Periodic Labs' Neon: 1,300 H200s and RL'd open-source model beat GPT-6 Astra on materials analysis
vwxyzjn · x · 2026-09-16
Periodic Labs, founded by former OpenAI VP Liam Fedus, built high-throughput materials labs in Menlo Park creating a loop where experiments generate fresh data, models learn from it, and guide the next experiment. Using only 1,300 H200 GPUs plus months of proprietary experimental data, they mid-trained and RL'd an open-source model — dubbed Neon — that surpasses GPT-6 Astra on their analysis benchmark. Focus areas include superconductors, magnets, and semiconductor materials. Blog posts and real lab footage are out.
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