Kemira, a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions, and CuspAI, an AI materials science company, have unveiled a breakthrough application of generative AI to tackle one of the world’s most persistent water challenges: the so-called “forever chemicals”.

 

The collaboration has used AI to design entirely new materials aimed at removing trace concentrations of PFAS from drinking and process water. The goal: chemistry that is stable, sustainable, and manufacturable at industrial scale.

 

In just six months, the project explored an extraordinary design space of roughly 300 trillion possible material structures. From this, the system generated more than 5,000 novel material designs, each mapped with full property data across three priority PFAS molecules: GenX, PFBS, and PFOS. 

 

That vast pool was then refined down to around 20 priority candidates now moving into further development.

 

The companies say this marks the first commercial partnership to apply generative AI end-to-end to materials design specifically for PFAS remediation. While AI has been used in academic and industrial screening before, they claim no prior effort has used generative design from scratch against real-world industrial constraints at this scale and speed.

 

"Kemira challenged us with finding new solutions to one of the most pressing environmental problems of our time, and in six months our partnership delivered," said Chad Edwards, CEO and Co-Founder of CuspAI. 

 

"The collaboration is now advancing to its next phase, with further projects already being scoped. We built CuspAI to compress discovery timelines on problems that matter, and we are delighted to be creating real impact and value this early in our journey."

 

"This project combined Kemira's deep expertise in water treatment chemistry with CuspAI's capabilities, and the results speak for themselves," said Sampo Lahtinen, Executive Vice President, Research and Innovation at Kemira. 

 

"Our teams worked closely together to ensure that every material candidate was evaluated against real industrial requirements. That rigor is what gives us confidence in taking these candidates forward."

 

"This partnership has shown us what AI-driven materials design looks like when it meets real industrial requirements," said Antti Salminen, President and CEO of Kemira. 

 

"We set a demanding brief: design new materials that can remove forever chemicals from water at trace concentrations, using chemistry that is stable, sustainable, and manufacturable, and speeding up the discovery phase of our discovery process. We now have a credible path toward a next-generation PFAS remediation product, and we look forward to further collaboration with CuspAI team."