SES AI (SES) Water Tower Research Fireside Chat Series summary

Company history and market focus

• Focused on lithium metal battery electrolyte development since 2012, expanding to lithium-ion for broader applications.

• Target markets include EVs, urban air mobility, drones, robotics, and grid/data centers.

• Recent expansion into lithium-ion batteries, notably with the new 2170 cell, broadening addressable markets.

• Electrolyte innovation enables use across lithium metal and lithium-ion chemistries.

Technology and AI integration

• Uses advanced AI and GPU-accelerated computational chemistry to map and screen small molecules for electrolytes.

• AI models, including large language and graph neural networks, mine scientific literature and accelerate discovery.

• Electrolyte Foundry synthesizes and tests about 1,000 new molecules annually, with empirical feedback improving models.

• Proprietary data set and iterative human-AI collaboration enhance material discovery and commercialization speed.

Manufacturing and scalability

• Maintains existing manufacturing processes, only changing electrolyte composition to ensure scalability.

• Manufacturability and design for manufacturability are central, leveraging existing infrastructure for cost efficiency.

• Approach enables rapid scaling for both consumer and defense markets, including large-scale drone and robotics deployments.