Xinterra's Former CTO Says AI's Real Frontier Is Atoms, Not Chatbots

Singapore's AI conversation is dominated by chatbots, model releases and funding rounds — but the entrepreneur behind one of the country's more unusual deep-tech bets thinks the real opportunity is in atoms, not information. Jatin Kumar, former Chief Technology Officer of Xinterra, the Singapore startup behind COzTERRA — a technology that captures carbon dioxide on textiles before converting it into compounds that wash away — has been reflecting on where AI capability should be pointed next.

In a conversation with a+ Singapore published this week, Kumar — now on a career break, mentoring deep-tech founders and helping build the clean food brand The No Junk Pantry — said he is "not done with AI for materials." He argues that general-purpose models have become genuine thinking partners across every domain of life, but warns that the framing of "chatbots" undersells what is happening, and that two risks are mounting: mistaking AI output for human creativity, and letting our own reasoning atrophy because we can always ask a machine.

His bigger concern is what we choose to build with the unprecedented capability AI places in ordinary hands. "The power is real, yet ambition is not always matching it," he said, pointing at deepfakes, disposable content and pointless applications as evidence that much of the capability is being spent on the wrong problems. The obvious answer, he argues, is directing that capability at physical-world challenges — a position that reflects the materials-science focus of his own career.

Kumar also made an argument pitched squarely at Singapore's mindset: that the country's famous habit of investing for the future — saving for rainy days, planning for retirement, thinking generationally about finances — should be applied to the planet. "Sustainability is an investment," he said, framing the returns as being felt by the next generation, and noting that Singapore has previously managed one-generation transformations in education, housing and public health.

Why it matters for Singapore: The piece is a reminder that Singapore's AI ecosystem is not only about models and startups — it includes a growing strand of founders applying AI to material science and sustainability, where the country's clean-energy and green-economy ambitions create a natural testbed. As government funding flows toward sustainability-linked innovation, voices like Kumar's matter: they keep the national AI conversation anchored to problems with physical-world impact rather than novelty for its own sake.