Overview

TAP's network is now expanding into hardware, advanced materials, and quantum systems — connecting domain experts across semiconductors, materials science, and quantum engineering through the same distributed collaboration infrastructure that underpins our other verticals. Key stakeholders are being brought in selectively as this area develops.

TAP's HPC infrastructure creates a meaningful opportunity in materials discovery. Computational simulation at scale can surface candidate materials — for semiconductors, quantum devices, and energy applications — that would take years to find through conventional experimental approaches alone. LLMs are also beginning to reshape how hardware software is written: generating and optimizing code at a level that directly addresses the complexity of modern chip design and the coordination challenges of large-scale distributed compute environments.

As the network deepens here, TAP's compounding knowledge platform will grow with it — capturing what is learned across materials families, device architectures, and simulation approaches, and making that knowledge available to the next program. The most valuable insights in this domain come from pairing computational scale with expert physical intuition, and that is the model we are bringing in.

Where We Focus
HPC-driven materials and semiconductor discovery
LLMs for hardware software generation
Managing large-scale chip complexity
Quantum computing and error correction
Human-scientist teaming for novel insights
Compounding knowledge across materials and devices

Capabilities

Novel Materials Discovery

TAP's HPC infrastructure enables computational simulation of materials at a scale and speed that conventional lab-based approaches cannot match. Candidate materials for semiconductors, quantum devices, and energy applications can be identified, screened, and prioritized computationally — with expert scientists directing the search and interpreting results at each stage.

Software for Hardware

LLMs are beginning to materially change how hardware software is written — generating, optimizing, and stress-testing code at a level that addresses the complexity constraints of modern chip design and the coordination challenges that arise when managing large numbers of chips in distributed compute environments. TAP is investing in this intersection.

Quantum Computing

Quantum systems represent one of the most consequential long-range bets in deep tech — with near-term relevance in simulation, optimization, and cryptography. TAP's network includes quantum engineering expertise, and we are actively building the relationships needed to participate meaningfully as the hardware and error correction landscape matures.

Human-Scientist Teaming

The most important advances in hardware and materials come from the combination of computational scale and expert physical intuition. TAP's model pairs AI-driven simulation and search with domain scientists who can interpret anomalous results, redirect experiments, and form the kind of non-obvious hypotheses that computational systems alone cannot generate.

Hardware & Quantum Team

Steven Spear, PhD/MEM

LinkedIn

Management Systems • High Performance Organization • Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan

John Santerre, PhD

LinkedIn

Machine Learning, Deep Learning • AI Researcher/Instructor, Berkeley, NASA • Founder, Silicon Valley Bank AI Lab

Henk de Jong

LinkedIn

Corporate and Technology Strategy • Entrepreneur, Co-Founder ValueAI Institute • Investor, Venture Partner

Chris Mendez, MBA

LinkedIn

Electrical Engineer • Sr TPM, WhatsApp (Meta) & Amazon Alexa AI • Founder, RoutineHub (50K → 1.4M users) • Thinks across physical systems, software, and scale • USC MBA

Robert Kalescky, PhD

LinkedIn

Principal Scientist, O'Donnell Data Science & Research Computing Institute, SMU • HPC Applications Scientist, SMU • Adjunct Professor of Data Science, SMU • Computational Chemistry & Molecular Dynamics

Amit Bhattacharyya, PhD

LinkedIn

Quantum Computing • Senior Engineer, IonQ • Machine Learning & Physics • Financial Industry Quant

Mark Anthony Gibbons, MBA/MS

LinkedIn

Founder, Ember Agentic Labs • Component Design Engineer, Intel • Analytics & Data Science Engineering, Google Cloud • Berkeley MIDS

← Back to TAP