News & Podcast

Hanh Nguyen wants to rethink materials research: Together with Tiago Cerqueira and Milan Allan, the PhD-holding molecular biologist and biochemist founded the deeptech company Alqem in 2026. Using artificial intelligence, the company develops new high-performance materials – initially permanent magnets without rare earths – to reduce critical raw material dependencies. In our conversation, Nguyen discusses her path from the energy and chemical industries into entrepreneurship, the opportunities AI offers for scientific breakthroughs, and why hiring the right employees is more important than many strategic decisions.

Electric cars, wind turbines, and robots rely on powerful permanent magnets – mostly using rare earths so far. Munich deeptech Alqem wants to overcome this dependency: using an AI platform, the team is researching new high-performance materials without critical raw materials. Co-founder and CEO Hanh Nguyen explains why the crucial step isn’t prediction, but the production of new materials.

With a pre-seed round of eight million euros, Alqem aims to significantly accelerate the development of new high-performance materials using AI.