Bizmuth MBE Secures Innovate UK Grant to Build the First AI-Native Operating System for Semiconductor Labs

The semiconductor lab hasn’t evolved in decades. Behind every new chip lies the same struggle: million-pound machines that can’t communicate, operators relying on instinct, and data that vanishes into black boxes. Innovation moves at the speed of trial and error; slow, wasteful, and expensive.

Bizmuth MBE Ltd, a UK deeptech company founded by former MBE scientists and AI engineers, is breaking that cycle. Backed by a new Innovate UK grant, the team is building UnicornOne –  the world’s first AI-native Lab Operating System designed not just to automate tools, but to think with them.

Unlike conventional control software built by coders who have never set foot near a growth chamber, Bizmuth’s founders have operated the machines themselves. That hard-won knowledge – every calibration, workaround, and subtle rhythm of the lab – has been distilled into software. It’s not an upgrade. It’s a rewrite of how fabrication works.

The funded project, “AI-Orchestrated Thin Film LabOS: The Semiconductor Fablab Brain,” brings that vision to life by developing an agentic AI mesh capable of orchestrating complex thin-film deposition processes across MBE, CVD, ALD, and PVD systems. These AI agents collaborate in real time, learning from metrology feedback and adapting growth conditions locally,  all without cloud dependency, ensuring data sovereignty, security, and efficiency.

The first milestone targets one of the hardest challenges in materials science: growing Gallium Nitride (GaN) with high reproducibility. The outcome could redefine how advanced materials are discovered, fabricated, and scaled – reducing downtime, doubling yield, and cutting waste, both economic and environmental.

“If one is to learn anything from human evolution, it’s never the strongest body that dominates, but the most adaptive brain,” said M. Isabella Lorente, CEO and Co-founder of Bizmuth MBE Ltd. “Hardware has had its age. Now it’s software’s turn – the brain’s – to unlock the unimaginable. At Bizmuth, we’re building that brain.”

Faebian Bastiman, CTO and Co-founder, added: “This Innovate UK grant fuels our next phase of development and validates the direction we’ve been pushing toward – intelligent, adaptive MBE control. It gives us the momentum to accelerate R&D and bring our technology closer to labs that need it most.”

The project advances UnicornOne from TRL5 to TRL7, validating its orchestration layer in UK labs while supporting the UK Semiconductor Strategy, Net Zero ambitions, and levelling-up agenda, helping labs do more science with fewer resources.

If you want your lab to move faster, think sharper, and waste less, join our UnicornOne BETA. We’re opening it to a small group of pioneering labs ready to shape the future of thin-film research. Join us.

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About Bizmuth MBE Ltd
Bizmuth MBE is a UK-based deeptech company developing AI-powered orchestration and automation tools for advanced materials research. Its flagship platform, UnicornOne, unifies process control, data architecture, and machine learning into a single intelligent Lab Operating System. Bizmuth’s mission is to accelerate scientific discovery through interoperability, FAIR data principles, and sustainable innovation.

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