Flexcompute raised a strategic investment from Samsung Ventures and Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, to accelerate development of its Physics World Model. Other investors also participated in the financing.
Flexcompute is developing AI systems designed to predict how physical products and systems will behave by combining neural networks with first-principles physics.
The company said the approach is intended to move beyond AI models trained primarily on historical text, images, and simulation data.
Flexcompute’s research team includes more than 70 Ph.D.s and has developed GPU-native solvers spanning computational fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, structural mechanics, and thermal analysis.
Its Physics World Model uses an approach the company calls Tokenized Physics, which integrates neural networks with physical laws and conservation principles.
The goal is to allow the model to make accurate predictions even when evaluating designs it has not previously encountered.
Flexcompute said the technology can address problems ranging from semiconductor package warpage caused by heat to the behavior of spacecraft during atmospheric reentry.
The company cited one advanced semiconductor packaging example involving more than 800,000 solder joints, an ASIC, and 32 optical engines.
Flexcompute said it solved a 5-billion degree-of-freedom warpage model within 2% of commercial finite-element results in minutes.
Customers can access the Physics World Model through what Flexcompute calls Physics Twins.
These models represent customers’ products and allow engineers and AI agents to test, evaluate, and optimize designs before physical manufacturing begins.
Under the approach, engineers establish objectives and approve results, while AI agents perform iterations and the underlying physics determines whether proposed designs are viable.
Flexcompute said engineering teams at more than 250 companies across aerospace, automotive, semiconductors, photonics, and advanced manufacturing currently use its technology.
The company plans to use the new investment to expand its research team, increase GPU compute capacity, and extend its Physics World Model across fluids, electromagnetics, structures, thermal systems, and multiphysics interactions.
Flexcompute was founded by researchers from Stanford and MIT.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI is changing how products are designed, but those products still have to obey the laws of physics. Flexcompute is building AI that understands those laws, not just the data. We believe the Physics World Model will shape how the next generation of hardware is developed.”
Representative of Samsung Ventures
“Every industry is racing to put AI to work on real engineering problems, and the limit is how quickly each one can be validated against the laws of physics. Flexcompute has built something unique: simulation fast enough to keep pace with AI and rigorous enough for production decisions. In advanced manufacturing, that means more of the design cycle happens digitally, saving time and cost.”
Yu Cao, Chief AI Officer of Applied Materials
“Language models learned the world from text. Hardware is governed by laws, not text, and no amount of data substitutes for them. We are building the verification layer between bits and atoms: a Physics World Model any engineer or AI agent can ask whether a design will work, before it is built. Samsung and Applied see what we see: the next leap in AI comes from understanding the physical world.”
Vera Yang, Co-Founder and President of Flexcompute
