicon tandem solar cells and is using its tech to build a self-learning fab.
Cosmos exited stealth today with $19.7 million in total funding, including a seed round of $2.88 million raised in 2020 and a Series A of $16.8 million from earlier this year. Its Series A was led by Xora Innovation, the early-stage deep tech investment platform of Temasek. Participants included Innovation Endeavors, the venture firm co-founded by Eric Schmidt; Two Sigma Ventures; DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis; MIT professor Tomaso Poggio; natural language processing researcher, You.com CEO and AIX Ventures managing partner Richard Socher; and Western Technology Investments.
Cosmos relies on Mobius, its AI recipe optimization platform, to accelerate the development of its solar cells. Created by Cosmos, Mobius has been used in sectors including solar, silicon carbide, advanced data center chips and advanced packaging. It is key to Cosmos’ ambition to create the world’s first self-learning fab in the solar and semiconductor space. Instead of manual, trial-and-error based processes, Mobius uses AI to speed the experimental design, test and iteration loop of semiconductors.
The startup was founded in 2020 by CEO Vijay Chandrasekhar and CTO Joel Li. Before Cosmos, Chandrasekhar led an AI effort at the Institute for Infocomm Research, part of the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), where he oversaw 150 people and managed a portfolio of AI projects with a focus on semiconductors. Li was former group head at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore and served as an AI team lead at A*STAR, leading the development of AI solutions for manufacturers and R&D institutes. The two met while at A*STAR...
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