00:00:00 · Sebastian Johnson, Alex Higginbottom
[00:00:00] S0: Hello, and welcome back to Scaling Europe show. I'm Sebastian Johnson. Today on the show, we've got an amazing founder that's just announced a $10,000,000 round to solve some of the hardest problems in physics. Alex, thank you for joining me. How are you doing today? [00:00:10] S1: Amazing. Yeah. Thanks. So happy to be here. [00:00:12] S0: Great news. A lot of, like, a lot of excitement. You're building Zenithon. For those who don't know us, like, tell me, what is it? [00:00:20] S1: So Zenithon is a frontier AI lab building world models for physics. So, you know, we've seen how impactful LLMs have been for knowledge work. Now world models for vision are beginning to have an impact on, certain sectors as well. But, really, we haven't seen this for physics. And so this is exactly what we're building to try and unlock some of the most important technologies of the twenty first century. [00:00:45] S0: And what what... And what made you do this? Right? You you abandoned your PhD Yeah. To, I guess, build this company. Tell me a bit a bit about that.
00:00:45 · Sebastian Johnson, Alex Higginbottom
[00:00:45] S0: And what what... And what made you do this? Right? You you abandoned your PhD Yeah. To, I guess, build this company. Tell me a bit a bit about that. [00:00:53] S1: Yeah. So, I mean, my background is in physics. I've always been, you know, really drawn to how can we make a positive impact, but also, obviously, just sci fi like like any physicist, I guess. And fusion energy is exactly that. It's both incredible potential, but also incredibly cool technology. And I worked for three years in trying to commercialize this, working with about 20 different fusion companies on, you know, how can we both accelerate the development of this, but do it in a way that is relevant and will have an impact on the economy. And I realized that, you know, the core iteration loop, you know, this build, measure, learn iteration loop, which is essential for any startup, which is so slow and so painful. And so that drove me to do a PhD in AI for plasma physics to see if I could speed it up. But, you know, I got halfway through, and I was just very frustrated about, you you know, was just kinda working away in my in my basement at... In Cambridge and not really having an impact in the world. And so I was able to raise our pre seed, dropped out, and and hired my favorite researchers and and was very fortunate to to have Abby, my cofounder, join as well.
00:00:53 · Alex Higginbottom, Sebastian Johnson
[00:00:53] S1: Yeah. So, I mean, my background is in physics. I've always been, you know, really drawn to how can we make a positive impact, but also, obviously, just sci fi like like any physicist, I guess. And fusion energy is exactly that. It's both incredible potential, but also incredibly cool technology. And I worked for three years in trying to commercialize this, working with about 20 different fusion companies on, you know, how can we both accelerate the development of this, but do it in a way that is relevant and will have an impact on the economy. And I realized that, you know, the core iteration loop, you know, this build, measure, learn iteration loop, which is essential for any startup, which is so slow and so painful. And so that drove me to do a PhD in AI for plasma physics to see if I could speed it up. But, you know, I got halfway through, and I was just very frustrated about, you you know, was just kinda working away in my in my basement at... In Cambridge and not really having an impact in the world. And so I was able to raise our pre seed, dropped out, and and hired my favorite researchers and and was very fortunate to to have Abby, my cofounder, join as well. [00:02:08] S0: And was there a moment in time where... Was it like an epiphany moment where you're like, this is not it. I need to be, like, sort of more in an arena building, or was it a sort of like a slow gradual build up that maybe you you you kind of crept up on you that actually you could probably have more value by building a company?
00:02:08 · Sebastian Johnson, Alex Higginbottom
[00:02:08] S0: And was there a moment in time where... Was it like an epiphany moment where you're like, this is not it. I need to be, like, sort of more in an arena building, or was it a sort of like a slow gradual build up that maybe you you you kind of crept up on you that actually you could probably have more value by building a company? [00:02:25] S1: Yeah. It's a really good question. I think it was, like, it was... There was definitely several epiphanies, I think. You know, partly actually working in the fusion industry, you know, we've seen everyone hears fusion. They think it's thirty years away. But in the last, like, five, ten years, we've had about 80 fusion companies start, And they've made more progress, I would argue, in just a few years than, you know, governments and and academia did in in decades. And so that was extremely inspirational. And and now, you know, with seeing, the progress unlocked by AI at DeepMind, you know, in AlphaFold and, you know, OpenAI and and and others. You know, I was just so excited about how can we take this kind of startup velocity, this kind of incredible technology that is AI, and solve some of the most important problems. And... [00:03:18] S0: As if you... Yeah. I was gonna say, fusion, it sounds like that's kinda like your... Where you've come from. Are there are there approaches to fusion or are there companies kind of out of those 80 that you think are... That you've got your money on or that you're particularly excited by?
00:03:18 · Sebastian Johnson, Alex Higginbottom
[00:03:18] S0: As if you... Yeah. I was gonna say, fusion, it sounds like that's kinda like your... Where you've come from. Are there are there approaches to fusion or are there companies kind of out of those 80 that you think are... That you've got your money on or that you're particularly excited by? [00:03:32] S1: That's a good question. Yeah. I think there are some that have very exciting approaches, and they have the money to do it. So, you know, we we can't work with everyone right now. We don't have the bandwidth. So we are being quite selective in in who we're working with and trying to work with the ones that we, you know, really believe in in the long term. [00:03:54] S0: I think... Can you... Maybe if you can't share those names, can you talk about, you know, within fusion, there are different schools of thought. And even within those schools of thoughts and approaches, there are even more sort of different... Are there approaches where your technology makes more sense? Is it with tokamax or whatever? Like, know, other particular simulations or or approaches where your technology is being used, you know, at the moment?
00:03:54 · Sebastian Johnson, Alex Higginbottom
[00:03:54] S0: I think... Can you... Maybe if you can't share those names, can you talk about, you know, within fusion, there are different schools of thought. And even within those schools of thoughts and approaches, there are even more sort of different... Are there approaches where your technology makes more sense? Is it with tokamax or whatever? Like, know, other particular simulations or or approaches where your technology is being used, you know, at the moment? [00:04:16] S1: So, yeah, this is something that we've been really... From day one, in fact, much broader than fusion. But within fusion, we've wanted to be as comprehensive as possible in covering... Being a true foundation model for plasma. So that means being useful for, tokamax, but also laser fusion, every kind of confinement type. That's And really important because as I said earlier, we don't know who the winner's gonna be, really. So we need to be able to work with with all of them. And this is... You know, we'll be launching our first world model next week, and this is the first time that any... Like, this is really quite a quantum leap, I would say, in in the field of AI for... In general, but also in in fusion. It's the first time that we've had different confinement types in one model. And, you know, we're going much much broader than that still. We're building world models for extreme physics overall. So this obviously has massive applications in semiconductor manufacturing and aerospace and beyond, which we are just as excited about as we are fusion.