Matt's Minutes (Vol. 1): Room Temp Superconductor 🌡️ Casts Shadow Over AI 🤖
Is a new Nikola Tesla in the making?
Hey everyone - If you've been following the hype cycles in tech, you know that there eventually will come a time for a new groundbreaking technology poised to shove AI off its pedestal. Well, that time could be now with the latest whispers on Reddit and X about a potential game-changer from South Korea - a room-temperature superconductor coined LK-99.
So… wtf does that mean?
For most people not familiar with superconductors, a superconductor is essentially any material that can conduct electricity with zero resistance when cooled below a certain temperature. In turn, this effect also gives the superconductor magnetic properties. Let’s break this down even further:
Electrical Resistance: As you can imagine, every object has some sort of electrical resistance. For example, materials like rubber tend to have very high resistance and low conductance, while materials such as metals tend to have low resistance and high conductance (which is why it is probably a bad idea to hold a metal rod during a thunderstorm). What’s unique about superconductors is that these materials have zero resistance.
Electromagnetic Properties: So why do superconductors have magnetic properties? Simply put, superconductors have interesting magnetic properties because of how their electrons behave. In a normal conductor, electrons bump into atoms as they flow, losing some energy as heat (resistance). But in a superconductor, electrons join into pairs called Cooper pairs. It's like the electrons hold hands. These paired electrons can move smoothly through the material with no resistance. As the Cooper pairs move along, they create a quantum effect that makes magnetic fields within the superconductor.
Critical Temperature: For electrons to pair up in a superconductor, the material needs to be cold enough to minimize vibrations and resistance. At higher temperatures, the atoms jiggle and vibrate a lot, shaking up the electrons, and scattering them before they can pair up. But when cooled down to its critical temperature, the material stops vibrating so much. This allows the electrons to come together in pairs smoothly.
The lower temperature also reduces resistance, allowing the paired electrons to glide effortlessly through the material without colliding and breaking apart. So the critical temperature is the point where the material is cold enough for electrons to link up and flow freely without resistance. The vast majority of superconductors have critical temperatures below -150°C (-238°F), which is 123 K (Kelvin).
Now that you’re an expert on superconductors, what makes LK-99 special? We know that with our current technology, superconductors are supposed to only work at crazy low temps. Well, this new material could flip that assumption on its head.
The researchers from Korea University claim LK-99 can operate at room temperature without losing its defining property of zero electrical resistance.
Why should we care?
Let me put it this way - if LK-99 can be replicated, this could be the most important scientific breakthrough of our lifetime and open the floodgates for technologies previously written off as impractical.
For example, imagine a world in which your iPhone could last weeks without charging. Electric cars with the potential to drive cross-country and charge in seconds (maybe even hover). Or, even living amongst the clouds in floating cities around the world (like Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back).
However, the alleged properties of LK-99 remain unverified as of yet. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but little appears to be publicly known about the material’s capabilities or origins. But if legitimate, LK-99 may herald a new era of superconducting technologies and dawn a new age of electricity.
Startups that caught my eye:
RunPod, a New Jersey-based startup, providing scalable infrastructure for GPU rentals via the cloud. Raised a $2M seed round from an unknown investor.
Why this is interesting: One thing some of you may already know is that Venture Capitalists love their pick-and-shovel plays. Let’s face it, we all know the people who profited the most from the Gold Rush were those who sold picks and shovels. Well, Runpod is an opportunity to become a pick-and-shovel investor during the current A.I. gold rush. With the rush of tech talent looking to create the next A.I. unicorn, GPUs have become a commodity within the tech world. We’ve seen A.I. companies like Mistral AI raise absurd amounts of capital ($113M seed round) mostly going to purchasing GPUs like A100s to run their LLMs. Currently, RunPod provides multiple selections of GPUs including A100s to RTX 390s starting at $0.44 / hr. This service drastically changes the way startups (and enterprises) have to think about scaling their A.I. infrastructure to run LMMs providing cheaper upfront alternatives. RunPod also provides secure and community cloud GPU services depending on the customer’s needs and budget constraints.
Botprise, a California-based startup, providing a no-code cloud ops hyper-automation platform for mid-size enterprises. Currently bootstrapped with $2M ARR in 14 months.
Why this is interesting: As of 2022 Check Point’s Cloud Security Report found that almost every quarter 23% of security breaches in public cloud infrastructure were due to human security misconfigurations. With the cloud constantly expanding and the industry growing, Gartner predicts that 99% of cloud environment failures will be attributed to human errors. Botprise aims to address this issue through its no-code platform that automates cloud security configuration and prevents common missteps. The company's remediation focus saves customers significant time while also filling a key gap in today's cloud ops solutions. As the only company taking a proactive and automated approach to correcting hazardous configuration errors, Botprise occupies a unique and much-needed niche.
Quote of the week:
“You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong here with us among the clouds.”😉
Lando Calrissian
Today marks the first week of my weekly newsletter! Let me know if you guys enjoyed it, I’m excited to see where this journey takes us!!
Shoutout to David Moon @ Cultivation Capital for opening me up to the world of VC.
Also, Shoutout to Maddie, Samar, and Evan for help with editing and gif creations!